And if you would take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of John and Chapter 12. The Gospel of John and Chapter 12. We didn't actually finish the study last Wednesday and for tonight, It is connected to our study of the Spirit, but just felt some direction to maybe clarify some things. And so that's kind of the direction you'll see in just a moment. All right, let's go to verse 44. Okay, John 12, 44. Jesus cried and said, he that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me, seeth him that sent me. Now this isn't the lesson, but that's obviously an admission on his part of his deity, isn't it? Yeah, so when those who struggle with God's Word say, well, Jesus never claimed to be God, you could just tell him, well, why don't you read the Gospel of John? That's kind of clear in several places. Verse 46, I am come, a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. Father would you help us please tonight as we come to your word I pray you might give me clarity of thought and speech and you might take your truth and help us guide and direct in that Father, please. I do lift before you these other two requests. We pray for Lori, and I pray you'd help her as she approaches the date of the effusion, the next treatment, and just the difficulties associated with that. We ask for your grace and strength for her and just help her with that. Father, we know you're the great physician, and you can do something miraculous on her behalf, and we'd ask you to do that. as it would seem you have done that with Brother Tucker. He's improved when no improvement was expected. And we continue to pray for him and put your hand upon him, help his wife. We think of the church there in Texas and just the difficult situation that they're in dealing with that. Would you guide and direct and help? We pray for Brother Yates and just give him wisdom as to how he can help his home church at this point. He's anxious to get back to Mexico, and yet you have him there at this time to be a blessing, and so I pray you'd help him with that. Again, we think of the Harris's, and they'll be traveling to be with us this coming Sunday and be in the area reporting to churches to give them safety in their travels and guide and direct in that Father, we pray. Be of those in Anchor Club, help them. And the boys and girls be sensitive to the captain's call and the verses they're memorizing be with Brother Kirk and Savannah as they have the teens now bless that time Be with us we pray in Jesus name Amen Our study the Spirit is quite important because the Holy Spirit is Well, without the Holy Spirit, we're kind of like up the creek without a paddle. He's our guide. He's our strength. He's our seal. We need him to help us. Not just to seal us for the future, but to enable us in the present. We need the Holy Spirit. John 16, 13 says that he's gonna guide us into all truth. Truth for what? Truth to pass a math test? I suppose if you're an algebra student and you struggle with math and you pray for God to help you, you should want the Lord to help you take your math test, amen? Yeah, for me it wasn't math, it was English. That was the great nemesis. Okay. And while I certainly think the Lord can help you with academic studies, and we should want his help with those kinds of challenges in life, I think the Lord has something maybe a bit more heavenly focused in mind when he says that the Spirit's gonna guide us into all truth. Certainly it would have to do with truth about heaven. That would make sense. But since the Holy Spirit is given to us for the present, I think the truth he's talking about is the truth that helps us live a life for his glory. victory over sin, enabling us to be an effective servant, a powerful witness. That's important, isn't it? Well, there is a problem in this world. This world is dark. Now, I'm not talking about lack of energy to turn light bulbs on, of course. I'm talking about spiritually dark. There is a spiritual darkness in this world. We could agree on that, can we not? Yeah. And say, Pastor, why are you, because we're coming up to a particular, it's called a holiday. And the word means a holy day. find it hard to think of anything holy in reference to Halloween. Okay. But it wasn't always called Halloween. It was All Hallows Eve. Now we can go back and study all this history and And I don't really wanna do that, and say, oh, pastor, are you gonna have an anti-Halloween lesson? Is that what we're doing tonight? We could, I think it'd be pretty easy to have an anti-Halloween message, because Halloween is very dark. Okay, it's history is bad. It starts with paganism, gets sort of, what did I put down here? It was pagan, it was pilfered, and by that I mean the ancient Catholics kind of took it over and sort of Christianized it a little bit, that's why it's called Halloween, All Hallows Eve, because November the 1st is All Saints Day. And then November the 2nd was, I don't know, I forgot already. I was reading all that this afternoon. It was more information than I want to keep in my brain. But it is going back to paganism again. You know, that old stuff, the old Celtic druids and all that, that's some pretty wicked stuff. And modern day, what they would call Neo-Paganism, or Wiccan is another term for that, that's some wicked stuff. It's very wicked, it's very real, it's very dark, it's cultic, it's satanic, it's bad. It's really bad. But most Americans don't even have a clue. Do they? No. It's time to get your green rubber Frankenstein mask and go around and ask for candy. Or maybe you're gonna dress up like Taylor Swift. That's almost as pagan, I think, but anyways. Whatever, okay. You know what's amazing is 25% of all