For most, Halloween is nothing more than candy and costumes. But where did it come from? Can the dead return to haunt houses &amp; communicate with the living? Join us as we examine the history of Halloween and get a preview of our series, where we’ll discover the truth about death &amp; the afterlife!

<p>For most, Halloween is nothing more than candy and costumes. But where did it come from? Can the dead return to haunt houses &amp; communicate with the living? Join us as we examine the history of Halloween and get a preview of our series, where we’ll discover the truth about death &amp; the afterlife!</p>

North New South Wales Conference

Is Death the End?

Justin Torossian

01 Halloween’s Haunting History

Lyle Southwell

02 Spirits, Demons and the Dead

Charissa Fong Torossian

03 Who are the Spirits?

04 Death’s Surprising Truth

05 Your Questions Answered

09 Does Heaven Exist?

06 Is Death the End?

08 Hell Truth: Death of Death

Cathy Hookham

07 Cathy’s Story: Clairvoyant to Christianity


Just innocent fun with candy and costumes? Or is there a deeper darkness to Halloween? You're about to learn its haunting history. ♪♪ These days, you don't need to look at a calendar or check the weather to know what season it is. Just go shopping.

Halloween decorations start coming out in the beginning of September. According to an article posted on TheBalance.com, in 2019 alone, with the cost of candy costumes and decorations, Americans spent $8.78 billion on Halloween. And get this — nearly $500 million of that was spent on costumes for pets. And that's just the United States. While Aussies aren't as big on celebrating spookiness, a recent poll revealed that for the first time over 50% of Aussies were planning to do something on Halloween.

Many think it's just innocent fun and an excuse to have a party. But what is it about ghosts, magic, and all things death that seem to attract the interest of so many at this time? What's Halloween really all about? To be candid, I don't get all the hype. And I wouldn't call it a holiday because the word holiday comes from the 2 words holy and day, and Halloween is anything but holy.

If you do your research, you'll discover that Halloween hasn't always been seen as an excuse for kids to dress up and go door to door collecting candy. It was seen once as deadly serious. Some claim that it can be traced back as far as 2, 000 years, back to the time of Jesus. Originally named All Hallows' Eve, Halloween was first celebrated by the Celts in Ireland in a festival that took place on the eve of their new year, which began on November 1. Belief in spirit possession was nearly universal at that time, and the rituals of Halloween were seen as a means of warding off demonic capture.

What happened? Well, on the 31st of October, a festival took place that honored Samhain, the Celtic Lord of Death. This time of year in the Northern Hemisphere is the beginning of winter, and leaves were falling, it was getting dark earlier, temperatures were dropping, and the Celts believed that their sun god was losing strength and that Samhain, the lord of death, was overpowering him. The Celts also believed that on this day, Samhain would allow the spirits of all who had died in the previous year to return and choose a body to possess for the next 12 months before they could peacefully then pass into the afterlife. Friends, they literally believed that the spirits of the dead would rise up out of their graves, wander the countryside, and try to return to their former homes.

And so it was, on the night before the new year, Halloween, that the Druids, that's the name of the Celtic priests, ordered that all families would put out their household fires. The idea was to make their homes cold and undesirable for any disembodied spirit that might be lurking around. To further frighten away the spirits, Celtic families dressed themselves as demons, goblins, and witches and in animal skins. They would then noisily parade inside and outside of their homes, all to supposedly keep the spirits at bay. Then, the ritual would continue in a central public place.

A Druid priest would build a huge New Year's bonfire for 2 reasons, to honor the sun god for the past harvest and to further frighten away any evil spirits. Burning in the fire were oak branches which they considered sacred. The costumed villagers would then go to visit all the houses in the village, and any unfortunate villager who was determined by their looks or previous behavior to be possessed by a spirit would be dragged and cast into the bonfire and burned alive. And so get this, while people and animals were crying out in agony, being burnt to death, the druids and their costumed followers would dance and chant and jump through the flames. This was supposedly to serve as a lesson to other spirits not to possess them and at the same time the fire was a convenient way for villagers to rid themselves of undesirables.

