I'm gonna skip Halloween this year.

Let me tell you why.

Okay, so the Man's back.

We're gonna do this podcast today Halloween style because Halloween's coming up.

Yeah, this Friday, This Friday.

As the podcast drops of the podcast laughed before we.

Hit I'm gonna talk the whole time.

This low everybody.

Everybody seems to be doing the the spooky addition of whatever they're doing.

It's ridiculous.

Yeah, you don't have a neighborhood.

I mean you do, but it's like much more spread out than my neighborhood.

Yeah, but I haven't noticed any decorations out.

That's really interesting about living in the country because as I've gone to see friends in neighborhoods, you're kind of reminded that Halloween is near and that there are decorations everywhere.

In fact, we went to Amber and I did a double date with our friend the other day.

Our friends and like going through their neighborhood.

You see the them now, you see the massive demons.

Yes, you've seen these.

Yes.

Oh, they're like fifteen feet tall, absolutely terrifying.

Grim reapers.

Yeah, skeleton skeleton walking.

Yeah.

We had one family that lived right on the corner as you turned in our neighborhood.

They used to decorate like you've seen the houses that go overboard on Christmas, Like it looks like it's a gingerbread house.

Yeah, this was a graveyard.

It was every It.

Had witches dancing around a cauldron, it had demons coming up from the front door or what.

I don't know.

They've since moved and it feels so much more peaceful driving into our neighborhood.

Now, Yeah, you know it's not all decorated.

There was a guy, you know, probably three miles from here, but I saw his house.

He did that last year.

It was like so decked out.

Yeah, but he also, like our around Halloween, would start dressing up as Satan stopped with the pinagram on a red black gown and a red pentagram and like that's how he just operated.

This is like his favorite holiday.

Wow.

So where you would have Santa's going exactly exactly, that takes the place of Santa.

Yeah on June and July, you've got I'm doing this.

Do you think that those people are the same people that put up the Santa sleigh and the reindeer and the candy canes.

Well, I found that it was like, I'll just say, judging from my neighborhood that that house was not This did not.

Go overboard on Christmas.

It was almost to prove a point.

It felt like, Okay, Halloween, we're going to go all out.

Christmas, here's a few lights.

Okay, why experienced the opposite?

No, I actually don't know.

Once again, we've lived in the country for so long Amber and I probably fifteen years, and so I haven't been in a neighborhood where I am constantly reminded of the different holidays, be it Easter or Christmas or Thanksgiving or Halloween.

Because, like you said, you saw and you came in here today, there's literally nothing.

Nobody does a single thing.

Well, we put up Christmas lights, like a lot of people around here put up Christmas lights, but I don't think there's a single skeleton within five miles here.

I'm waiting for you to put up the permanent Christmas lights, those ones that you see.

We have them on the barn.

Oh you do.

I didn't know that we had.

Them on there.

About three years ago.

We're like, this is great, Yeah, let's just leave them.

Yeah that's cool.

So good for you that we have We have a outlet under the awning of the roof that's connected to a light switch them on.

That's that's fantastic.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty redneck, but they look great.

The reason I say this because literally Saturday, our Christmas tree will be up.

Oh that's a completely different discussion.

That's I forgot about this about you.

And we do?

We talk about this on the on the radio show on After Midnight.

But yes, we're we're one of the and I cannot wait.

I'm so ready to put up the Christmas tree.

Now I'm not.

It feels weird to think about Christmas right now because it was ninety two yesterday.

Yeah.

So do you have anything Halloween in your yard right now?

Other than the grass being dead?

That's about it.

Man is dead?

Okay, so that no, No, we don't.

Okay, you don't.

You don't do this.

This is gonna help transition into this conversation we don't do what about?

But first I want to know before we talk about today, I want to talk about growing up.

Talk about Halloween growing up for you, And I'll tell you me.

Halloween for growing growing up for me was as you probably if you spent any time you know that I'm a big pro wrestling fan.

Yes, it was my opportunity to dress up like a pro wrestler and go out in public.

I did it regardless when I was playing at the house as a kid with my friends.

But we got to leave the house dressed like Sting with a face paint, the spiky hair, surfer Steing, and that was awesome time because then you got candy too.

I had to be a pro wrestler and I got candy.