candy purchased in America is purchased for Halloween. One fourth of all candy purchased in our country is for Halloween. Last year, Americans spent $700 million on Halloween costumes for their pets. I can't help but laugh and think, seriously? You're going to dress your dog up for Halloween? That just seems kooky. And maybe I've just offended you because, you know, you have your little princess tutu already purchased for your poodle. Anyways, I just offended you more. But the darkness of Halloween and its history and so forth just reflects on the darkness of our world. And this time of year especially, you can't help but listen to radio or be in any kind of media, whether you're watching broadcast television or whatever, and all the streaming services are, oh, it's fright night and it's horror movie time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All that's pretty prevalent. Hollywood demonizes and trivializes the godly and spiritual. That's what they do. On the other hand, They trivialize and glorify the evil, as if the things of God or the things of the devil are just things to be the basis of stories and fun horror. I don't know how you could say horror was fun, but anyways. So how should we respond to this? What is our response and our counter to the darkness? I'm not really, I don't feel threatened by a little child in a Frankenstein mask. I'm not even, don't feel threatened by a little child in a Freddy Krueger the Murder Weirdo mask. I more feel threatened by the parent who allows the kid to do that. That's like really crazy. The answer to the darkness, the way we dispel the darkness is not to deny it, dismiss it, or desert from it. We cannot hide from the darkness. And I don't believe we're supposed to. I believe we're supposed to counter that darkness. Jesus said, we just read it, I am come a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. In fact, Jesus says in Matthew 5, ye are the light of the world. The light of the world, okay? And so, rather than denying it, what we need to dispel the darkness is a bold, clear, powerful display of the light. That's what we need. I got a whole bunch of verses listed here. And I don't know if I can do them very fast, but I'll try. And there are more, but we don't have eternity to talk about all of this. John 1, let's just try to look at them quickly, shall we? Okay, John 1 and verse 5, it says, and the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. Okay, John 3, 19, And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Chapter 8 and verse 12. 8 and verse 12. It says, then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness. We see this progression. There's the proclamation that light exists. There's the presence of the light that's arrived. There's the purpose of the light and the confusion of the dark. And now Jesus says, if you're walking with me, you don't have to walk in the darkness. You're in the light, and that's good. shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Ooh, that's really good. 1235. Okay, we read 46, but in verse 35 it says, then Jesus said unto them, yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. See, the children who are just, they just want candy. It's Halloween, it's candy time. They wanna get candy, okay. And like all children, want to have candy. Verse 36 says to me, I have a short time to let my light shine. A short time. Because either the Lord's gonna come back and we're gonna go up, or we're gonna, our life is gonna end. And compared to eternity, that's a short amount of time that we have. We have limited time to allow our light to shine and be an impact. Okay, now we've read 46 earlier. Go to Acts 26. Acts 26, 18. And Paul is giving a testimony to Agrippa about when he was on his way to put a bunch of Christians in jail, you know, and he gets struck down when Saul gets saved. So he's given a testimony. Listen to what, verse 15, it says, and I said, who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecute. So at this point in the testimony, Paul is quoting the Lord. This is what the Lord says. But rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen and of those things in which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee. to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. I would say the darkness of Halloween's history is pretty satanic. Pastor, are you kind of getting a little, no, you don't have to believe me, you can go to the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1926. Lest I knew that was not an independent Fundamental Baptist publication Okay Secular historians have recognized the pagan cultic history connected with Halloween So I would say that's the power of Satan and we don't want people to be under the power of Satan, but rather unto God That they might receive forgiveness of sins inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me So what do we do with Halloween? I said, well, why are you, well, how do I explain this? I'm gonna thank Rennell for this. Because he just asked me a simple question, which I greatly appreciate. He said, Pastor, this is after our meeting last night with the deacons, he said, I just need some clarification. Okay, great. This trunk or tree thing, are we kinda... And I appreciate that concern. I do, really. I do. Because we wanna be careful. We do not wanna get ourselves under the delusion that we'll do anything and everything to get opportunity to share the gospel. Because that would not be right. Otherwise we'd have, I'm trying to remember his name now. Some preacher over in Moscow, Idaho, he did anyways, he wrote about having a, I don't remember what day of the week it was, but it was kind of like he met with a bunch