Newsletter - October 2004

Dear Friends:

It is now October and fall is upon us. This is the month when kids start thinking about Halloween mostly because stores have been hawking Halloween decorations, costumes, and candy for weeks already. How in the world did we inherit a “holiday” like Halloween?

As I did a little research on this question, I found that Halloween actually originated out of Ireland somewhere around the fifth century B.C. (although our version of it has been combined with other European traditions). The last day of October was the end of their old year and, therefore, equivalent to our New Year’s Eve. They believed that on that night, the spirits of those who had died in the preceding 12 months were released to try to find bodies to inhabit and, thus, to continue their earthly lives. The people, not wanting to be taken over by these spirits, walked out of their homes and into the streets for the night. They put out the fires in their houses so that the places would be cold, dark, and thus, uninviting to the spirits. The people wandered the streets, often dressed in weird costumes and behaving in noisy and, sometimes, destructive ways in order to ward off inhabitation by the returning spirits.

We look at what they did and realize that most of their activity in these B.C. days was based upon superstition and not upon truth. However, they did have one thing right: there is a spirit world. There is a very real world which we cannot see but which influences us and the world around us.

The Bible tells us that some of these spirits are evil, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12). If we take these words seriously – and we must as they are the very words of God – we realize that there is an unseen world that has great power.

We also know that some of the spirits in this world we do not see are good. In fact, the spirits of God’s kingdom become our hope against the evil spirits. While the passage in Ephesians tells us about arming ourselves with truth, righteousness, gospel of peace, faith, salvation, prayer, and the word of God in order to fight the powers of the dark world, I believe our greatest defense is the Holy Spirit who, with the angels of Heaven, fights these unseen battles for us.

What would our lives be like if there were no spirit world? What if there was no Satan? No fallen angels? No demons? No Holy Spirit? No angels to guide or guard us? No angels around the throne of God in Heaven? Do we ever stop to realize how, as Christians, we acknowledge and rely upon the spirit world? Our lives would be pretty shallow if all there was to reality is what we can see with our eyes. Helen Keller, the blind and deaf woman of history, used to say that the most important things in our lives, the things of lasting value, were the things that we could not see with our eyes. She was right.

Think about your earthly relationships. Those that are most valued are those which we might call “heart to heart”. What we really mean is “spirit to spirit.” Our spirits are who we really are – the core being without the restrictions of body and place and time. Our spirits are the part of us that will live forever in the presence of God, who is also spirit. As one wise soul said, “We are not human beings on a spiritual path, but spiritual beings on a human path.”

This human path will someday end and all that will be left is the life of the spirit. When that happens we will find that the spirit world is more real than the life we are presently experiencing on earth.

So, we can use Halloween as a reminder of some significant truths:

There is a spirit world even though we cannot see it.

The spirit world consists of both good and evil spirits.

Through Christ’s victory on the cross, the world of evil spirits has been subdued and is given freedom to act in this world only under the authority of God.

Someday the entirety of the world of the spirit will be revealed and the spirits of evil will be cast from us forever.

We, then, will live in Heaven with God and His angels – the true world for which our spirits long.

In the meantime, we have access to the spirit world through the Holy Spirit who protects us and who communicates to us through our hearts and our minds. This indwelling Spirit carries our prayer to the throne of God, reveals truth to us, and whispers words of God’s great love to our hearts.

Without the spirit world, our lives would be temporary, shallow, and meaningless and they would end when we die. Because there is a spiritual world and because Jesus Christ has given us the victory, we have no fear of Satan, his demons, and his lies. We trust, instead in the power of God and the strength of the Holy Spirit, and know that our lives have meaning and power and eternality because God’s Spirit is greater than the spirit of this world.

Let’s be joyful today that the Holy Spirit of God reveals the truth of the real world to us. And don’t let the goblins and ghosts of this world’s Halloween get you down!

Blessings on you!

Bev

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