Ancient Origins

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• Ancient Origins
• Halloween's origins date back to the ancient
  Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
• The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago 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. In addition
  to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts
  thought that the presence of the otherworldly
  spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic
  priests, to make predictions about the future.
  For a people entirely dependent on the volatile
  natural world, these prophecies were an important
  source of comfort and direction during the long,
  dark winter.
• To commemorate the event, Druids built huge
  sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to
  burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the
  Celtic deities.
• During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes,
  typically consisting of animal heads and skins,
  and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When
  the celebration was over, they re-lit their
  hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier
  that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help
  protect them during the coming winter.
• By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of
  Celtic territory. In the course of the four
  hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands,
  two festivals of Roman origin were combined with
  the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
• The first was Feralia, a day in late October when
  the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing
  of the dead. The second was a day to honor
  Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The
  symbol of Pomona is the apple and the
  incorporation of this celebration into Samhain
  probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for
  apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
• By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had
  spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century,
  Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All
  Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs.
  It is widely believed today that the pope was
  attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the
  dead with a related, but church-sanctioned
  holiday. The celebration was also called
  All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English
  Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the
  night before it, the night of Samhain, began to
  be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually,
  Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church
  would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to
  honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to
  Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing
  up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils.
  Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All
  Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called
  Hallowmas.

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History of Halloween

• 2000 years ago in Europe
• Samhain (Sow een)
• Celts believed the spirits and demons were at the
  peak of their power and this was the time when
  ghost of the dead revisited the earth to possess
  and haunt the people.
• The laws of nature were suspended on this night
  which allowed the dead and the powers of darkness
  to freely interact with the rest of the world.

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History of Halloween contd

• In order to avoid being possessed, the Celts
  would dress up in hideous costumes some wearing
  animal heads, and parade around town making all
  kinds of noise to scare away the evil spirits.
• The Druid priest would lead the villagers in
  diabolical worship ceremonies where offerings of
  crops and sometimes even worse were burnt over
  their bonfires. The next day all that was left
  was ash and bones.bone-fire bonfire
• Some accounts speak of human sacrifices, demon
  possessed people being burned at the stake and
  all kinds of magic

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History of Halloween contd

• People would leave delicacies and wine outside
  their homes so that the spirits would not trick
  or curse them.
• On this night Celts believed it was easier to
  tell the future.
• The Celts and Druids (their priest) were a very
  pagan people. Many historians agree that they did
  in fact sacrifice animals and humans to their
  Lord of the Dead, Samana.
• A ghostly, skeletal figure with a sickle in hand
  whom you and I know as. The grim reaper.

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Jack O Lantern

• Turnips or other vegetables were carved hollow
  and fire placed inside  and set on doorsteps
  outside the home in order to scare away the evil
  deads' spirits.
• Also a legend of a man who tricked satan but was
  not allowed to enter heaven or hell and was a
  damned soul to roam the earth with only a candle
  in a turnip..

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• Symbols and Traditions
• of Halloween?

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Bonfire

• On the evening of October 31, the Druids would
  build their huge bon fires, which they considered
  sacred.  They would burn crops, animals, humans
  as sacrifices to appease the Lord of the Dead. 
  The Oxford English Dictionary tells us the word
  'Bonfire is derived from word 'Bone-fire' because
  it was a great fire in which bones were burned in
  open air.  The Druids called this great fire on
  the Eve of their great day of the dead,
  'Bone-fire'

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Bobbing for Apples

• One of the practices during this night of the
  Bonfire was to divine the future, or try to
  foretell what the future would hold for the
  coming year, prosperity or failure.  As the
  animal and human sacrifices burned in the fire,
  the people would jump over the flames and dash
  through them, and sing and dance, which they felt
  would frighten the evil spirits away.  They would
  look for signs or omens in victims sacrificed as
  they struggled in the fire, to help tell them
  things about the future.  The next day, the Day
  of Samhain, they would examine the remains of the
  bones from their sacrifices which were in ashes
  of their 'Bone-fire' and practice divination, or
  foretelling the future, based upon what they saw.
• The practice of dunking for apples came to be a
  way to discover your future mate and if you would
  be married that coming year

