A Brief Timeline of Halloween
1000 BC and previous
Pre-Christian Celts celebrate November 1 as their New Year (Samhain) and practice the night before as the evening where the veil between the living and the dead was opened.
AD 43
The Romans conquer the Celts and the Roman harvest festival, Pomona (celebrated on November 1), eventually merges with Samhain.
609 or 610
Pope Boniface IV designates November 1 as All Saints’ Day.
835
Pope Gregory III rules that All Saints’ Day always falls on the same day as Samhain. He also declares that young men can go door to door to collect food for the poor and that villagers can dress in costumes as saints to celebrate the holiday.
1517
On October 31, Martin Luther posts the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church.
1600s
New England Puritans ban Halloween since it is Catholic in origin. Only Catholics and Episcopalians continue to observe the holiday.
1840s
A surge in Irish immigration to the United States sparks growth in Halloween traditions.
1912
The Dennison Manufacturing Company begins publishing Halloween books with party, decoration, and costume ideas. (It first began publishing Halloween materials in 1909.)
1921
Anoka, Minnesota, becomes the first American city to officially sanction Halloween as a holiday.
1923
New York City begins Halloween celebrations.
1925
Los Angeles begins citywide Halloween celebrations.
2004
The Puyallup, Washington, school district bans Halloween from schools out of fear of offending local Wiccans.

The greater sabbats are: Samhain (Halloween or November Eve), the Celtic New Year; the days when the walls between the worlds were said to be thinnest and when contact with one’s ancestors took place; Oimelc (February 1), the winter purification festival…Beltane (May 1), the great fertility festival…. Different Craft traditions…treat the festivals in diverse ways. But almost all traditions at least celebrate Samhain and Beltane.

In the Dark Ages and Early Middle Ages, the Catholic Church attempted to oppose the paganism involved in the Samhain festival by making November 1 All Saints’ Day and November 2 All Souls’ Day. As noted, All Saints’ Day was a remembrance and celebration of the saints, especially the ones who were heroic martyrs (people who died for their faith). All Souls’ Day became a day on which Roman Catholics prayed for the dead in order to help them escape the torments of purgatory.
In the year AD 609 or 610, Pope Boniface IV grievously strayed from biblical teaching by dedicating the Roman Pantheon, formerly a pagan temple to every known god, to the Virgin Mary and all Christian martyrs. This was done on May 13, a day that became a feast day. In 835 Pope Gregory IV transferred this feast to November 1 and extended it to include all of the saints. As a result, November 1, All Saints’ Day, the day after Halloween (Hallows’ Eve or All Saints’ Eve), became a day dedicated by the Catholic Church to the Virgin Mary and the saints. Eventually, November 2 evolved into All Souls’ Day, a special day to pray for the dead. As we will see, this custom supposedly originated with a mystical vision of the Catholic Saint Odilo, who died in 1048. - JOHN ANKERBERG

For the most part, then, our modern Halloween appears to trace its initial origin to the practices of the ancient Druids at their winter festival on October 31. - JOHN ANKERBERG

Sabbath keepers, those who insist that the entire body of Christ must still comply with the old covenant given to Israel try hard to prove the unprovable.

Here's the truth.

God rested on the 7th day and sanctified it as the day he rested. We are not told that he sanctified the 14th day, the 21st day, the 28th day. No one was told to keep the Sabbath until Moses told the children of Israel to do it in the book of Exodus chapter 16.

There is no record of God telling Adam to keep the Sabbath.
There is no record of God telling Enoch to keep the Sabbath.
There is no record of God telling Noah to keep the Sabbath.
There is no record of God telling Abraham to keep the Sabbath.
There is no record of God telling Melchizedek to keep the Sabbath.
There is no record of God telling Isaac to keep the Sabbath.
There is no record of God telling Jacob to keep the Sabbath.
There is no record of God telling Joseph to keep the Sabbath.