Cats, horses, sheep and oxen were even offered as sacrifices and burned in wicker cages as a part of this demonic tradition. And all this was apparently required to appease Samhain and to keep the spirits from harming them. Each family would then relight their home fire from the New Year's bonfire. This barbaric practice continued openly for hundreds of years until Rome conquered Britain and outlawed it. As the years passed and Rome increased in power, the conquered nations were forced not only to become Roman citizens but also members of the Roman Church.

As you can imagine, the new converts weren't thrilled to let go of their pagan past. So around 600 AD, Pope Boniface IV created All Saints Day, and Pope Gregory III later moved this holiday to November 1 in an effort to give a Christian alternative to this pagan celebration. The medieval church later began to honor the dead on November 2nd and it became known as All Souls Day. On this day, people were taught that they could pray to get the dead out of a place called purgatory. Creepy isn't it?

This is the haunting history behind Halloween. And the whole thing revolves around the belief that the dead are not really dead, but that they can come back. What does the Bible have to say about this? Can the dead come back and fill other people's bodies? Can they haunt their former houses?

Are they up in a place called heaven right now or held down in a hot spot called hell? I'm going to share just a few Bible verses in answer to these incredibly important questions, and I just want you to know that these are just a small foretaste of the topics that we'll cover as this series rolls on. Job chapter 7 verses 9 and 10 says this, So we see that the Bible is really clear. People who die do not come up, and they will never return to their houses. Well, okay, you may ask, the dead may not go to their own house, but might they be floating around elsewhere?

Listen to this, Ecclesiastes 9, verses 5 and 6, it says, For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also, their love, their hatred, their envy have now perished. Verse 10 goes on and says, For there is no more work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave. The dead know nothing. Again, speaking of what happens at death, Psalm 146 verse 4 says, His breath goes forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish.

The Bible makes clear that even the thoughts perish. We don't live on after death immediately, but we are not conscious. The dead know nothing. Now in addition to extinguishing their fires and dressing in costumes and marching around, the Celts would also sometimes leave gifts outside their homes to appease wandering spirits and to encourage them to move on. This is where modern-day trick-or-treating comes from by the way.

Villagers were terrified that the spirits of the dead would come into their homes, possess them and make off with their children, damage their property and kill their livestock. But they had no reason to fear the dead, because when we die, we go nowhere. We simply cease to be just like the Bible says. But surely you may be thinking God's followers go straight to heaven when they die, right? I mean, after all, every Christian that I know believes that.

I'm glad you asked. Notice with me Psalm 115 verse 17. It says, The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence. Certainly, if people did go to heaven when they died, as is commonly thought, they'd be up there praising God, right? But not so.

The dead do not praise the Lord. Okay, you may say, well, if they're not going back to their house, they're not roaming the earth, and they're not consciously in heaven praising God, couldn't they be in a burning place called hell? We only have time for a few quick verses on this and again, this isn't to answer all your questions, but to just give you a foretaste of later presentations that will. A close look at the Bible shows that it doesn't speak of the lost being tortured in fire with no end, but actually says they will be destroyed. Second Thessalonians 1 verse 9 says, These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power." Everlasting destruction.

It's simple. Destruction, the results of which will last forever. Psalm 37, verse 10, For yet a little while, and the wicked shall be no more. Verse 20 later adds, but the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away.

The lost will be completely gone forever. Malachi 4 says that the wicked shall be ashes. And Ezekiel 28 verse 19 says that Satan himself will be burned up and left as nothing but ashes on the earth. Interesting, isn't it? I hope your curiosity is piqued and that you'll watch the full presentations where we'll be digging deeper on the topics of heaven, hell, and death later in this series.

But the question remains, if the dead are completely unconscious, they're not roaming the earth, they're not in heaven or hell, what are these supernatural experiences that so many people have, because let me tell you, they're real. But if it's not the so-called spirits of the dead coming back to haunt their former homes or harass the living or possess people's bodies, what are they? In 2015, I was flying back to the United States from Australia. My seatmate and I smiled at each other and I took my seat and I set down a Bible-based book that I was reading on the empty seat between us. Shortly after takeoff, she noticed it.

