Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / J.B. Hixson: Demonic Holiday Or Innocent Fun? The Halloween Dilemma

Transcript

J.B. Hixson: Demonic Holiday Or Innocent Fun? The Halloween Dilemma · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:00
  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic, off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Fiorazo.
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  Welcome friends, God bless you, and thanks for sharing the podcast, we're going to get
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  to our guest, JB Hickson in just a minute, but I want to read from an article over at
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  LivingWaters.com, according to the National Retail Federation estimates last year about
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  Halloween sales were in the billions.
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  Total Halloween spending is expected to reach a record 12.2 billion.
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  Last year it was 10.6 billion, and according to their annual survey, and a record number of
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  people, 73 percent, will participate in Halloween-related activities this year.
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  What about Christians?
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  How should we respond to this?
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  How many would say is a demonic, occultic celebration holiday?
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  Should Christians, quote, celebrate it?
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  Should we acknowledge it?
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  What about the gospel focus, and we'll strike a good balance with JB on this, but I want
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  to remind everybody about discernment, and this is a scripture that JB wanted to share
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  as well, in 1 John 4, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they
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  are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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  And let me go to the second verse.
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  By this you know the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in
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  the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
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  This is the spirit of the anti-Christ.
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  And I want to bring up JB's books.
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  He's got a three-pack there of the spirit of the anti-Christ series available at notbyworks.org
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  and very relevant to all the things we go through in America and our culture, and especially
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  the spiritual dynamic here, JB, notbyworks.org, thank you so much for your time.
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  Hey David, really enjoy our time together, always one of my favorite programs.
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  I remember when you started this, and you still have the record for the greatest name
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  for a show, World View Matters, because World View does matter, amen?
• 2:32
  Amen.
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  I've had a lot of people want to co-op that or borrow that or use it, and I don't have
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  a claim to it, but because it is so important, the biblical worldview.
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  And so let's start right there, JB, before we dive into some of the scriptures and look
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  at some information from the articles.
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  There's a great one that Joe Shimmel put up at goodfight.org on the history of Halloween
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  and a satanic holiday.
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  So what about you, JB, right off the top, your view of Halloween as knowing Christians
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  should not conform to the world, but how do we respond to this when a lot of churches
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  even have Halloween parties?
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  You know, there's a lot of confusion as far as what we should do during this time of
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  year.
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  Yeah, no doubt.
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  Of course, those same churches probably have drag queen services and stuff like that too.
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  So the church is largely apostate these days, but yeah, so my history is, like a lot of
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  people, even in Christian homes, I grew up celebrating Halloween, it was just sort of
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  what you did.
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  You went out with your buddies and you, you know, you dressed up and you went door-to-door
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  and, but that was a long time ago.
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  And I was largely ignorant at that time, but the more I've grown up and studied the scriptures
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  by the time Wendy and I were married, we learned early on that there is some pretty serious
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  spiritual things going on.
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  And we were reminded of James 4.4, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity
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  with God?
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  And therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
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  So the biggest argument that you hear from Christians is, oh, it's, you know, we're
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  not worshipping the devil.
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  It's just kind of what the world's doing and we're just kind of going along with the
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  flow.
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  Well, that's being a friend of the world.
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  And so, and then when I got into the spirit of the Antichrist books, I really dug deep
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  into the spiritual realm, recognizing as we all do, or all should anyway, that it is
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  a spiritual battle, not flesh and blood.
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  And so got into some of the demonic activity that's going on today, especially the closer
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  we get to the return of the Lord and, and yeah, Halloween is right there in the middle
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  of it.
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  And so now, where I'm at just to put it plainly, is I just don't see how any believer can
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  have anything to do with Halloween if they really knew what it was all about.
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  So I'll share, for decades, I was more rigid way over to one side saying, I don't want
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  anything to do with it.
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  Don't come to my door.
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  I should keep the lights off.
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  I would not answer the door, you know, saying, I don't want to anything to do with these
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  demonic, you know, kids coming up in the costumes.
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  But then over the years, I started changing it to a gospel focus, saying like Ray Comfort
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  says, he calls it nationally vangelism day when pagans and unbelievers come to your door.
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  And so I started handing out gospel tracks with candy.
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  And I know that's an option for a lot of believers, but to participate in the deeds of darkness
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  or to conform to the world that is absolutely wrong to go along with to approve of.
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  Would you care to comment on that from that angle, approving of these hardies or activities
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  which, you know, someone considered demonic, but unfortunately a lot of people would say,
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  oh, it's just innocent fun.
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  Absolutely.
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  Not the handing out of candy or, you know, greeting a child at the door that in and of
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  itself is the problem.