If the Sabbath that God enjoyed resting from his work of creation was so important to God that everyone should keep it perpetually after he did, why isn't there a record of anyone keeping it until Moses?

It is true that God gave the 4th commandment to the Israelites in the desert to rest one day after working six days, and, for them, it was a law after that. That though was then. Then, they were under the old covenant. Now, we have a new covenant that Jesus sealed with his own blood.

There is no record of Jesus ever telling anyone to keep the Sabbath. Instead, he sternly criticized the legalistic demand of strict adherence to Sabbath observance above other more weighty human concerns.

Sabbath keepers are wrong about their spiritual snobbery in considering those who see all days the same as somehow inferior and unacceptable to God. They even raise the 7th day of the week to a level of idolatry by suggesting that Sabbath keeping is the seal of their salvation, thus replacing the Holy Spirit of the living God with a day.

We are clearly told in Colossians 2:16-17 NASB, "Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, 𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗦𝗮𝗯𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗮𝘆 — things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ."

Now, the Bible asks in Romans 14:4-5 NASB, "Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓, 𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆𝒔 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆. 𝐄𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝."

Also, remember that when the Apostles met in Jerusalem to consider the matter of how the gospel should be taught to the gentiles, those people who were never under the law that was given to the Israelites in the desert, they DIDN'T say that Sabbath keeping was something to require.
Look

Acts 15:19-20 NASB
"Therefore, it is my judgment that we do not cause trouble for those from the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols, from acts of sexual immorality, from what has been strangled, and from blood."

That's it. There was no mention of Sabbath keeping. Notta. Nothing. If Sabbath was something important for gentile converts to Christianity to remember and participate in, it would have been mentioned in James' statement above. The apostles decided not to Judaize the body of Christ, and we shouldn't either.

A Nugget of Truth.
WILL THE SABBATH BE KEPT IN HEAVEN?

A Biblical Examination Of The Eternal Sabbath

To understand whether the Sabbath will be observed in heaven, we must begin where the Bible begins, in Eden itself. The first mention of the Sabbath occurs long before there was a Jew, long before the existence of Israel, and even before sin entered the world.

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it” (Genesis 2:2‑3).

Three divine acts are associated with the seventh day: God rested, He blessed, and He sanctified it. To sanctify means to set apart for a holy purpose. The seventh day therefore is holy because God placed His own presence and blessing upon it. At that time there was no sin, no curse, no sacrifices, no ceremonial laws, and no Jewish nation. The Sabbath existed in a perfect world. This fact alone is significant: if the Sabbath existed in a sinless world before sin entered, then there is every reason to expect it to exist again when sin is forever removed.

We must also recognize that the earthly sanctuary and its services were constructed as a copy and shadow of the heavenly original. When Moses was instructed to build the tabernacle, he was shown a divine pattern, a pattern that exists in Heaven itself, where the true sanctuary stands. Within that earthly copy, the weekly Sabbath was integral to worship. It was not merely a ceremonial festival but the foundational sign of the covenant, placed in the heart of the moral law which was housed inside the ark.

When John the Revelator was granted a vision of Heaven, he saw the temple of God opened, and there within that heavenly sanctuary he saw the ark of His covenant (Revelation 11:19). That ark contains the tables of the law, which include the commandment of the Sabbath. Since the ark and the law are present in the heavenly temple, then the moral obligation and the memorial significance of the Sabbath are not abolished but preserved in the very presence of God.

The reason for Sabbath observance is that it is an act of acknowledgment of Who the Creator is. It is tied not to the Exodus, nor to the existence of Israel, but to the creation of heaven and earth. The Sabbath continually reminds the universe that God is the Creator. As the commandment declares:

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day” (Exodus 20:8‑11).

This memorial can never lose its significance because God will forever remain the Creator and His redeemed people will forever remain His creatures. Even the angels themselves are created beings who owe their existence to Him. Throughout eternity, the redeemed will never cease to remember who made them and who redeemed them.

Jesus Himself never treated the Sabbath as something temporary or destined for extinction. Instead, He declared:
“The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” (Mark 2:28).