So the whole you did, the whole thing, trigger treat, dress up, trigger treat.

What about your house.

I don't think that that's right.

No, I don't think it was a decorating holiday.

Growing up.

We never It was always just a day that that day you did a bunch of stuff on.

You know, you dressed up, you did your thing, you got your candy, you went to a new neighborhood, the richer neighborhood where you get the full candy bars.

You know, we had those in our town growing up, and that's we had always aimed to go there when you get a little older, and so we did.

But it wasn't a decoration of any kind.

Fall yes, So like.

So you're talking about pumpkins or pumpkins and red and orange corn.

Yeah, and I think even the candy corn came out around that time, candy corn.

Yeah, so we have those in dishes and nobody ate them.

An it's got to them the ant.

Okay, so you're in our about the same age you're in Oklahoma.

In Texas, in fact, we were probably three hours from each other growing up.

Yeah.

Yeah, you would go out trigger treat, you'd dress up, you'd get candy, you'd have pumpkins.

What about it?

Would you carve the pumpkins?

Yeah?

Sometimes yeah, and and and it was more so of an artistic thing.

Could you make make the pumpkin?

You know how they do this shadow or do the the depths that you carve into it and it becomes lighter in that area and parts that you leave is darker.

And you try to make somebody's face, it doesn't look like it until you put the candle in it.

That was really it wasn't It wasn't really the scary try to do a scary kind or someone you know away or scare away demons or anything like that.

The mindset anyway?

Were your parents religious?

Uh?

I mean yeah?

Was that the reason that you did less than maybe your neighbors did.

No, it was that I think, as far as I knew, it was what we did, what everybody else did.

There was no there was no house.

There might have been a house that was scary just because you know, like, uh, you know, a widower lived there.

By himself and you know, didn't keep up the yard.

I don't know.

It was, you know, just an old house and there are a lot of those in southern Oklahoma where they're you know, at one point that was maybe a big house that was nice and it had just been let go.

But there wasn't any anyone that decorated or anyone that you know, at least that I remember.

Never thought about that un till I got older.

So I grew up always in a neighborhood growing up, and always celebrated Halloween.

I think if I think about decorating, we could say one thing about decorations.

Right now, the market, the industry for decorations has gone through the roof big time.

So the like we were talking about the fifteen foot demons or they didn't have that when we were growing up.

No, they also didn't have the fifteen foot santas.

They didn't have the fifteen inflatable Santa with led lights, you know, casting snow on your house.

They didn't have that stuff, but we we still improvised.

Like for Christmas, we had this was like a thing in our neighborhood.

But we would put out light lights Christmas lights down our sidewalk and out you know, along the street, and then we covered them with like clear Dixie cups, okay, and put like coat hanger ins down into the Dixie cups and so it made these little glowing cups.

And then all the neighbors did it and they all connected.

Oh interesting, Yeah, But then when we put football in the yard, we would step on accidently crush them.

So that's kind of an example of we would just kind of make our own deckors.

But we did the same thing for Halloween.

I remember we always dressed up and we always you know, it was always like an army man or a football player, Dracula one, you know, because they had those white teeth that those plastic teeth you put in and you wear the cape, white face.

Yeah, a little fake blood coming down the you know.

So that was that was or a ghost that was the easiest one.

And as we got older, we remember Tyler and I we had a two story house, and we would get up in My bedroom was in the window right there on the second story in front of the sidewalk, front of the front porch.

So I would get a basketball and put a sheet over the basketball and then run a cable from my room down like to the mailbox, and so I could I could throw that basketball and run down the cable like at the mailbox as kids were coming.

Up to the sidewalk.

That's funny, you know.

So we did.

We did stuff like that, and then as I got older, started participating more and more in like haunted houses.

Oh did you We really actually really got into that.

By the time I got the I was living in Nashville.

I was in my low twenties.

I remember Bernie was one of them, you know, he comes.

He used to come to the podcast all the time.

Yeah, uh Be and Bernie and others.

We would go and get the paper which would list the haunted houses, and we would try to hit like three or four in one night.

We would pick a night to do it, okay, and we would just which is very expensive because there you know, at the time, they're like twenty five bucks.

Apart yeah, you're seventy five hundred seventy five.

Seventy five one hundred bucks in if you do three or four.

