This looks like a meeting of the First Church of Eff Jesus and Eff God in Laodicea or Babylon, with so many people attacking Patriot777. So many professing Christians who just want to be assured of a spot in Heaven, but don’t care about using what He’s entrusted to us according to His will and for His purposes, aren’t bothered about helping Satan instead, and act as if we won’t have to give account of how we’ve used what God has entrusted us with. They want to feast on the fruits of God’s vineyard and use almost just a little for God’s Kingdom. In the New Testament, we’re instructed to bear our cross while being sober and grave, being content with food and clothing because knowing the Lord should be enough for us, and to examine ourselves to see if we’re in the faith. I do believe that Christians might under God’s direction carefully use the Halloween occasion as a tool to try to reach the lost, but only after consulting with the Lord to see if that’s His will for them, and in how to do so. But there should be great concern for the fact that Halloween IS Satanic, and that we shouldn’t be fighting on Satan’s side.
You had a bad day, didn’t you?
Halloween has always been about things we did not believe, but I noticed how it has become so serious in these times.
Maybe this is just because of what I have come to believe?
I believe that I see evil spirits in people every day, watch the news, reading on freerepublic and yeah, they are there.
I use to think that that would be paranoia or some other kind of condition.
Today, I believe it is simply situational awareness.
I think these are significant times myself.
I just expect these things in this world.
Not celebrating it, it’s easy enough for me anyway.
“...aren’t bothered about helping Satan...”
Helping?
Satan wants people to either disbelieve him or fear him.
Halloween is the opposite of both.
I guess most Christian movies are evil too, right? They show men and women in evil looking costumes.
FRiend, you are wasting a lot of energy hating an American tradition.
God never cursed this land for Halloween. Nor did Halloween drive us away from God. Quite the opposite. The rest of Christendom has drifted from God much faster than we did.
And what about Christmas? Is that evil too? And the Easter Bunny?
Pardon me but i attacked no one. Only on the left does disagreement equal attack.
Nice language by the way for someone trying to dress down other Christians. You may wish to work on the log in your own eye.
“So many professing Christians who just want to be assured of a spot in Heaven,”
If that’s why you call yourself a Christian then you’re not much of one.
“great concern for the fact that Halloween IS Satanic”
Herein lies the problem. Halloween is not Satanic. It’s just a holiday. Satan has much better tools.
Gag on a gnat and swallow a camel.
It’s precisely that sort of super-heated rhetoric people are reacting against. If you want to ask, “are you promoting Godliness or wickedness on Halloween,” people may look at their daughter dressed as Cinderella differently than their daughter dressed as a Playboy bunny or as a “sexy devil” and come up with different answers. Or they may realize, “hmm. Gunther’s leaving the house with 12 dozen eggs and a 24-pack of toilet paper. Maybe destructive pranks aren’t Christian.”
But you and Patriot777 don’t. No, Patriot777 screeds about worshiping Satan, which is absurd, and makes Christians look like a bunch of lunatics. And then when people push back, along YOU come in and in YOUR words, you start referencing outrageous profanities. And that reinforces the dichotomy that if you don’t want to revel in evil, you must be a joyless scold. And THAT’S what people react against, because THAT’S why so many people around them choose to revel in evil.
My pastor for YEARS has used the celebration of Halloween to reach children in the area with the gospel that might not have been exposed to because their parents don't take them to church. Anyone so legalistic as not to see the wisdom in that is the one with insecure faith.
And, BTW, if you have sincerely accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have secured a spot in heaven. Salvation is a free gift that doesn't have to be earned.
I’d certainly be in prayer that the Lord might show us ways to use the occasion (”Redeeming the time”) to exalt Christ as God has equipped us.
That might mean Christian themed decorations. That might mean “God bless you” rather than “Trick or treat” rounds. That might mean just sitting it out and praying, if we aren’t spiritually prepared to do more.
I believe we should have a wise, prayerful discussion about this, but admittedly that’s kind of hard when we got folks (not saying you, FPO, but some others are obvious) scoffing in our midst.
I’m not going to damn “partial” solutions like the trunk-or-treat. I am going to urge a progress to better solutions. I believe we have the knowledge and means to do better. There’s a point, like you said, where in the Spirit we want to stop just lounging around the vineyard, as well as that has served as an appetizer entrance, because better possibilities have begun to thrill our hearts with hope.