A lord does not abolish that over which He is lord; rather, He exercises authority over it and protects the entire scope of His lordship. Since God does not change, “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6), and since His righteousness is everlasting, “All thy commandments are righteousness” (Psalm 119:172), there is no indication that the Sabbath commandment will ever be discarded.

The book of Hebrews gives further insight. Hebrews 4:9 declares, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” The Greek word used here is sabbatismos, which literally means a Sabbath‑keeping or a Sabbath‑rest. The context of this passage is not the earthly Canaan, but the heavenly rest that Joshua could not give, the rest that is entered through our great High Priest, Jesus, who has passed through the heavens. Since the apostle uses the very language of Sabbath observance to describe that heavenly reality, he reveals that the Sabbath is not annulled but elevated into the celestial realm, where Christ ministers and where His people will one day join Him.

Bible prophecy presents worship as the central issue in earth’s final crisis. The first angel proclaims:

“Fear God, and give glory to him… and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters” (Revelation 14:7).

This language is taken directly from the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:11. The final call to worship directs humanity back to the Creator and back to the memorial of Creation, the seventh‑day Sabbath. The issue in the last days is ultimately one of allegiance and worship. The devil wants to take the position of God, so it is his plan to do away with the Sabbath.

The clearest evidence that the Sabbath will be kept in heaven and eternity is found in Isaiah’s prophecy of the new earth:

“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 66:22‑23).

This passage cannot refer to ancient Israel because Isaiah specifically says it concerns “the new heavens and the new earth.” The expression “all flesh” means all humanity, the redeemed of every nation and every age will come before God to worship from Sabbath to Sabbath.

Isaiah looks beyond the saints’ millennial reign in Heaven to their return to earth, and confirms the Sabbath’s unbroken continuity from Heaven to the new earth. The new earth is the dwelling place of God with men, the tabernacle coming down from Heaven. Since the Sabbath is the appointed worship cycle in the new earth perfect state, where Heaven and earth are joined, then it surely is observed in Heaven itself during the thousand years. The Bible could scarcely be clearer.

CONCLUSION
The first full day that Adam and Eve enjoyed with their Creator was the Sabbath. The Sabbath that existed in Eden before sin entered will exist again when sin is gone forever. The circle of redemption closes exactly where it began: paradise lost becomes paradise restored. And one of the great joys of the redeemed throughout eternity will be gathering, from Sabbath to Sabbath, before the throne of God to worship the One who made all things new.

