The evil one's tricks

You can be very serious about Halloween, or you can be light-hearted. I pick the latter, but I also suggest being careful about all of it, too.

Remember the story of Job, and how Satan played such a large part in his story.

The Bible says in the first chapter of Job:
⁶ One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. ⁷ The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” ⁸ Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

Fearing God and shunning evil is the best recipe I know for much of what passes for life these days.

Does that mean we are to shun Halloween?


Here's Satan's role in scripture.

a. He spends a great deal of time in the Job story.
b. He tempts Jesus in the wilderness.
c. He falls out of the sky in Luke's Gospel when the 70 go evangelising.
d. He binds the woman with the flow of blood for 18 years.
e. Jesus mentions Satan sifting Peter as wheat.
f. Satan enters Judas' body at the Last Supper.
g. He is used to explain many other New Testament things including a bit of dress-up himself as an angel of light.
h. Finally, he is the ancient serpent or dragon or devil in Revelation.

The guy gets around. But the thing all of us need to understand is that unless we give him the power willingly, Satan can do nothing to harm us and must actually flee at the name of Jesus. Still, Paul writes often about Satan's ability to tempt us ... "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie,"

Knowing all this makes me nervous when I see images of Satan used in Halloween's fun-filled night. I don't reckon this is something one needs to be playing around with.

You know the drill: horns, a long tail, dressed in red. Satan. Devil. Beelzebub. Atlanta Falcons Coach Mike Smith. Oh, scratch that last one; I was just venting.

Here's the deal: Dressing as some being out of a fiction book or a comic or a movie is one things. Dressing as Satan, a real being, a dark angel who will be released from "prison" after the 1,000-year reign is another thing altogether.

My youngest grand son, Gavin, has the next four Halloweens planned. He has given this serious thought, and he has decided he will "be" a vampire, a werewolf, and a couple more things. This year he's Drew Brees, which given the way he played Sunday night is really, really frightening.

Tonight behind First Eunice United Methodist Church, we're having a Trunk or Treat on the church property, and we are expecting a massive crowd of kids. I wonder if they understand the difference in honoring a Satanic holiday and simply participating in a Fall Festival or Trunk or Treat? Probably not.

But there are differences, and it's not about the type of candy that is handed out.

I pray that we all understand this can be a serious matter. Paul writes, "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. ⁹ The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, ¹⁰ and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."

In the end, it comes down to truth versus lies. The Father of lights versus the angel of darkness (the lawless one). Power of good versus power of evil. Signs and wonders that point to Jesus, the Christ. Signs and wonders that point to a false Christ.

I hope we have not completely forgotten or dismissed our ideas of Biblical Satan.

Paul wrote in his letter to the budding church in Rome: "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet."

Sounds like a plan to me.