For Real

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 18:10-13

Halloween is upon us, and our culture seems to have evolved from fun and fright to embracing witchcraft and the occult. We are not only faced with these demonic choices on Halloween but in our everyday lives. Take a good look at the dolls available for our little girls, the board games on the shelves at any department store or just try and buy a book for our preteens that does not involve some sort of magic, witchcraft or the supernormal. Don’t even get me started on TV shows and movies! We MUST protect our children!

I recently read an article by Ashley Jones on 5 Biblical Alternatives to Halloween Celebrations. Ashley quotes Ben Alexander, a former spiritualist medium turned Christian regarding Halloween, “It was the night given over to Satan and his demons to work all the evil they wanted in the hope they would leave people unmolested the rest of the year.” It doesn’t work that way, we can’t “turn” the night over to Satan and expect him to leave us alone the rest of the year. As my mother-in-law always says, “if you give the devil an inch, he’ll take a mile”. It is not fun and games anymore, really, it never was. The devil plays for keeps and this business of infiltrating our children with the occult and witchcraft is real. Another quote from Ben was, “Satan likes Halloween celebrations because this is a glorification of evil.” Satan likes it, yes, he does but I can tell you for sure from Deuteronomy 18:10-12 and Galatians 5:19-21 that God detests it. We must not get so caught up in the supposed “fun” of the holiday that we forget to check that the message we are sending our children is loud and clear. As Ashley Jones put it, “Halloween should not be seen as a ‘vacation day’ from Christianity.” We must “define what is acceptable and model what is godly” at all times.

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 1 Timothy 6:11

Pastor Julia Scott