So we would go through one and be like, oh, that was pretty good, and then we would go to another way, Oh that was incredible, and we would go to another one and we would just we would have a big like ten or twelve of us would all do it and all jump in a car or two cars and kind of caravan and we would take a night and we did We did this, And so I'm trying to build this story that yeah, I've always participated in Halloween.

I've always done it.

Well, you just reminded me of something that I remember doing.

It was either middle school or high school.

Our church did this thing called Heaven's Gates Hell's Flames.

Have you ever heard of that?

No, So I think there was.

Actually a touring company that went around to different churches and did this, and they did it around Halloween, and that's what it was.

It would show you you'd go through the same type of deal.

You'd walk through these areas that would show you depictions of people, you know, making compromising decisions in their lives and then they end up in hell with the demons, and it shows in that and it gives you an opportunity when you come out to accept Christ and you get to see heaven.

Okay, And so you know, there are a lot.

Of people that that that you know, in the moment, said that they made this decisions, you know about Christ then.

But that was something that I remember Church doing.

Then.

Something else you reminded me of too, is that Halloween was for me was always a big deal for movies.

Friday the thirteenth, Yes.

Yes, I didn't say that too.

Yeah, the was it called fright Fright Month or Fright Week or fright Fast something like that.

Even on the tour bus we would the month of October, fright Fest was always on v watch the movies.

It's like A and E or something like that, or what's.

The Okay, what's the.

There's a channel anyway, I can't think of it off the top of my head.

Anyway, we always have fright Fest on and just kind of on loop.

So you think of like a Saturday afternoon, you think of football and Fright Fast just kind of coexisting in the month of October.

Let's see what else.

Yeah, as far as Church Trunk Retreat, was a thing I remember at the church.

We did that at ours and would.

Go and then you can get candy.

Our rec center recreation center which is walking distance from where we lived.

I lived in Dallas, and they have alleys in Dallas, so we would walk down the alley.

Oh yeah, yeah, okay, and then I have alleys in this.

Area, so you would do your trick or treating.

No, no, the one was in the front.

But we would do all our walkings, like to the rec center.

Take the alleys.

Yep, that was the quick way.

So the rec center would have a little haunted house.

You can go there and they would decorate it and you you know, go through and you know, be scared.

Put your hand in the spaghetti and supposed to be brains, things like.

That, peel grapes.

Yeah yeah, that's eyeballs.

So yeah.

And then fast forward to to our kids kind of always taken them and when they were young, when London and Lincoln were very young, we would take that.

Although we lived in the country, we would go to friends' houses, dress up as toy story character.

That you guys had.

I remember seeing these posts the best family costumes.

I don't know by that.

Absolutely what was it.

I wanted to say it was when you were you Robin one time.

Yeah, I feel like we had heard the Batman.

Batman that was one of the best.

Yeah.

I thought some of these ones that at least they were to me, we weren't doing that.

So I would see the post, you know, when we were just casual friends and see what is grains are going to be this year and see the family it's fun.

Yeah.

So I don't remember there ever being in my life someone that said they didn't participate.

I don't.

I don't want to say celebrate, don't didn't participate in Halloween.

I don't ever.

I didn't have that person.

Oh well, maybe there was one guy named Andy that lived on our street and it was like he was our age.

My friend David just reminded me of this.

But when we were little, their family was like they were the homeschooling family.

The mom was like, you know, thick rimmed glasses and a long cotton dress and the house smelled like mothballs.

Yeah and yeah, Andy didn't do Halloween.

Okay, but he do on Halloween.

I don't remember because the light off maybe my brain, you know, it's when I think back on memories like that.

I'm like a thinking about horse blinders on I didn't I didn't ask, and I didn't really think about it, didn't think too much.

I don't think Andy did it, but but maybe Andy also didn't tell me that he didn't.

So they just kind of went dark.

They didn't preach against it, they just didn't do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.

So other than Andy, I don't can't think of anyone that ever said they didn't participate in Halloween.

Now in twenty twenty five, I know many people.

Maybe it's the circle I run in, but I know many people that don't.

I also think social media, in all of it's in all the bad things about it, I think it has brought a lot of awareness that we might not have had before of people saying I'm not going to we're not doing Halloween this year, and here's why, here's ten reasons why, or whatever.