of other preachers at the local bar for theology and beer. I think I have a problem with that. I don't think that's gonna work. Or a fella up in Great Falls when I was a student, Pastor Elledge told us that there was a, I don't know if he attended Fairview, I'm not sure how he knew him, but he told brothers, yeah, I want you to pray for me because I'm trying to start a Christian bar. And Brother L says, yeah, I'll pray for you. I'll pray that it burns down. It did. So I don't think we can take anything and everything in the world and use that as a justification for an opportunity to shift the gospel. We could undermine the gospel. Even though our intentions maybe could be good. But in order to get that opportunity, we've undermined the gospel. I think that's a lot of what contemporary Christian music is. It's a plea to appeal to a fleshly element of people's life, supposedly, so they get an opportunity to share the gospel. And some preachers who are in that, those circles, they preach a good gospel. But there's no separation or sense of holiness because we're borrowing the world. I get the concern. The difference is, because that's gonna be on a Thursday, Halloween this year is on Thursday, And at times I'm like, well, okay, I know the kids are gonna come knocking on my door. That's kind of what happens, okay? And so I would, I'd have candy, but I'd have gospel tracks. So if you come to my door, you're gonna get the gospel, okay? So it's more like you're here for a treat, but I'm giving you a treat. I'm giving you the treat of the gospel, okay? So I know kids are gonna do it. saved and unsaved kids are gonna do it, because it's time to go get candy, free candy. So, we need the Holy Spirit to help us, okay? Acts 1, we know that's, the Lord's given us a promise of the Holy Spirit, okay? That He's gonna give us the Spirit of God. And I should have had another scripture here from, I think it's in John, and I forget the reference about giving the Holy Spirit to them who ask it. But certainly Acts 118, but ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. So there was this promise of the Spirit, and the promise was for a purpose. The Holy Spirit is not given to me to simply give me assurance within my little own bubble. The Holy Spirit is given to me to enable me to be the bold, clear, powerful light that He is. Not just on Halloween, but any other day of the week. Would you agree we should always be a bold, clear, powerful witness for Christ? There's not a day that we're exempt from being a witness for the Lord. So, we understand that. We understand that the Spirit is the power, actually. He promised to send him to his witnesses, did he not? Ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And we talked about that at the beginning of our study, that we don't have to pray for that a second time around because the Holy Spirit is here. He's dwelling within you. I just have to access that. So that he can do what it is that he wants to do. Let's look at kind of a shotgun of scriptures once again. Mark chapter six, verse seven. During his earthly ministry, Jesus, Enabled his witnesses which were his disciples at that time and he called unto them the twelve and began to send them forth By two and two and gave them what's the next word? power over the what the the tax collector Well, maybe we might say the tax collectors and evil spirits. I mean we might have that kind of attitude taxes But there really wasn't the focus was it? No, it was against the evil spirits That sounds kind of like dark, doesn't it? Yeah, sure does. Go to Romans 1 16. Romans 1 16. Paul says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the Power. It's the power. The gospel is the power. Now Jesus said, ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost come upon you. So that tells me that the power of the Holy Ghost is there. So the gospel goes out, because the gospel is the power. It's the power of God unto salvation. To everyone that believes, he says. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 4. And Paul writes and he says, because he's talking about his coming and his preaching, et cetera. He says, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye were gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, our power. Ephesians chapter six and verse 12. Well, let me read verse 11 and 12 because that's important. It says, put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. We're supposed to be on the offense, aren't we? Okay. We're not on the retreat. We're on the offense. We're taking the fight to the devil. That's what he's talking about here. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rules of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. If there is a day that's a wicked evil day, it's Halloween. That's a wicked evil day in its roots. Now, I don't think every event that takes place on Halloween is wicked and evil because people are just doing, they're looking for an excuse to get together and do their thing, okay? Whether it's Halloween or it's Groundhog Day or it's the fourth Tuesday of the six months, you know, whatever. People are gonna look for an excuse and a reason to do what they want to do. But we're trying to make, we're trying to put a dent in the darkness OK. One more. Second Timothy. One. And verse. Seven. And. This is my mom's favorite verse. Says For God has given us the spirit of. Fear. But of. Power. of power. Power. And of love and of a sound mind. So that's the Holy Spirit who enables us. He's the power that enables us to do what we're supposed to do. So now let's move from that. If God gave a promise And that promise is power, and it's the power of the Spirit. So there's the promise of the Spirit, there's the power of the Spirit, there's a program we're supposed to fulfill through the Spirit, okay? The program. John 16, 14, it says, he shall glorify me, this is the Spirit of God, because he talked about sending a comforter. