Halloween or Hallowe’en is a contraction of “All Hallows’ evening” or “Holy Eve”. It is a celebration observed in many countries on October 31st, the eve of the Western Roman feast of ‘All Saints Day’. It begins the observance of the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering and venerating the Dead. This makes Halloween a pagan/heathen practice.
The Roman Catholic Church acknowledges its connection to Halloween and Halloween celebrations in that they are common in Catholic parochial schools throughout the United States. The question is: What does the LORD God, Creator of Heaven and earth, think about this pagan practice? And what will be the consequences to those who practice it?
Pagan Origins of Halloween
It is evident that the Halloween practices originate in ancient Egypt and Babylon. Mitzraim (Egypt), Canaan (Chaldean) and Cush (Babylon) are all sons of Ham. They brought all these things about when they got off the Ark of Noah. Worship of the dead, false religion, and idolatry, all things that God hates! In the time before Moses, the Egyptians had taken the Children of Israel into slavery and made their lives miserable by making them to serve the Pharaoh. When the LORD God contacted Moses to bring the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He said to him:
“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob… I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto Me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.”
Exodus 3:6-9
Proclaim Liberty to the Captives
When He had liberated the Israelites from their taskmasters in the land of Egypt, He said to them:
“I am the LORD your God, which has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me…”
Exodus 20:1-2
He instructed His servant, Moses to say:
“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, I am the LORD your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein you dwelt, you shall not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, where I bring you, you shall not do: neither shall you walk in their ordinances.
You shall do My judgments and keep My ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD.”
“For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them will be cut off from among their people. Therefore, you shall keep My ordinance, that you do not commit any one of these abominable customs which were committed before you and that you do not defile yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.”
Leviticus 18:2-5, 29-30
Learn NOT the ways of the Heathen!
“When you are come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone that makes his son or daughter to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch/sorcerer, or a charmer, or one who consults with familiar/patron spirits/saints, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD your God does drive them out from before you.
You shall be perfect with the LORD your God. For these nations, which you shall possess, hearken unto observers of times and unto diviners: but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do so. The LORD your God will raise up unto you a Prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren, like unto me; unto him you shall hearken…”
Deuteronomy 18:9-15
Consequences of Pagan Practices
What were the consequences Israel suffered for their disobedience to God?
“In the ninth year of Hoshea (King of the House of Israel), the king of Assyria took Samaria (the Northern Kingdom or ‘Ten Tribes’ of Israel), and carried Israel away into Assyria… For so it was, that the Children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had reverenced/venerated other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities… And they set them up images and groves (shrines to the mother-goddess, Ashtoreth) in every high hill and under every green tree: And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and worked wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger: For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said to them, ‘You shall not do this thing’. Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the Prophets and by all the seers, saying, ‘Turn from your evil ways and keep My Commandments and My statutes, according to all the Law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the Prophets.
Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers that did not believe in the LORD their God. And they rejected His statutes, and His Covenant that He made with their fathers and His testimonies which He testified against them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.
And they left all the Commandments of the LORD their God, and made themselves molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger. Therefore, the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only…
Unto this day they do after the former manners: they do not reverence the LORD neither do they after their statutes or their ordinances or after the Law and Commandments which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel.”
2 Kings 17:6-19, 34
If you do not wish to provoke the LORD to anger, you will not participate neither will you allow your sons and daughters to participate in this abomination of the heathen nations. As Jesus said, “God is not the God of the Dead, but of the Living!” Come out of this paganism so you don’t suffer the consequences!