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Black Cats

• Down through history, Black cats have been
  revered Occultism and Witchcraft.  They are
  believed by Occultists to possess special powers,
  and are believed to be 'transformations' of
  witches, sorcerers, and wizards. 
• In Egypt, black cats were worshipped as deities! 
  At death, black cats were mummified in Egypt and
  buried in stone crypts or coffins and the people
  mourned them for weeks.
• David Brown says the following about black cats,
• In the 1959 edition of the World Book
  Encyclopedia under Halloween it says, Druid
  priests believed that cats were once human beings
  but were reincarnated as punishment for evil
  deeds. Because of this they held cats sacred and
  involved them in their idol worship of October
  31st and November 1st. This is supported by The
  American Book of Days, by George Douglas which
  says, "Druids believed the cat was sacred
  and...that cats had once been changed (from being
  human and reincarnated) into that form as
  punishment for evil deeds."

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Dracula

• In 1897, Bram Stoker published his now famous
  novel Dracula. Since then more than 300 movies
  have been produced which feature him. But,
  Dracula was a real person! In the book DRACULA, A
  Biography of Vlad the Impaler, 1431-1476, by Radu
  Florescu and Raymond T. McNally we read that
  Dracula was a maniac monster, the Hitler of his
  day. During his six year rule it was estimated by
  a reliable source that Dracula massacred 100,000
  men, women and children. And how did he impose
  death? Let me quote Pope Pius II who tells how he
  killed 40,000 of his political foes shortly
  before 1462.
• He killed some of them by breaking them under
  the wheels of carts others, stripped of their
  clothes, were skinned alive up to their entrails
  others placed on stakes, or roasted on red hot
  coals placed under them others punctured with
  stakes piercing their head, their navel, breast,
  and what is even unworthy of relating, their
  buttocks and the middle of their entrails, and
  emerging from their mouths.
• No one was excluded, not even babies. Dracula
  decapitated, cut noses, ears, privates and limbs.
  On one occasion he even nailed the turbans on the
  heads of some Turks because they refused to
  remove them in his presence.

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Witches

• Witches are real!
• In fact there are over 200,000 witches and
  neopagans in the United States today!
• There are no good witches. White magic, black
  magic both are of the devil. These people are
  deceived.
• They are closer to you than you think.
• Wicca

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• How do witches feel about Halloween?

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• What would you expect a Wicca.com website to
  look like? Lots of scary witches? Mean old men?
  Pentagrams??

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• Witches- 3,814 covens in the U.S.
• Satanic Cults- 423 different cults in the U.S.

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• Im just glad there arent any satanist or
  witches around here
• arent you?

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So what does God say?

• Ephesians 610-13
• Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in
  the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of
  God, that you may be able to stand against the
  wiles of the devil.
• Wiles- craft, deceit (greek)
• Witch- old english wicce, wicked
  witchcraft- wicked deceit, an evil trick

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Ephesians 6 contd

• For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but
  against principalities, against powers, against
  the rulers of the darkness of this age, against
  spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly
  places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God,
  that you may be able to withstand in the evil day
  and having done all, stand. .gird your waist
  with truth.

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• Romans 1311
• And knowing this, knowing the time, that now it
  is high time to awake out of sleep.therefore
  let us cast off the works of darkness and let us
  put on the armor of light
• Hosea 46
• My people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge

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• 2 cor 614
• do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for
  what do righteousness and wickedness have in
  common? Or what fellowship can light have with
  darkness? What harmony is there between Christ
  and belial? What does a beliver have in common
  with an unbeliever? What agreement is there
  between the temple of God and ildols? For we are
  the temple of the living God. As God has said, I
  will live with them and walk among them, and I
  will be their God, and they will be my people.
  Therefore come out from them and be separate says
  the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I will
  receive you, and you will be my sons and
  daughters, says the Lord Almighty. 71 Since we
  have these promises, dear friends, let us purify
  ourselves from everything that contaminates body
  and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence
  for God.

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• Halloween is not a Christian activity!
• But there is an opportunity to reach our
  community for Jesus! How many of you would love
  to defeat the devil on his own holiday?