“Safe from the Slutty Pumpkin” – Halloween Reflections - Purity 1186

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a brilliant autumn showing of color and the double image of a white footbridge reflected in waters beneath a pleasant blue sky comes to us from Lisa Warner, who shared this peak experience on social media back on October 1st, after her visit to the— to Cranberry Lake and the Wanakenna Footbridge. Well, it is Tuesday, the last day of the month, and it's a little holiday called Halloween. And I don't know whether or not October 1st was officially the peak of fall foliage or not, but I can tell you that 30 days later, the colors have faded and many of the trees are bare skeletons compared to to their full fall leaves of glory. Well, with the falling of the leaves comes Halloween and the terrifying aspect that winter is coming. But before we shriek in terror over the possibility of white precipitation— yes, I superstitiously will not say the S-word because although I don't quite believe that our words make things happen, I have seen some prophecies, quote unquote, fulfilled in my day and don't wish to unwittingly predict something I would rather not see until December. But as we leave the month of October behind today, the elephant or huge human skeleton— what is the deal with that, people?— in the middle of the room, uh, today is Halloween and the controversy of whether or not Christians should shun it or turn this macabre, macabre fall festival into a celebration of Jesus over the powers of darkness in some sort of opposite day where what is evil is a reminder of what is good. While I will pass the buck over to Breakpoint Ministries' John Stonestreet to give y'all a commentary of whether, whether we should, should or shouldn't celebrate Halloween with two of his articles, "Taboo or Not Taboo" and "Honoring the Witness of All Saints' Day," where Stonestreet shares Chuck Colson's thoughts about the meaning of All Hallows' Eve in anticipation of All Saints' Day. Um, the links are on the blog, by the way, for you to check out and ponder, and to remind us all that the, that the dead that Christians are to celebrate this time of year are not gigantic human skeletons erected for spooky mischief, but are the departed faithful servants and martyrs from the bodies of Christ. Personally, I have mixed feelings about Halloween. As a child and a member of cultural Christianity, where we were mostly nominals of a liturgical church tradition and practical atheists with a paradoxical mix of cheap grace and a works performance theology, um, saying we believe but not really knowing or obeying God's word seriously and still hoping for heaven, I was raised as an enthusiastic trick-or-treater and considered Halloween to be a time to collect free candy, play pranks, aka perform criminal acts of theft and/or vandalism, and watch scary movies, and consider those who discouraged us from celebrating Halloween to be religious extremists who are just as scary, if not scarier, than any ghost, ghoul, or goblin that would— that you would run into on a spooky October evening. I also had a strange fascination and attraction to the thrills and chills of the horror genre, sparked from my first, too early exposure to John Carpenter's Halloween. I barely saw the first opening scenes of that movie as a kid, but that first-person murder scene and Carpenter's haunting soundtrack were enough to scare me good and cause me to seek that thrill and build capacity to not be scared for most of my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. I have a confession to make. I still watch horror movies. Not the slasher type stuff, that's gross and pointless, evil-that-men-do stuff. No, I prefer tales where there are supernatural aspects, where Satan's dark spiritual forces are faced and defeated, something that doesn't happen too often these days, as the horror genre seems to prefer unhappy endings where evil wins or promises to come back in the next sequel. But the truth is that evil does not win. Jesus defeated the forces of darkness through his death and resurrection, and all the ghosts, demons, and followers of Satan are on borrowed time and will face God's wrath on Judgment Day when Christ comes back to rule and reign. And this is the truth that sort of puts a damper on me celebrating Halloween like I, like I used to. I know that the dark macabre things that surround Halloween are antichrist. They don't represent God's kingdom and can be used by the spiritual forces of darkness to lead people away from the truth about reality and lead them into sin. Beliefs like "there are no such things as ghosts" quickly turn into "there is no such thing as the devil or God." So total disbelief in the spiritual is in a neutral position. It denies God and Jesus, You can't abstain. A vote for any other spiritual expression or life philosophy other than trusting in Jesus is a vote for self-destruction. As for, as for the sin, fantasy is another word for lie, and so it shouldn't be surprising that Halloween, which encourages us to wear masks, would deceive us into believing we can have some quote-unquote harmless fun that engages the lust of the flesh. Drunkenness, drug use, sexual promiscuity, and gluttony are all on the menu tonight. And no, they are not harmless. They are bondage to the flesh, joy substitutes that will lock you in, in chains, in the chains of addiction. Not changes. I gotta do that. Chains of addiction and leave you feeling ashamed, guilty, or plain empty when the light of day comes. So what should a Christian do tonight? Well, not that stuff. Some Christians are deceived into thinking it's all harmless. It isn't. Other than other things, others think Halloween is absolutely evil. They're probably closer to the truth. But as we bear the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and are called to be salt and light, to the world, to be in the world but not of the world, and to go into the world to make disciples. We, we could choose to use Halloween to reach people we wouldn't normally meet otherwise. As Christians, we are free, and so we have liberty to choose our own way on this one. We can isolate and shun Halloween. We could celebrate and confess and repent of it later. Or we could use it as a part of our mission to tell people about Jesus. Faith in Christ saves us, not our performance on a particular day of the week or our political or theological stance on a mostly secularized holiday. So we should pray about it and see what the Holy Spirit would guide, guide, guide, guide us to do. Me, I don't get trick-or-treaters down by the river, and my house is not decorated for Halloween, and it won't be lighted to attract any if they should speed by on State Route 9J. So that is not much of a concern. I haven't received any Halloween party invites, so you can mark me safe from the slutty pumpkin. And other than some low-carb Pro Crunch