Dearest hijas and hijo,
As I walk around my neighborhood this month on my regularly scheduled walks (walks not only good for the body, but good for the soul of man who takes that time to think deep and contemplate his God), I notice something interesting; people love to celebrate. They love to spice up their yards with lawn displays, don’t they? This is nothing new. We see it especially at Christmas. I don’t know when the practice started, but people have been doing it for quite some time and for all variety of reasons. What struck me this month was the nature of those lawn displays at this particular time of year.
Well, it’s the Halloween season, of course—the trick or treating time of year.
To be sure, the first trick played on humanity was by Satan on Eve in the garden of Eden, wasn’t it? He offered her a treat, “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4), and pressed that lying bet of a treat by offering her a second one, “you surely will not die.” But first he played the trick, “Did God really say…?” (Gen. 3:1). She fell for the trick thinking she was going to get the treats (1 Tim. 2:14). And Satan has been trick ‘r treating us ever since.
According to history.com:
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.
This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween
So what do I see as I walk around my neighborhood? I see ghosts and specters hanging from trees; zombies of the dead rising up out of the ground; jack-o-lanterns with malevolent smiles and sharp-pointed teeth; covens of witches; graveyards with tombstones; Grim Reapers with their sickles of death; and lots and lots of skeletons and skulls.
Sure, I see an occasional Casper the Friendly Ghost, and a few smiling, snaggle-toothed jack-o-lanterns, but for the most part I see the celebration of death and the dark side of reality—the evil side.
“Oh, it’s just innocent fun,” you say. But is it? What is actually being celebrated here? Isn’t it a modern day form of idol worship and thus a violation of the 1st and 2nd Commandments (Deut. 5:7-10)? What is the natural man hoping to convey in his Halloween yard displays and is it really innocent? Does he even understand the realities behind the displays he so prominently puts on view for everyone to see, or is he celebrating in ignorance the real presence of darkness and evil in the invisible realm, and the real presence of “spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12)? As if celebrating the dark and evil side of reality is a bit too stark just by itself, we try and sanitize it by sending the kiddos out to collect candy from all the neighbors.
So, to my neighbors, what you celebrate in ignorance, what you hold up in your affections as worthy of displaying prominently in front of your houses, this I proclaim to you:
The God who made the universe and all things therein, because He is LORD of heaven and earth, does not need anything outside of Himself, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things. He has made from one man all the nations of mankind to live on the face of the earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, since He is there and not silent, and that they should search diligently and think deeply and find Him, being not far from any one of us.
For it is because of Him that we live and move and have our being. He is the cause for the effect that is our existence. We are not the product of mindless, purposeless Chance. Every man or woman who has ever lived has been made in the image of God, and thus we are all His offspring. Being His offspring, we ought not to think that we can abrogate His Divine Nature nor flaunt His Divine Character by celebrating the darkness and evil that is the opposite of who He is.
Having overlooked these times of ignorance, God is now declaring to all men and women that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed [Jesus], having furnished proof to all men and women by raising Him from the dead (ref. Acts 17: 22-31). [The proof of Christ’s resurrection is the ‘evidence’ that He will be mankind’s final Judge.]
My dear neighbor, God sees your brazen acts of celebration of that which is contrary to His nature, and abhors it. His declaration to all is to “repent”. This will require several actions on your part: (1) to change your thinking about yourself, and (2) to change your thinking about Jesus.
It won’t be easy, but I am praying for you.
All my love,
Dad
Vaya con Dios!
Luv Notes To Daughters 