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  The problem is the whole system of what Halloween stands for.
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  So like you, Wendy and I at times through the years, especially when our kids were younger,
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  we would leave the light on and have gospel tracks with the bag of candy.
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  And when people would come up, we would give them a track.
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  And typically we chose tracks that explained the, you know, the enemy and the sin and the
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  problem of all this and share with them how to have eternal life by faith alone and
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  Christ alone.
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  And so I don't have a problem with that at all because you're clearly taking a side.
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  So, but I also totally get and this is kind of where we ultimately landed, just sort of
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  sitting it out, just saying, we're not going to even, you know, open the door because it's
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  just gotten so bizarre, especially with the decorations, it's unreal.
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  I just, it's classic move of the devil to marginalize evil.
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  And so he's got people putting corpses and glorifying death and skeletons.
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  Now these giant skeletons, like Nephilim or something, and people Christians go, it's
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  all in good fun.
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  Really?
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  I mean, I don't, I don't understand it.
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  But yeah, it's, it's time.
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  This is, this is the closer we get to the return of Lord, it's time for Christians to,
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  to, to sound a clear signal and really differentiate from the ways of the world.
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  So I want to bring up an article in just a minute over a good fight about a lot of history
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  about the occult and Halloween, it is a satanic holiday, but here's one observation.
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  I just moved into this, where I lived now in this neighborhood three years ago.
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  And what I've noticed, and this year is more than ever, JB, I've noticed many more
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  homes celebrating Halloween with the Halloween, you know, decorations, the ghoulish stuff,
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  the demonics of really dark and creepy, not just the, you know, simple or witch in a hat.
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  And I noticed less and less homes that put up anything to do with Christmas.
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  Some of them may have a few colored lights, but no merry Christmas, nothing about, you
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  know, I don't even remember maybe other than the church down the street, seeing a manger
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  scene, you know, with the baby Jesus being born.
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  So I'm noticing a cultural shift even in my own neighborhood where more people are celebrating
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  the darkness rather than the light.
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  You want to comment on that briefly?
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  Yeah, again, I think it's a sign of the times, you know, and we're focusing on, in this
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  show, primarily on believers, but you're right, as a culture at large, it's definitely
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  shifting more to depravity and just demonic activity.
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  But the sad thing is in the church, and you started off the program today talking about
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  1 John 4, 1 and being discerning and discerning the spirits.
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  Now there is a spirit of the Antichrist that is alive and well.
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  And if I was the devil, what I would want to do is infiltrate the church and get the church
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  to jump on the bandwagon of evil without even realizing it.
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  And, you know, I'm reminded of Hebrews 13, 2, which has do not forget to entertain strangers
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  for by so doing some of unwittingly entertained angels.
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  Now, we know, if you know your angelology from Scripture, there are good angels and there
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  are bad angels.
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  And angels can manifest in a variety of forms.
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  And so these Christians who say, oh, it's all in good fun and we're not satanists
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  and we're not worshiping Satan, we're just having some fun.
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  I think they may be unwittingly allowing a door for the dark side to kind of come in.
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  And I, one of the toughest chapters for me to write in the spirit of the Antichrist series
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  was volume 2, chapter 13, kind of coincidentally, chapter 13.
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  And it really, it just, it, it's sickening when you see what's going on in the unseen
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  realm.
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  And what many people think is just good fun is actually has some, some pretty, you know,
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  scary aspects to it that can really do harm.
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  And the Bible does say a lot about the occult and about even what some, some people, some
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  satanists do are professing satanists.
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  They're actually doing sacrifices on Halloween this time of year.
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  And it really is an eye opener to me, the more you read about this thing, because some
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  of them really believe it as if the devil is real, right, JB, because some people just
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  kind of poo poo that all of the demonic realm, right?
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  But I wanted to share a few scriptures and then we'll just continue the conversation.
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  Of course, we kind of refer to Ephesians 5, 11 earlier, which says, do not participate
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  in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.
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  And then how about this rather than dressing up like demons, witches and devils?
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  How about 1st Thessalonians 5, 22 abstain from all appearance of evil?
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  And finally, and then it'll let you respond.
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  We're told in 3rd John 1 verse 11, we love to do not imitate what is evil, but what
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  is good?
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  JB, before we talk about some history, go ahead.
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  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's what you and I've talked about before on the times we've gotten
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  together, either on our show or your show.
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  And that is that the closer we get to the return of the Lord, the harder it is going
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  to be to distinguish truth from error.
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  And so there's this merging of truth and error where scripture makes it clear that there
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  is light, there's darkness, there's right, there's wrong, and you need to sound a clear
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  distinction between the two.