She paused her movie and she asked me if I was a Christian. I said, yes I am. And I asked, are you? And she said, yes, I am as well. Liz, as we'll call her, was in Australia for a course for her PhD and like me she was returning home to the US.

After seeing my book and finding out that I was a Christian, she said, I have a book right up there in my bag, and it's about near-death experiences. Do you know anything about them? Little did we both know that this would spark a six-hour long discussion. We'd look at a Bible verse, we'd discuss it together, and another question would eventually lead us to another Bible verse. After almost 6 hours, she said, Okay, I'm going to sleep, but you should too, because when I wake up, I have more questions for you.

We both slept, woke up 5 hours later, and kept going. I still remember, though, what happened at 1 point in our conversation, when we had just read the verses about the dead not knowing anything and not returning to their house. She thought and got a pensive look on her face, and she said, you know, as I was growing up in Cameroon, West Africa, sometimes we would have these scary supernatural experiences at night. And our parents would tell us, it's the spirit of your grandfather or the spirit of your grandmother. But They loved us while they were alive.

Why would they come back as a bad spirit to harass us? What the Bible says, it makes perfect sense. In the next 2 presentations, we're going to see together exactly what these kinds of experiences are and how evil spirits are real but they're not the spirits of dead people. And at this time of year, witches and warlocks, spirit mediums and psychics and Satanists are open about how they're extra active to recruit people and especially young people into their ranks. In fact, speaking of Halloween, Alistair Crowley, who founded the Church of Satan, reportedly said, I'm so glad that Christians let their kids worship Satan for 1 day a year.

Halloween is not a time for fun and games. Dressing like demons and decorating your yard with skulls and scenes of death is dabbling in darkness and playing with the powers of evil. How can we be safe from the devil, from his demons, and from the power of darkness? Psalm 91 verse 4 holds the answer, He shall cover you with his feathers and under his wings you shall take refuge. Listen to this.

His truth shall be your shield and buckler. God's truth is our shield, our protection. Satan works through lies and deception, but God's truth will keep us safe. But not only is it an intellectual knowledge of the truth, because even the demons know God's truth and they tremble, the Bible says, but more than intellectual facts, the truth is a person. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Through connection to Christ by faith, and through a knowledge of His Bible truth, we can be safe from satanic attacks. So watch these presentations, listen to Kathy share her story, and As you do, you'll not only come to understand God's truth more clearly, but you'll come to know Him personally as well. Because He's the only 1 who can protect us from the powers of darkness and prepare us for an eternity in the light of heaven with him. I hope you enjoyed that history of Halloween and foretaste of the rest of our Bible-based series. Just wanted to let you know, next week we have a very special testimony, a story, that Kathy is going to be sharing with us.

It's her story of how she went from being a clairvoyant to a Bible-believing Christian. So you're not going to want to miss it next Tuesday night. I also want to leave you with 2 free offers. If you're interested in these, please text us at the number 701 and you'll receive 2 gifts, The Darkness of Twilight, as well as Perils of Harry Potter and Witchcraft. These are excellent books and great gifts that you would love to give people, no doubt, who may be watching these and involved in these books or watching this series of movies.

So God bless you friends. We hope you have a wonderful night and we will see you tomorrow. When you go through and you look at angels, you think of, you know, people think of angels with wings and white and you know that they've got to be all good. But they don't generally go through and think of angels as being fallen angels and they don't generally think of fallen angels as demons. So I think that that's where it's a convenient little piece of information that gets left out.

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Series

Is Death the End?

01 Halloween’s Haunting History

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

01 Halloween’s Haunting History

14m

02 Spirits, Demons and the Dead

17m

03 Who are the Spirits?

19m

04 Death’s Surprising Truth

15m

05 Your Questions Answered

49m

09 Does Heaven Exist?

18m

06 Is Death the End?

17m

08 Hell Truth: Death of Death

14m

07 Cathy’s Story: Clairvoyant to Christianity

25m

Sound Doctrine