Dear Friends in Christ,

When I was a boy I loved ghost stories and supernatural TV shows.  Boris Karloff’s Thriller, Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits were among my favorite fare.  But I lost my appetite for supernatural and horror movies as I grew older, especially after I saw The Exorcist.  For me that movie was the first I had encountered that seemed to cross the line from harmless, spooky fun to actually glorifying evil—or, at least, depicting it so realistically as to make it darkly appealing—and I wanted no part of anything like that.

Why?  Because I believe that God wants us to have no part of anything like that.  He has certainly made it clear that we are to have no part in trying to make illicit contract with the spirit world.  Check out these biblical warnings:
          + “Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:31)
          + “I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.” (Leviticus 20:6)
          + “Let no one be found among you…who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead...the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.” (Deuteronomy 18: 10, 11, 14)

Why is consulting spirits so offensive to God?  Through the prophet Isaiah He tells us clearly: “When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn…they will be thrust into utter darkness.” (Isaiah 8: 19, 20, 22)

The only contact with the spirit world that the Bible endorses is contact with God, through prayer, and the only spirit we are to seek is the Holy Spirit of God Himself.  When we want to know the future, we are to “consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning” (that is, God’s Word, the Bible).  If the dark side of Hallowe’en offers an illicit appeal to forbidden knowledge, the bright side of that same date—Reformation Day—offers an appeal to the foundational truths of the Word of the God Who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light. (I Peter 2:9)

May we ever walk as children of the light, and may you have a truly…

Happy and hallowed Hallowe’en!

(Rev.) Peter A. Brown

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