There is now a platform for the average person to say that because the local news, the local paper is not going to run that story.

Right when we're growing.

Up, Yeah, there's not gonna be an article in there about it.

If you're trying to get a gift for someone that you think has everything.

How about a special video message from me.

It's easy to do.

Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith and you put in the prompt what you want me to say.

I get that message on my phone.

I'll say happy birthday, happy anniversary, whatever personalized message you want me to say to whoever you want me to say it to.

I send it to you and you give it to them.

It's pretty cool.

Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith.

So let's unpack this.

I got a and all this is obviously I should say, this is always different when you're when you're saved by our Lord and you come to a saving faith, and and this is this happens, as Ephesians two says, when we were dead in our trespasses, no pun intended dead.

This happens when we're dead in our trespasses and made alive in Christ.

And this is this is by grace.

We're saying through faith, this is not our own doing.

It's a gift of God, not a result of works, So that no man may boast.

And after that we walk in obedience, and we are sanctified by His word, and we are we slowly start to realize what would be pleasing to God, and it matters to us, not because we're working towards our salvation, but we're working from it, right, so correct we're saved and we work outward from that, not forward towards that.

That's very important because we legalism, which might have been what Andy was, maybe is more dangerous than the evil of Halloween.

I could assure you that because it's much more deceptive and not it's not seen.

It's a it's a rotten apple from the inside and you can't tell because the outside is clean like a pharisee.

Okay, So after I'm saved and I'm working out from the salvation as it just described, then you start to think about all the other things in life that you're doing, Halloween being one.

You and I have talked before.

Remember we talked about Christmas.

We did the Desabler podcast on should we celebrate Christmas?

Yeah?

Is it pagan holiday?

And we recognized that the Puritans did.

They didn't celebrate any holiday except Thanksgiving right Thanksgiving.

That seems like the Puritans as they came to the New World, they celebrated Thanksgiving because it was kind of not connected to anything.

They just stayed away from everything else.

They stayed away from Christmas, Easter, stayed away from Easter, stayed away from, of course.

Halloween, definitely Halloween.

They and and why do they celebrate Why didn't they celebrate Christmas?

Well, they felt like it had pagan roots, and they and it it was taking away from the story of Christ.

They felt like, you should always celebrate the birth of Christ, the incarnation which God became flesh and dwelt among us, the Emmanuel God with us comes to comes into his own creation.

That's the story of the birth of Christ.

They're like, shouldn't we celebrate this every single day?

And then the story of Easter when you know, Christ is resurrected, and and the Puritans would say, shouldn't we celebrate the resurrection every day?

Shouldn't we celebrate the incarnation and the resurrection every day, not just one day, not just one day.

Would it be weird to celebrate it just one day?

And so so we got to say that with then the Puritans, of course, they revolted against Halloween.

Let me read now some information that our friends over it looking up for him, looking up the number four him sent me some research here on Halloween Halloween, they say, and I trust this research is actually not the correct name for October thirty first, It is All Hallowed Saints Eve.

So where does it come from?

Well, two thousand years ago, demon worship being cut Celts in England and Europe had a festival called sam Hayne Sane meaning summer and fu In meaning ending.

It was a feast of the dead, where ritual fires were burned and skeletons and symbols of death were prominently displayed.

The Druids or Celtic priests believed the Lord of the Death gathered the souls of the evil dead and condemned them to enter animals, and that the living should lessen their suffering.

That the living could lessen their suffering by offering sacrifices, prayers, and gifts on their behalf.

This is basically outright spirit witt spiritualism, right in witchcraft.

So then a long cubs to Catholic Church in the Middle Ages condemning this is a demonic festival, and they tried to replace it by making September first All Saints Day, and then immediately began their own practice of praying for their dead trapped in purgatory.

The night before October thirty first.

By the eighteen hundreds, it was customary to assembol at midnight on Hallow Eve, take special bread called souls to the cemeteries and place it on graves for the dead, and light candles on the graves and in windows to guide the dead.

So that's the door to door thing in the windows.

Oh interesting, Okay, While Satanists and witches were up in the in the street, continuing their old age, their their own age old practice of sacrificing, worshiping the God of the dead.