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  And so a lot of believers, I don't think they're waking up, you know, as you get closer
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  to Halloween and deciding, hey, today I think we're going to celebrate evil and we're
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  going to celebrate the devil.
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  I think it's an unconscious thing.
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  We're just, hey, on and we put up decorations and so forth.
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  But what they're not realizing is that they are violating all of those scriptures that
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  you just said.
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  We've got a, we are to be different, you know, I've reached on that recently at Plum Creek
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  from our series in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, just the concept of going all the way back
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  to Adam and even and tracing human history.
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  God's people have always been called to be different, not to adopt the pagan cultures
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  of their, of their region and their geography, but to actually be different and to point people
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  to Christ.
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  And, you know, discernment to me is the issue because a lot of people are going to listen
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  to this, maybe not your audience because you've got a pretty awesome audience, but a lot
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  of Christians that would hear this conversation, they would go, oh, you're making such a big
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  deal about nothing, you know, well, that to me is showing a lack of discernment.
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  I talked to a guy one time and this really blew me away and he's a friend.
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  I love him, but he was like, we don't celebrate Christmas because of the pagan roots of some
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  of the traditions that have kind of been passed down to that celebration, but we celebrate
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  Halloween.
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  And I'm like, I mean, how can you take a stand in the one case, which I get that some of
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  the rituals related to typical Christmas celebrations here and in Europe are borrowed
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  from pagan sources, but still ultimately we're celebrating the birth of our Savior Jesus
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  Christ.
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  So, I was going to ask you something, it just slipped my mind, I want to go back to this
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  article real quick, before we have to take a very brief break over at goodfight.org.
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  It says Halloween as we know it today is a modernized version of the druidic festival
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  of the dead.
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  The powerful druid priests were deemed kings of the occult practitioners and were known
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  for worshipping evil spirits and sacrificing humans to their demon gods.
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  And then it also says the eve of Sam Hain marked the special time of year when the druids
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  taught that demons, souls and gods were unleashed on the world to bring blessing or wreak
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  havoc and destruction on unsuspecting souls.
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  This is just a little bit of background, a little bit of history.
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  There's a photo of a druid festival of the dead and JB, there's a lot of information
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  if people want to know the origins of Halloween or the occult and what's celebrated today.
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  There is some background there, do you encourage believers to look at some of that or is it
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  go back too far?
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  Absolutely, we're supposed to study and research and Einstein said condemnation without investigation
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  is the height of ignorance.
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  And so in this day and age we have no excuse for not researching and understanding and
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  looking into it.
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  But one of the things that really strikes me is that again going back to discernment
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  and maybe some unintentional hypocrisy is that everywhere we look today, we see the devil
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  making inroads overtly, explicitly think about the Olympics ceremony, thinking about NFL,
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  halftime, things of Super Bowl, I think about even the RNC and DNC conventions had overtones
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  of demonic symbolism and things like that, MTV, of course, everywhere you look.
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  And some Christians are able to see that and they recognize just how problematic that
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  is and yet somehow when it comes to Halloween because it's such a culturally accepted thing,
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  they don't make the distinction and that's just like the devil to bring the church along
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  and have us unwittingly celebrate him, even though, I guess that's the point I was trying
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  to make earlier, even though you may not intentionally think of it as celebrating Satan, you are
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  and Satan sitting back getting the glory.
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  Hmm, a tough topic today, only because we've gone so far as the church conforming a little
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  by little, very subtle things and maybe things that appear innocent, and here we are having
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  these conversations, but I'm fortunate as you say, I agree with you on the audience here
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  for World View Matters, I believe very mature and understand these things as hard as it is to have
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  these conversations with other believers sometimes, but we have to take a brief pause,
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  we'll be right back with JB Hickson on World View Matters.
• 16:19
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• 17:03
  JB Hickson is our guest before we do that. We are a week away from a huge election,
• 17:08
  and I've been giving out this website every day for weeks BiblicalVoter.com.
• 17:14
  It's not just a matter of getting to the polls and casting your vote,
• 17:17
  but doing it from the biblical perspective, and that's tough to do these days.
• 17:22
  There's a lot of compromise. Even in the Republican Party, there's compromise on life and other
• 17:27
  issues, which I talked to JB about last time we had him on. So JB, Halloween, I want to go back
• 17:32
  to this article over at Good Fight. I love Pastor Joe Shimmel. He and he does some amazing
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  exposés, even on Super Bowl halftime shows and the demonic entertainment from Hollywood.