Gospel Angels Broadcasting

‎Theme for the month of July: "The School of the Marketplace.'
‎Wednesday Morning, July 1, 2026
‎Topic: The Economics of Deliverance
‎Texts: Amos 5:14-15, 21-24, Psalm 50:7-13 and Matthew 8:28-34 
‎Memory Verse: Matthew 8:34
‎Opening Prayer
‎Lord of True Valuation, I enter the marketplace this morning carrying the heavy, tangled priorities of my culture. I confess that my peace is too often tied to the predictability of my income, the stability of my career, and the preservation of my assets. Give me the courage today to welcome Your disruptive presence, even if it costs me my comfort. Teach me the terrifying mathematics of the Kingdom, where the salvation of a single soul is worth infinitely more than the profit of the herd.
‎Hymn
‎"Be Thou My Vision"
‎Introduction: The Disruption of the Ledger
‎Welcome to July, and welcome to the School of the Marketplace. We spend the vast majority of our waking hours navigating the treacherous waters of commerce, career progression, and financial survival. We want God to bless our ledgers, to stabilize our economies, and to give us a peaceful, profitable Wednesday.
‎But today’s Gospel narrative aggressively shatters the illusion of the safe, domestic Savior. Jesus steps onto the shores of the Gadarenes and is immediately met by two men possessed by an incredibly violent demonic force. To deliver these men, Jesus permits the demons to enter a massive herd of pigs, which immediately rushes down the steep bank into the sea and perishes.
‎Jesus secured a miraculous, unprecedented spiritual victory. Two hopeless, exiled men were completely restored to their right minds. Yet, what was the reaction of the town? Did they throw a festival? Did they worship? No. The text says the whole town came out and begged Jesus to leave their region.
‎Why? Because deliverance was bad for the local economy. The pigs represented their profit, their retirement accounts, and their economic stability.
‎As the sharp-minded apologist C.S. Lewis noted:
‎"We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms. The first demand of the gospel is that we should realize the cost of our rebellion."
‎The Revelation Codex asks a searing question of you this morning: Do you only want Jesus in your home and your workplace when He is increasing your profit margin? What happens when His righteousness demands a financial loss?
‎Reflection: The Geography of the Profit
‎The Stench of the False Offering (Amos 5:21-24): In our first reading, God speaks through the prophet Amos to a wealthy, religious society, saying: "I hate, I despise your religious festivals... Away with the noise of your songs! But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" The people were keeping all the religious rules while engaging in corrupt business practices in the marketplace.
‎The Codex Mirror: You cannot use your morning devotion as a bribe to keep God from examining your Wednesday business ethics. Are there "pigs" in your career—compromised practices, subtle dishonesties, or investments of your time that are morally toxic—that you are fiercely protecting because they make you money?
‎The Plea of the Comfortable (Matthew 8:34): The townspeople preferred manageable demons over economic disruption. They knew the two demon-possessed men were violent, but they had learned to live around them. What terrified them more than the demons was the absolute, uncontainable authority of a God who cared nothing for their profit margins.
‎The Codex Mirror: When God disrupts our financial plans—a lost promotion, an unexpected expense, or a career shift required for our family’s health—our first instinct is to panic and beg Him to back away. We must stop mourning the loss of the herd when God is busy saving the household.
‎Life Application: The Valuation Shift
‎The Economic Audit: Examine your anxieties for today. Are you sacrificing the peace of your marriage or the spiritual health of your children in order to protect a specific financial goal or career trajectory? Identify the "herd" you are valuing over your soul.
‎The Posture of the Open Hand: As you log into your computer or walk into your workplace today, verbally declare: *"Lord, my income is subordinate to Your righteousness. If there is anything in my professional life that hinders my spiritual freedom, You have my permission to drive it out."
‎The REVELATION CODEX: Transcribing the Codex
‎Write the answers to these questions in your REVELATION CODEX Notebook, Phone or PC Notebook. Help yourself Give honest and sincere answers.
‎WHAT I HEAR (The Rhema Word):
‎(What specific financial fear or career idol is the Holy Spirit asking you to loosen your grip on this morning?)
‎WHAT I SEE (The Discernment):
‎(Where is the enemy tempting you to compromise your integrity or family time today just to protect your bottom line?)
‎WHAT I RECEIVE (The Impartation): (Receive the radical, uncompromising priority of the Kingdom. Secure your true valuation here.)
‎Conclusion
‎You are not defined by the size of your portfolio, and your ultimate security is not anchored in your employer's stability. Do not walk into your Wednesday afraid of losing what you cannot keep. You serve the Lord who values your spiritual freedom above every currency in the world. Step into the marketplace today with absolute integrity, trusting that the God who delivers is also the God who provides.
‎Closing Prayer
‎Father, I surrender my professional ambitions and my financial fears to You. Forgive me for the times I have preferred the quiet comfort of my compromises over the disruptive power of Your holiness. Give me a heart that rejoices in the deliverance of my family more than the increase of my wealth. Be the absolute Lord of my ledger today. Amen.
‎Shalom
‎09065125704
‎Go and Win With God Now!
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‎https://m.me/ch/AbapwI5clhD1NROD/?send_source=cm%3Acopy_invite_link
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LEGALISM doesn't like this passage of scripture, but it's there, it's true and we don't try to twist it to support a legalistic point of view.

