Where I live, there are skeletons hanging in the grocery store, zombies at Walmart, and lots of opportunities to attend events and movies that are dark and scary. I bet the same is true in your neck of the woods.
A trip to the movie theater turns up the same scary results. Invitations to attend these movies or watch scary movies at home may well be coming your way along with opportunities to go to haunted houses ripe with depictions of the "un-dead" (think zombies, ghosts, and mummies).
I posted a "Lies guide to Halloween" with my thoughts on how to best navigate this spooky holiday, but long before the trick or treating begins it is important to consider what God's Word says about dabbling (that doesn't necessarily mean participating!) in things like witchcraft, sorcery, and the occult.
Deuteronomy 18:10–12 says, "There shall not be found among you ... anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD."
Leviticus 20:6 says, "If a person turns to mediums or necromancers ... I will set my face against that person."
Let me translate. Divination is telling the future (fortunetelling). Sorcerers communicate with evil spirits. Necromancers seek to communicate with the dead for the purposes of magic.
I know that sounds like some pretty trippy stuff. The reasons to stay clear are many, which is why the Bible warns so strongly against it. But it is important to be aware that these things might not show up as overtly as you might think.
Almost all of the girls I interviewed for Lies Young Women Believe told me that they had never been exposed to satanic activities, and yet a study of girls who were actively involved in their youth groups found that in the previous three months:
- 72 percent of young women had looked at or read their horoscopes.
- 28 percent had their palm read.
- 42 percent had participated in psychic-related activities.
- 82 percent had watched supernatural and spiritual themes in movies or on TV.
I imagine that these numbers likely represent many of you, meaning that you have been exposed to satanic activities, maybe in the past few weeks, and you don't even know it.
That's why the lie, I've Never Been Exposed to Satanic Activities made the list of the top twenty-five lies addressed in Lies Young Women Believe.
Nancy and Dannah wrote about it this way:
It's easy to become comfortable with evil when we are exposed to it casually or repeatedly. And while casual exposure alone may not destroy your faith and values, you need to be aware that exposure plus a lack of awareness of what you're exposed to can be dangerous.... Be aware of what you are getting close to and what God says about it (Lies Young Women Believe, 64).
If there is one month out of the year when you are most likely to experience casual and repeated exposure to satanic activities, it's this month. In response, put things like divination or sorcery on your list of things to stay clear of.
What can you do to guard your mind against casual or repeated exposure to evil this month (and all year long)?