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  But Doreen Velliente is a Wicken High Priestess, and she's quoted as saying Halloween is one of
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  the four great sabbats of the witches that everyone has heard about. Two witches, Halloween is a
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  serious occasion. However, merely celebrated. It is the old Celtic Eve of Sam Hain.
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  And Salem, Massachusetts is a mecca, especially around Sam Hain. It is our holiday, our new year,
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  and a lot of witches come here from all over the world. So they take it very seriously when we're
• 18:20
  just saying, oh, it's innocent fun. It's just about kids dressing up because all their friends
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  are dressing up and eating candy. So it's innocent fun. So JB, you either comment on that on how they
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  the satanists and the occultists, it's a very real thing for them. And then we'll transition to
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  how do Christian parents with young children respond when all of their friends are, you know,
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  dressing up and doing it? Go ahead. Yeah. So we just got back from New England and I actually
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  was raised there as a kid from second grade to eighth grade. So very familiar with Salem and
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  of course, Solution Grieves is headquarters is there and he's the head of the satanic temple
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  and he's going to news a lot with some of his fights for abortion and so forth.
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  You know, what I would say is going back to that James IV passage, friendship with the world,
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  it goes on to say at the end of that chapter, therefore to him who knows to do good and does not
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  do it to him, it is sin. So as we said, you know, believers have really a duty to look into this and
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  study it. I want to be gracious if you've never looked into it and you've just kind of gone along
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  with it that, you know, we understand we all do things in our culture that as we grow and mature
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  in the faith, we start to strip them away. So I don't want to be too harsh or unkind to people that
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  are in the church that celebrate Halloween, but I feel like, you know, you need to rather than just
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  dismiss this notion, look into it and just see just how evil it is. Like you said, it's really
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  an extension of Hollywood, but it's sort of an acceptable kind. I mean, if you look at some of
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  the displays that are in people's yards, if you were to just take those out and put them in a
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  separate setting, you know, away from Halloween, like say in February or June and you would,
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  you would drive by that house and you'd go, wow, that's really weird. What's that person doing?
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  Are they celebrating death? I mean, what's with the tombstone and the skeletons? But somehow on
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  October 31st, it's sort of okay. And I think people just need to be sort of jarred back into
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  an objective look at things, but we want to be gracious, you know, obviously people, you know,
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  may disagree on this and I respect that, but we just want to challenge you to think through it.
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  Thank you, JB. I want to go back now to the article on the website over at GoodFight.org.
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  Anton Levay is the founder of the Church of Satan, and I believe he founded that 1966,
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  and he also authored the Satanic Bible in 1969. On the official website for the Church of Satan,
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  it says that Halloween is a time when the masses reach down inside and touch the darkness
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  which for us Satanists is a daily mode of existence as they may freely indulge their fantasies
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  by donning costumes that allow for intense role playing and the release of their demonic core.
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  And quote, this is right out of their playbook and it's a very real thing. And I think for years,
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  too many people thought the devil was just a made up character with a red jumpsuit and a pitch
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  for it. And people don't have an understanding of the spiritual forces of darkness that the
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  Bible warns about and talks about. Yeah, I mean, it's just like the devil to masquerade as an angel
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  of light. And so while we're down here in America on this holiday, by the way, it's not just America.
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  I was reading in one of the articles how I think it's Ireland has made it a national holiday,
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  and they get off for like a week or something like that. But while we're down here smiling and
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  laughing and joking and so forth, boy, the evil around the unseen realm, they are just thriving
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  on that. They are, it's just truly evil, as that quote from Anton Levet says. And I think people
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  just don't really understand what they're dabbling with here. You know, on our trip recently,
• 22:19
  we, one of the other things that I did, which was really meaningful to me, is I went by on Yale,
• 22:24
  a campus of Yale University, a windy and I went by the Skull and Bones headquarters called The
• 22:28
  Tomb. Now I've talked about this written about it, shown pictures of it and in presentations for
• 22:33
  years. But I'd never been there myself. And I wanted to be able to just sense what it was like and
