Deuteronomy 18:9-11 “When you enter the land the LORD your
God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations
there. 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.”
The second stream that flows into the
modern celebration of Halloween comes from Central Europe ,
when the Christian church made its attack upon the pagan bastions, destroying
the temples of the various heathen gods and goddesses. But it was never able to
completely eradicate the pagan worship which reappeared in the “Dark Ages” in
the form of witchcraft. One of the important aspects of witchcraft are a number
of celebrations each year, which are called “Witch’s Sabbaths”. One of the
highest witch’s Sabbaths, the “Black Sabbath” of witches, occurred on October
31. This was a night of feasting and revelry, and imagery includes themes of
death, evil, the occult, black cats, bats, mythical monsters and other related
Halloween paraphernalia. The source of much of our Halloween folklore today
stems from the high witch’s Black Sabbath of October 31 celebrated in Central Europe in the Middle Ages.
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator
between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.
The third stream that completes the
modern concept of Halloween comes from the Roman Catholic Church. The church
was engaged had been engaged in appointing certain days to honor and reverence
certain Saints that the church had appointed or declared. There had become so
many of these days that it became impossible to have a specific day for each
Saint, so they decided to have one day in which they would remember all of the
Saints, called “All Saints Day”. In the 700’s A.D., Pope Gregory III changed
the date if “All Saints Day” to November 1, and in the year 834 A.D., Pope
Gregory IV extended this celebration to the entire Roman Catholic Church. There
was a celebration associated with this, on the evening before called
“All-Hallows-Mas” or “All-Hallows-Even” on October 31 and it is from these two
words that we have the contraction “Halloween”.
Here you see the three-fold origin of
the celebration of Halloween. Are you still excited to celebrate it? Well,
unrelated, on October 31, 1517 @ noon in Wittenberg ,
Germany , a
young professor of Theology by the name of Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses
to the University door that sprung into existence the Protestant Reformation
and churches. So October 31 is the birthday of Protestantism and the
Evangelical faith. Saved by grace alone, saved by Christ alone, and saved by
faith alone. Now that’s no trick, but the greatest treat of all.
In Christ, Brian
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