Let's briefly discuss Halloween!

With Halloween just around the corner, the debates are again raging.  Atheists, who haven’t got a clue, believe it’s just a fun holiday.   Many Christians and Messianics/Hebrew Roots types, too, are clueless and support the idea of Halloween, but have decided to force it to sound less pagan – referring to it as Harvest Festival or some other more benign name cloaked as an excuse to sin.  After all, why shouldn’t children be allowed to dress up as witches and skeletons and demons and hookers (and lately, the rage is Ebola victims and terrorists!) and everything else God hates?  As Americans, it’s their right!  Right?

Whatever one’s excuse, the bottom line is: YHWH our ELOHIM hates our customs and traditions! The Bible tells us so:

Deuteronomy 5:32-33: You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.  (ESV)

   

Jeremiah 10:1-5: Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good. (ESV)

 

Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (ESV)

 

Colossians 2:8  Beware, or else any man make you naked by philosophy and by vain deception, according to the doctrines of men, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to the Mashiyach  9 in whom dwells all the fullness of Elohim bodily.  (AENT)

 

2 Timothy 4:2-4  Proclaim the Word and persist (in it) with diligence, in time and out of time; admonish and rebuke with all patience and instructiveness.  3. For the time will come when they will not give ear to sound teaching; but, according to their lusts, will multiply to themselves teachers in the itching of their hearing;  4. and will turn away their ears from the truth, and incline after fables.  5. But be vigilant in all things; and endure evils and do the work of a proclaimer of the Good News, and fulfill your ministry.  (AENT)

 

Matthew 15:3 Then Y’shua answered and said to them, Why also do you transgress against the Commandments of Elohim because of your traditions?  4. For Elohim said, “Honor your father and mother, and anyone who reviles his father and his mother let him be put to death?”  5. But you say anyone who says to a father or to a mother, “My offering is whatever you have gained by me,” then he does not need to honor his father or mother.  6. And you nullify the Word of Elohim because of your tradition.  7. Hypocrites!  Well did Yesha’yahu prophesy concerning you and said,  8. “This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is very far from me.”  9. And they revere me in vain, while they teach the doctrines of the commandments of the sons of men.  (AENT)

 

The above is a key passage showing how the written Torah was pitted against the oral traditions of the Pharisees.  Y’shua shows great concern that the Pharisees are nullifying the Word of YHWH by their tradition.  Therefore he would certainly NOT instruct his followers to do likewise

 

2 Thessalonians 2:14 For to these it was that Elohim called you by our preaching; that ye might be the glory to our Master Y’shua the Mashiyach.  15. Therefore, my Brothers, be established and persevere in the Commandments which you have been taught, whether by word or by our epistle.  16. And may our Master Y’shua the Mashiyach himself, and Elohim our Father who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and a good hope through his grace,  17. comfort your hearts and establish in yourselves every good word and in every good work.