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  take pictures. And I tell you what, that's one of the most evil places I've ever been to. In fact,
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  it was so evil that I was surprised. First of all, that you could even get up to it. But they,
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  but it's all, you know, no windows and just a dark building with a black door. And they don't
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  need any guards because you can't get into it. But I walked right up to the door, but I was so aware
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  of the evil emanating from that spot that I wouldn't touch the door or touch any. I didn't want to
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  to fall prey to the hitchhiker effect of some of these demonic spirits. And that's all that stuff
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  is real. I mean, it sounds crazy, but it's real. We read about it in scripture. And I think people
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  need to just take stock of the seriousness of what this holiday is really all about. And by the
• 23:22
  way, holiday, what does holiday come from? Holy day. And just like the devil to turn words on
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  their head and turn the most unholy thing you could ever do, which is celebrate death and the devil
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  and so forth and call it a holiday. Well, to them, it is a holy day to the Church of Satan and
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  Wicca. By the way, Wicca, they, I don't want to get into the public schools too much, but they do
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  teach witchcraft and Harry Potter. They have Harry Potter lesson plans. And Wicca is one of the
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  sponsors of that. The Wiccan Church has a 501c3. They have a non-profit status, the International
• 24:01
  Church of Wiccan or Wicca or something. But anyway, JB within the last couple minutes, so let's
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  talk about Christian families with young children. If they're going to the public schools, they're
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  going to have a day, at least a day where kids are dressing up, maybe for the whole week. And Christian
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  kids, parents are going to tell their kids not to dress up and be made fun of. How do you approach
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  this with young children if you're a Christian family? Yeah, well, so first of all, get your kids out
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  of the public schools. That's number one. This is this is not something that's redeemable. It's
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  it's a horrific thing. It's a pagan institution by their own declaration. So, but I understand not
• 24:37
  everybody can do that or chooses to do that. First of all, I believe everybody could. It's if you
• 24:41
  know, you make you make things happen that are worthwhile. But for those who who feel for whatever
• 24:46
  reason, they still have to participate in the government-controlled reeducation camps. What I
• 24:51
  would say is, be honest with your kids. Kids are far more intelligent and able to understand
• 24:57
  things than we think. So just set them aside and explain to them, look, this is something that we
• 25:03
  because of our love for the Lord Jesus and our understanding of his word, we cannot participate in.
• 25:08
  And they mocked Jesus and they mocked Christians before us. So yeah, if you're not entitled to not
• 25:14
  be made fun of, just hold your head high and recognize 1 Peter 4, if they, you know, are making
• 25:20
  fun of you, they made fun of Christ before you. So I think just having an open honest conversation
• 25:24
  with them, but definitely it's an opportunity for those Christians with children in the public
• 25:30
  school system to be different, to take a stand, to make a state and, you know, and just not participate.
• 25:38
  Keep your kids home, for example, that day. You know, one of our big problems with the public
• 25:42
  school system is how they control your life, you know, and it was so much of a blessing for
• 25:47
  Wendy and I raising the kids from in homeschooling that with all of our travel over the last 30 years,
• 25:53
  we could travel anytime we want to take the kids with us. They could take the school with them and
• 25:56
  do it in the back seat, you know, we didn't have to be whole, you know, our life wasn't be holding
• 26:01
  to the government controlled calendar. So, but remember, you are the parent. So if you don't want your
• 26:07
  child to be at school on a day when they're celebrating this stuff, keep them home.
• 26:12
  So to wrap this up, over $12 billion in spending on Halloween, I mean, the love of money is
• 26:20
  a root of all kinds of evil. There you go. And I want to bring this to a close by quoting Ray
• 26:24
  Comfort again, who alluded to John 624, where it says no one can serve two masters. And he's
• 26:31
  talking about God or money. And then he says, that's why the gospel is so important. It transforms
• 26:36
  the human heart so that we love and serve God and use money for good rather than evil. So there's
• 26:42
  a challenge to Christian families, whether it's Halloween or Christmas to use money for good
• 26:47
  rather than evil or the appearance of evil. So JB, I always appreciate your straightforward
• 26:53
  approach to any topic. And that's why I love having you on your books are amazing. And you
• 26:58
  guys can go to notbyworks.org. I know you're traveling coming up here. We're going to be in November.
• 27:04
  Yeah, we'll be in San Diego at a conference there with Tom Hughes and Don Perkins and Dave Reagan.
• 27:08
  And it's we love the chance to share the gospel. The good news that Christ died for our sins and
• 27:13
  rose from the dead and only by faith in him. Can we hope to be made right with God? And so
• 27:17
  pray for us and pray that the gospel will go forth clearly, accurately and urgently.
• 27:22
  Amen, brother. Notbyworks.org. Always a blessing. Thank you, David. Yep. You're welcome.
• 27:28
  All right, guys. Again, notbyworks. It's very important topic. I know maybe we lost a handful of
• 27:33
  people who tuned out when they when we started talking about Halloween and warning and talking
• 27:38
  about the history. But I think most of you stuck with us and share this podcast even for future
• 27:43
  holidays or celebrations challenges the church not to conform to the world. That's what we're
• 27:47
  about here. A world view matters. God bless you. And as always, keep speaking the truth about
• 27:52
  things that matter.