So then you jump forward forward to the Pilgrims in the US and the Puritans who entirely banned Halloween in the New World because it was Satanic.

But then Scottish Irish Catholic immigrants fled to the Potato because of the Potato famine in eighteen forty five eighteen forty six and fled into New York and brought their traditions with them, including the tradition of guysing acting out what was happening to the dead on that night by dressing up as spirits of the dead and visiting.

Houses wow trick or treating trick or treating.

So God's word says, there shall not be found among you anyone who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or anyone who interpreted interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or anyone who conjureds spells, or a medium or a spiritist, or anyone who calls up for the dead.

All these things are an abomination of the Lord.

And then looking up for him, did some research speaking to different Satanists, currently former witch's, former warlocks.

The ones that are not anymore.

Yes, yeah, I got it.

And so I'm gonna stop and say from this point this information here, give or take, I don't really care.

This is information from from people that have left witchcraft today in twenty twenty five.

Got it.

John Ramirez, a former high ranking Satanist and warlocks, spent twenty five years in witchcraft, including animal offerings and demonic weddings on Halloween, and he said, why would you put your kids, your family, and your entire eternity on the demonic altar?

Why'd you bring that curse into your house, into your family.

Genny Weaver, who's a former witch, warns that Halloween normalizes occult practices through media and culture, deceiving even Christians into spiritual compromise.

HERMIONEA Galvez, a former occult and Sentaria follower, says, when you're allowing your children to participate in Halloween, it opens the door to demonic things in your life and in their lives, which could be more dangerous than you ever might realize.

You're desensitizing your children to evil things, and you're hindering their ability to discern what is darkness and what is light.

Another former satan has said that Halloween was a night of real power in the occult world.

Rituals had opened doors demonic forces.

Christians participating today are unwittingly inviting the same influences into their own homes and lives.

So this is this is the part I pumped the brakes a little bit because I when I hear stuff like this from a former Satanist, there there's there's truth to it, but there's also there's also this this idea that if you are a Christian, then you the Holy Spirit is in you sure, and there is no go ahead.

That was going to be.

I wanted you to finish that thought, but I was going to say, what do you What do you say to a parent who goes I'm just letting my kids have fun.

We're not celebrating Satan.

We're not celebrating these things.

We're letting them have fun with other kids and go go get candy from houses and come home and have fun.

That way, it's not we're not celebrating.

Will you doing me a favor?

And asked me that question in about five minutes?

That's what I say, like, I should just let you finish that thought.

Yeah, because I have, I have I kind of have a wrap up thought to that.

Great, because I have the same question.

What if there's a lot of questions on what if it we just don't take it seriously.

What if we dress up as you know, like Teddy bears and stuff, there's nothing demon about it.

What if you went just the complete extreme?

And what if you dressed up as Bible characters?

Yeah, anyway, Bible tracks at your house?

We did.

We did bags of candy with verses on them.

And that's what we did not last year of.

The year before.

And inherently I don't think any of those are bad things.

And in fact that I pumped the brakes on hearing from all the Satanists.

I think.

Here's one from a former medium says, Halloween was my high holy day for channeling the dead.

Believers who participate are playing with fire, opening spiritual doors that lead to oppression, just as it did for me before Christ.

Yes and no, you know, yes that that that opens doors, as Jesus would say, for you know, you you clean the inside of your house, and seven more spirits come in, you know, and find the place cleaner than it was before.

And then and then the second demonic possession is worse than the first.

Sure, but that's not talking about a believer, you know what I mean.

Yep, let's not talking to somebody about somebody who's fortified with the Holy Spirit.

That's someone who's cleaned the inside and didn't fill the inside with Anything's exactly right.

Yeah, where if you are a believer, the inside is full now.

Yeah, the Holy Spirit.

So that's why I hear from this medium and I go yes and maybe no, Yeah, you know it's like and so where does that leave us?

Let's let's get to that point.

Well, let's let's use the Bible.

Let's use the Bible.

I like that, you like that Ephesians five eleven.

We'll start here.

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is it is shameful even to speak at the things that they do in secret.

So when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible.

For anything that is visible by light is of God.

So we would take this and go, why would we partake in works of darkness even in jest?

And you just heard from from ones who have come out of that that says, oh no, no, no, this day is very serious to us.

