October 31 – a Day of Restoration, Not a Day of Darkness
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October 31st has been known as the day of witches, ghosts, and goblins for centuries.
- Children dress in costumes and go trick or treating.
- Communities make scare houses and over the last twenty years people decorating the outside of their homes and the front lawn with graveyards and scary creatures has become the rage.
Halloween has its origins in the Celtic Festival, Samhain, when people would dress in costume and light bonfires to ward off evil spirits and ghosts.
Pope Gregory designated November 1st as a day to remember and to honor the saints.
Over the years the eve of that holy day, October 31st became known as “all hallowed eve.” The name soon morphed into Halloween.
Today, October 31st is a day totally given over to the dark forces and the welcoming of those forces not seeking to banish them.
Although the dark side of October 31st has received the greater publicity, God means for October 31st to be known as the day of restoration not a day of darkness, ghosts and goblins.
October 31 – a Day of Restoration, Not a Day of Darkness
October 31, 1517 is the day western Europe, indeed, the world stepped out of the Dark Ages into the marvelous light of the Reformation.
I know, political correctness and historical rewrite has identified the years from approximately 500 to 1500 AD the “Middle Ages.” However, for centuries those were identified as the “Dark Ages.”
Literacy and the Scriptures were hidden
A movement toward extreme piety began in the late third century AD. St. Anthony (251 – 356 AD) moved to the desert area of Egypt along the Nile River to live a life of solitude and holiness.
Others followed and by the late fifth century and early sixth century church leaders had cloistered behind the walls of monasteries taking literacy and the Holy Scriptures with them.
This movement left the common people with little opportunity for education and unable to read and study the Word of God.
The Holy Bible was only to be written and read in Latin, the holy language.
All efforts to publish the Holy Bible in the language of the common people was met with violent opposition and the Bible’s published were taken by force and destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church.
The Waldensians in southern France were translating the New Testament into the language of the French.
They were martyred. John Wycliffe, of Oxford University in Great Britain, was translating the Holy Scriptures into English.
He was hated and censored several times by the Pope.
Forty-three years after his death by a stroke, his body was exhumed, burned by fire, and the ashes thrown into the River Swift.
John Hus in Prague translated the Scriptures into Bohemian. He was arrested and burned at the stake. These are but a few of those seeking to bring the Scriptures into the languages of the common people so they could understand the Word of God and see the light of the Gospel.
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The true gospel was hidden under a bushel
Literacy and the Holy Scriptures were not the only things hidden behind the walls of the monasteries.
The true Gospel of Salvation by grace through faith was also hidden away. All church services were conducted in the holy language, Latin.
I remember as a child growing up in Spokane, Washington, my friends who were Roman Catholic complained because going to church was an endurance.
Everything was in Latin and they could not understand what was being said.
The only people allowed to read and study the Bible were those educated in the monasteries. The only thing the common people knew about God, Jesus Christ, and the way of salvation was that which was taught to them from the pulpit.
They had no way of discovering if the things they heard was the true Gospel, a fractured version of the Gospel, or a complete fabrication.
They were taught salvation came through the ordinances of the church; baptism, communion, and the confessional.
They were taught when a person died, they did not go straight to heaven.
They were sent to purgatory, where they suffered for the imperfections in their life. The Holy Mother of Jesus must pray them out of purgatory, when they had suffered enough for their failures.
They could purchase indulgences from the Roman Catholic Church that would shorten the length of time in purgatory.
The culture of society was filled with great darkness
The common person did not have a Bible and was not permitted to read the Bible.
The church services were held in a language they could not speak or understand.
There was a famine of the Word of God across the land.
This provided a gate way for every kind of syncritic belief, sorcery, witchcraft, and spiritual darkness to find its way into the fabric of the culture.
The hiddenness of the Word of God combined with the distortion of the true Gospel left the culture in a shadowy existence providing opportunity for the forces of Lucifer to flourish.
The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church became corrupt through bribery, intrigue, and moral impurity.
The demand for wealth opened the door for selling prayers; conducting a special mass for those who had passed away promising a shorter stay in purgatory at an exorbitant price; and the ultimate distorted doctrine, the selling of indulgences.
Government leaders were bought and sold by church leadership.
People lived in great fear, with no hope, without true salvation, or assurance of eternal life.
A day of restoration
October 31, 1517, the light was turned on for western Europe and the rest of the World.
Martin Luther was a prominent theologian, holding a doctorate degree. He was a Roman Catholic priest who questioned many of the tenants of the Church.
Frustrated and angered by the new round of indulgences being sold by Pope Leo X, Martin wrote a challenge to the Roman Catholic doctrine and nailed it to the door of the Wittenberg University Chapel.
It was a document containing 95 theses challenging the church leaders to debate.
This simple step on October 31st, was like the lighting of a torch, bringing the light of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, restoring the assurance of true salvation by grace through faith and freeing mankind from the Dark Ages.
The Reformation was born!
We must never allow the light of the Gospel to be hidden away from the general population.
We must never allow access to the truth of God’s Word to be taken from the common person.
The Word God, the Holy Bible, must be in a language every person can read and the preaching and teaching of the Word of God must be a language they can easily understand.
It is equally important every child receives a quality education.
In our next blog, we will discover how October 31st plays a significant role in bringing restoration to the Jewish people and to the land of Israel.
It is important for disciples of Jesus Christ to learn how they can turn this day of darkness into a significant celebration of restoration to the glory of the Kingdom of God.
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