Colossians 2:16-23 NASB
"Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗸, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a 𝗦𝗮𝗯𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗮𝘆— [17] 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒂 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒘 of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. [18] Take care that no one keeps defrauding you of your prize by delighting in humility and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, [19] and not holding firmly to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. [20] If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, [21] “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” [22] (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of man? [23] These are matters which do have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence."

Friends, there is liberty in Christ.

Galatians 5:1 NASB
It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

2 Corinthians 3:17 NASB
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

#Jesus #grace #tencommandments #legalism #cross

The Whores of Halloween
We know it is only June. The summer sun is high, the air is thick, and the autumn leaves are months away from falling. Yet, it is precisely right now—in the quiet of mid-year—that we must look ahead and examine what is coming. You need time to think about this between now and then. You need months to weigh the evidence, examine your own household, and observe the machinery of compromise before it spins into full gear. By the time October arrives, the cultural current is a roaring flood, and the pressure to conform paralyzes discernment. But right now, in the calm of June, we can look at the cold, hard reality of the modern street corner on October 31st and recognize it as a stark monument to a collapsing civilization. Every parent feels the weight of it, even if they lack the words to describe the spiritual decay unfolding right outside their front door. The unwritten social covenant that once allowed children to roam freely across neighborhoods has completely dissolved, replaced by a cold, pervasive fear. We are no longer dealing with the mythical, urban-legend boogeymen of decades past; the dangers lurking on the modern doorstep are terrifyingly real. Sending a child to knock on a hundred random doors today means playing a high-stakes lottery against active domestic chaos, volatile households, and the proximity of highly lethal, synthetic narcotics that saturate our zip codes. Furthermore, the modern predator operates under the perfect cloak of a night where chaos is normalized, faces are hidden, and hyper-vigilance is intentionally lowered for the sake of “fun.” The world itself recognized this shifting tide. Left to its own devices, this pagan tradition—rooted in the occult and the celebration of death—was naturally suffocating under the weight of its own darkness. The streets had become too dangerous, the neighborhoods too fractured, and the risks too high. The secular world was ready to abandon the sidewalks. The holiday was dying a natural death, but it was suddenly given artificial respiration by the most catastrophic betrayal in modern history.

The corpse of this devilish celebration is kept breathing today because it was carried into the parking lots of local churches. In a desperate, frantic bid for cultural relevance, modern congregations opened their gates, lined up their vehicles, and rebranded the profane as “Trunk or Treat.” They dressed up spiritual adultery in the guise of family-friendly ministry, acting as the ultimate preserving agent for a day that belongs to the adversary. The stark, unvarnished truth is that if the church had simply held the line, stood separate, and let the darkness collapse under its own weight, this holiday would have largely vanished from the American landscape. Instead, the church stepped in to sell herself out, volunteering to be the life-support system for Babylon. They became the managers of the world’s retreat, sanitizing the edges of an occult festival just to draw a crowd and keep themselves comfortable. They have completely ignored the thunderous warning delivered through the Apostle James: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

By hosting these events, the modern church is not redeeming the culture; she is whoring herself out to it. There is a deep, tragic blindness in believing that you can bring the holy into partnership with the defiled. When a congregation transforms its holy ground into a well-lit carnival for a pagan feast, it stops being a lighthouse and becomes a spiritual graveyard, subsidizing the very culture that is destroying the home. They have traded the armor of God for cheap plastic candy buckets, forgetting the uncompromising mandate given to the remnant: “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11). This is the Great Falling Away in real-time. The visible church has grown so terrified of being peculiar, so desperate to be liked by a dying world, that she will eagerly house the high holy day of the enemy in her own courtyard. The mandate of the true believer is not to make the darkness safer or more palatable for our children. The command has never changed, and it requires a total, clean break from the compromises of the age: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:17,). It is time to pull the plug on this religious circus, let the dead bury their dead, and return to the uncompromised paths of truth.
#whores #Halloween #thinkaboutit #Christian #pagan
https://thelordsreturn.com/the-whores-of-halloween/