When I was a when I was an o cult leader, when I was a Satanist, when I was a witch.

That's right.

So I'm going to say it now because I don't want to forget that I'm thinking this right now.

Part of the reason I go, you know, be careful with the listening to the Satanists and the former occult members.

The Bible gives a lot of warning passages, and I'll read some of them right now, but we have to be careful that we are.

We're using these warnings to press people into the cross and get Christians to hold fast and stay strong and not discourage them and say I'm not good enough, because ultimately you're you aren't good enough.

You must have the Holy Spirit and So the warning passages in the Bible aren't to say you were a Christian, but now you let this stuff happen, you're not a Christian anymore.

I don't believe the Bible speaks of that kind of language.

Instead, the warning patches passages in the Bible are made to transform dead hearts, to make them alive, and then the hearts that are alive, to keep them steadfast, stay steadfast, and endure till the end.

You know, run the race.

You know, faith is ongoing.

It's not a one time thing.

You don't just accept Jesus and you're done.

It's an ongoing thing.

But that these warning passages help keep us strong, fortified in the race itself.

Grails guardrails from the spirit like that.

Not on our own power we but we're made.

He He is what empowers us to be fortified for the endurance.

Third John.

It's not often you get to quote Third John, but here we go, h Third John eleven.

Do not imitate evil, but imitate good?

Can it be any more clear than that?

Do not imitate evil?

Granger, when you're playing Dracula at thirteen years old, do not do that?

Okay, I don't.

I don't I don't see a way to compromise.

That at Allah dressing up like demons and witches and.

Yep, don't do it.

It's all for fun.

Don't do it.

Don't do it.

I mean we could.

And then it goes on to say, whoever does good is from God.

Whoever does evil has not.

Seemed God exactly.

Yep, that's interesting.

What do you have a couple?

Yeah?

Kind of.

When I asked that question, I also thought about this verse in Proverbs fourteen.

There's a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.

Seems right.

Huh, it seems right.

It seems right.

Yeah, So I would say that be careful of those things that seem okay and seem right.

And I think that that, like you said, it's more of a guardrail.

Go back and check what you're doing with the word.

Does the word are you shining?

Are you on Halloween shining a light into the darkness?

Then I would say continue shining a light into the darkness.

Yeah, But if you're doing what you just said and like, hey, we're just having some fun and dressing up like the characters from Twilight, well, the characters from Twilight were.

Ones that were based Yeah, yes, right, vampires.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And then another one I have is the U in Second Corinthians chapter six.

Don't team up with those who are unbelievers?

Who can How can righteous be a partner with wickedness?

And how can light live in darkness?

What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil?

That's why?

Yeah, talking about being a light in it.

Don't look like.

And act like and be like everything else that's going on during Halloween.

Also, don't don't you know?

I would you know, don't set yourself up too for having what was it when we were kids, if you didn't have the light on, you didn't do trick or treating, you either got egged or your screens got soaked.

Did you ever do that or have that happened?

Yeah?

You can, you can.

You can still be what I didn't have it marked.

But you can be in the world and not of the world.

Yeah.

I think that's a good way to think about Halloween and this holiday is to be you can be in the world, just not of the world.

Yeah.

Rome Is twelve two.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

Amen, And.

So there's a lot of ways to not conform to it, yep, to be to be in it and not conforming, and I think we would well.

The Bible also says that that that solid food is for the mature, for those who have their their power of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Sure, so this is what the Word of God does, is we're washed with the word of God daily intake of the Bible at some level, whether you're listening to preaching, you're listening to well, no, not listening to preaching unless it's good expositional preaching.

I don't want to listen to topical preaching as a deal daily intake.

But I would recommend and actually reading the Bible daily, never skipping.

You know, a man cannot live in bread alone, but from every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Why would we ever skip a meal?

Why would we ever skip the daily intake of what's even more important than any meal, that the thing that sustains us.

So if solid food, the Bible says, is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice, reading over and over to distinguish good from evil.

Then that protects you from going into the world and not being conformed to it.

So the word of God instructs us in these ways and it trains us.

This is where I wanted to go now, is to your question of you know, like, well, what do we do, like how do we how do we think through decorations and costumes and trigger treating?

First, how can you be in it and not others?

Yeah?