bars, I didn't buy any sweets this year, so you can mark me safe from overindulging on candy too. As for watching a scary movie on All Hallows' Eve, I'm not sure. I may watch the Peanuts Halloween special that I have on DVD for old time's sake, or I could watch any number of horror movies available in my video library or that are online to stream. But lately I've discovered that the more I follow the Lord, the less I have an appetite for that stuff and often find myself seeking Christian alternatives to occupy my time. For those who are serious about not celebrating Halloween, I would recommend watching something to do with the Reformation. Martin Luther did set it off on All Hallows' Eve, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to pay homage to our brother in Christ by watching the Luther documentary on YouTube. Links on the blog today. So I'm not sure what I will do tonight. I have schoolwork and ministry preparation to take care of, of still, and may just spend my evening taking care of those things and won't have, have the time for any spooky entertainment. But no matter what I do, whether I choose to watch a horror movie or not, I will rest easy knowing that I am safe because of my faith in Jesus, and that if I follow Him, I will never go too far astray. So, keep walking and talking with God. Be kind to those who do not know the Lord, or those who claim to, but do not seem concerned about the things they do that may go against what He says. God leads people to repentance through his Holy Spirit, so all we can do is speak the truth in love and encourage others to find and follow Jesus. Today's Bible verse comes to the— comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on blame shifting as we begin in that. Today's verses are Genesis 3:12-13 from the New King James Version. It says, then the man said, the woman whom you gave me, gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Today's verses fall under the first point of our Counseling Reference Guide resource section on blame shifting. And today's point is Adam and Eve tried to shift blame. And today's verse is basically the, you know, point to the fact that, you know, we tried to pass the buck. Adam tried to blame Eve, and Eve tried to blame the serpent. And that's just the Right from the beginning, from the fall of man, we see that we try to shift it, you know, shift our personal responsibility from ourselves to anybody else. They made me do it. Or, you know, Eve's thing, the devil made me do it, the serpent. Ultimately, we are all personally responsible for the things we choose. And so we can't believe for somebody else. We can't. We have to put our faith in Jesus personally and repent of our own sin personally. So, um, yeah, so don't, don't do that. Um, okay, and we're moving right along. As always, we invite you to go to mtforchrist.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we can— we are sharing from A.W. Pink's, uh, the Arthur Pink Anthology, a collection of A.W. Pink's tracts brought together in one book and dispersed here on the blog for your encouragement. And today's first, uh, first installment from the Arthur Pink Anthology is on 1 John 2:2, and, uh, there are more than one part, but And today we're going to share the first part of that tract. So if you want to see that, go to mtforchrist.org, and you'll see that at the end of today's blog post. Full Confession sort of moved into the podcast before I, uh, before I composed my commentary on the Bible verse of the day. So I'm gonna have to go back and, uh, you know, make sure I get something on in type print for that. Um, time is, is running out, and I didn't realize, um, I, I was doing that. Anyway, so we encourage a lifestyle of Christian discipleship where we follow Jesus as much as we can. And as today's post indicates, there's some leeway there. We're going to have to follow the Lord in spirit and in truth, and, uh, you know, follow the convictions that are on our hearts. Whether or not we persist in celebrating Halloween like we used to before we came to Christ, it's really up to us. You know, should we? Probably not. But, you know, we'll leave that to you and the Holy Spirit to figure out because it's not an essential. Essential is faith in Jesus. And, you know, beyond that, if you should sin, you're forgiven. So, um, we don't encourage sin, obviously. We encourage a lifestyle of Christian discipleship because sin is bondage to the flesh. And, um, you know, when we live in sin, you know, the Bible indicates we might not be a Christian. You know, it's by your fruits that people know you. So if you're more, more like, if you say you believe in Jesus and your behavior sort of indicates everything but that, you know, I don't know if you have a, you know, a leg to stand on. And, you know, the scariest verses in the Bible are ones where people claim to be Christian, come to, come to Jesus and have him say he never knew you. So we want to try to walk the walk and talk the talk of our faith, to represent God's kingdom in everything we do and to, you know, shun evil. So if the Lord's convicted your heart that Halloween is a no-go, then don't go there. Like I said, I don't trick-or-treat, I don't decorate the house for Halloween. I still indulge in a little macabre entertainment occasionally with the excuse that it's research. But yeah, so follow your— don't follow your heart, follow the Lord. And if he puts it on you to not celebrate Halloween, don't celebrate it. But if he puts it on your heart to use it as an opportunity to evangelize and bring people into the body of Christ, you should listen to that voice too. You know, there's a wide spectrum of things we can do, but the most important thing is to put our faith in Jesus and to follow him only. So, um, that's it for today. Uh, I gotta pray and, uh, scramble to fix the blog. Um, so let's do that. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we just pray for you to guide people today into what you would have them do on All Hallows' Eve. Lord, let us use it as a time to remember you and remember the faithful men and women who've gone before us in the body of Christ. Lord, today go with us and help us represent your kingdom. Open our eyes to the things you want us to do, or, well, things you want us to say, and lead us in the way we should go. And Lord, as we're, as we're praying, we'll pray for our friends who are out there listening or reading today's message. We pray for you come alongside them and convict them, uh, about Halloween and about how they should live their lives, and encourage them in their faith and come alongside their prayer requests. Because, Lord, all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom. And, uh, if, if we're doing something we shouldn't, please open our eyes to it and lead us into, uh, your way and your truth. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name Jesus. Amen.