First Thessalonians verse five twenty two is like, if you just take that versus it's a very short verse.

If you just take first Thessalonians five twenty two, it doesn't get any more clear than this to me.

I mean, there are some things that you go, eh, you might be interpreting it wrong.

It says, abstain from every form of evil.

That's a command from the Apostle Paul.

Abstain stay away from, don't deal with, get away from every meaning, all forms meaning, different manifestations, different interpretations.

Get away from all kinds of what might even be thought to be called evil.

You know, like like whatever you're is that evil or not?

Is it a form of it?

Is it a is it a scary clown evil?

Is it a scarecrow with that looks like it has some dark eyes in it?

Evil alive?

Is it?

Is it a pumpkin with a face that looks like it's trying to hurt you?

Evil forms of it, all forms of it.

Abstain from every form of evil.

I don't it just you have to be you have to work from that.

So whatever you're gonna do for Halloween as a Christian, you have to to be informed of that.

You have to work out outwardly from that.

But London asked me the other day yesterday in the car, Daddy, let me ask you something.

Me and my friends, my volleyball girlfriends.

Can we go trigger dreading?

I said no.

I said, but you could come and y'all could come spend the night and have a sleepover.

Okay, that was gonna be my next question.

Okay, good, and I'll buy you a ton of candy if you want.

Yeah, but we're going to abstain from every form of evil.

Part of that deal on the side.

On the side note was we were collect their phones at midnight if they have If they have phones, we collect them at midnight.

I wanted eleven pm because I was like, I'll give them I'll be up, I'll get their phones and let them like, what if they need to call their parents because if something happens.

And I was like, we'll have them ready at seven am, back in back in the kitchen available.

I didn't have phones when I was no, they're going.

To be fine, and you still got a hold of your parents if you needed them.

Now, the thing of my kids too, is that they don't feel overly oppressed, or they don't feel like I'm I'm a overly religious, legalistic dad.

I told him, they know this story I just read from looking up for him.

We all read this together.

So I said, would it be loving of me or controlling of me?

You know, like to just say yeah, do it go trigger treating?

Would that be loving?

No?

It would it be controlling oppressing to say you can't.

No, what's the loving thing to do to protect us spiritually?

It's like, yeah, you got it.

I'm working on their heart.

I'm not working on creating a bunch of rules that they must follow.

Check these boxes.

Do these rules.

God will like you, God will be pleased, God will hate you if you don't like.

I'm not creating this.

I'm saying, hey, let's look at the heart.

What does God's words say, God's words has abstained from every form of evil.

Yeah, that's good.

Do you want to do that when you turn eighteen.

I'd say this about a lot of things.

I didn't say it about Halloween, but I've said it about many things.

When you turn eighteen and you leave this house, you can do a lot of things that you're gonna be able to choose on your own to do a lot of things.

But when you're in our house right now, we're going to be informed by the word of God that says abstained from every form of evil.

And I don't do that because I'm trying to hold this book over your head like a like a prison.

Yeah, I'm saying, no.

This will set you free.

It's good, dude.

I love you, and this word will set you free, not bind you, not hold you back.

Guess what holds you back?

The evil you participate in.

That's what's holding that.

Those are the chains.

My yoke is easy, My yoka is easy.

My burden is light.

Follow me.

The burden of sin is really heavy and crushing, and the ultimate payout is death.

Christ says, come to me, Yes, all you who are weary and burden, and I will give you rest.

Amen.

Oh, my word is good.

My burden, my birden.

In this light, my commandments are not burdensome, he says, this is easy.

Follow me for rest.

Yeah.

I tell my kids these things, not to hinder them, not to chain them, not to press them down, but to let them fly, let them be set free in the word of God.

Hey man, Yeah, that's great, So I can I can still do pro wrestler.

Awesome.

Yes, Look, look for a forty eight year old sting this October thirty first, that's Friday.

I will not be at your house.

I'll be managing sleepover.

Apparently we have a final football game on the final one on the on the current turf.

There's a brand new stadium going in next year, so we have one final what happens to be on October thirty first, So we dressed like a football player.

I guess I'm.

Careful going back for your car might get egged.

That's true, that's true.

See you guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me on this episode of the Ranger Smith Podcast.

I appreciate you being here.

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