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. So what is the focus of the Holy Spirit? What is his focus? What is the thing he's going to elevate and highlight? Jesus. He's come to do, he's come to guide us into all truth, to remind you of all things that I've spoken to you. You can go back and read through that passage of John and kind of pick those things out. The Holy Spirit's come with a purpose. And he's focusing on Christ. Well, what is Christ's focus? Luke 19 10, there's a passage we could probably quote. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. So the focus of Christ is the gospel. So if Christ is focusing on the gospel and the Holy Spirit's come to enable us, give us power so that we can focus on Christ by default, then we're gonna have to focus on the gospel, aren't we? We're gonna have to do that. And sometimes that takes some creativity on our part to figure out how we should do that in a certain setting, in a certain place, et cetera. Not everything works the same in every place, generally speaking. The gospel always works, but the delivery method may be slightly altered based on where I'm at. I'm sure the way things happen down in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico when Brother Earl's trying to, you know, he's trying to reach the Mayans, And that was like a closed, he couldn't break through until the Lord opened the door of medical missions and now thousands of people have been saved. And many, many, many, many churches have been started because that was the key to open the door to reach those people. And so that's the method that's working there. So we have to kind of be creative. The gift of the Spirit is to accomplish the will of the Savior. That's why he gave us the Holy Spirit. He didn't give the Holy Spirit so I can be warm and fuzzy. It's not so we can have a Barney moment, you know. You know, I love you and you love me and we're as happy as can be. You know, big giant purple dinosaurs and unicorns and stuff. That's not why he gave the Holy Spirit. If I can be kind of blunt, the Holy Spirit is weapons against an enemy. He's the power. He's the one that enables me to accomplish what he wants to do. And what he wants to do is he wants the gospel to go out. And he shall receive power. When I get the powers, we're gonna be witnesses. Well, am I willing to be a witness and am I able? Those two kind of go together. I've been enabled through the Holy Spirit, but I'm not able until I'm willing to step into that role. So, what does this have to do with drunk retreat? You know, as Renelle asked me that question, which is very valid to ask, I've been thinking about that all day. I'm like, you know, too many times Halloween comes and as a Christian, because of its evilness, I retreat. And if I'm not giving candy and tracts at my door, I'm turning the light off. So I don't have to do that. Because of the offensiveness of its evil roots. And I get it. I get that. I do. I guess maybe I'm tired of retreating. Here's a strong day for the dark. And it's time for us to not retreat. But to go on the offense. Dean was telling me afterwards about a church in Kentucky, maybe? Yeah, that they were in. And they thought, well, let's try that, because kids are out and about. Let's see if we can give them the gospel. And it developed to the point where, would you say thousands of kids came? No, there's a big, big church in a big, big city. okay so I'm not anticipating thousands of kids but yeah but it started out with a simple trunk or treat like what we're going to try to do and it developed into an event a gospel event where the kids came to the church yes they got candy but they got preached at to receive the gospel not just in a track like we're going to hand out but an actual preaching event. And it became like a regular huge event. That the gospel, the light was shining out into the darkness of that place. And so... Now, will it work here? I don't know. But we won't know till we try. Yeah, they do a lot of events like that. Now, they're a little different than us. Whatever, I'm not bashing that, I'm just... There's more kids in this city than would go to one place. Can we say, you know what? We're not gonna hide from this darkness. We're gonna have a bold, powerful illumination of the gospel. Kids are gonna be out and about. The reason they're out and about is Halloween. Okay, I get it. So I'm gonna use the devil's game against him in that setting without compromise. We're not dressing up like, you know, it's not Frankenstein the preacher. It's not, you know, Dracula the gospel singer. We're not the Grinch, okay? We're using the Word of God, okay? So, Pastor, why are you pushing this so hard? I'm challenging you. Do you want the light of the gospel to go out in our community? Okay, then let's, When you get ambushed, you attack the ambush, right? You don't run from the ambush. You face it and you go after it. And that's what this is. This is an offensive move. This is an evangelistic offense against the dark. And if we take that seriously, I think we can have Kirk's where he's at right now. I'm not sure how many people have signed up for a trunk or treat part to play. But I do think we could have more than six. Yeah boy. You could. There's a lot of stuff in the Bible. You know we can. You don't even have to dress up if you don't want to. I don't care if you dress up. But we can be ready. And kids say, that was cool. We went to First Baptist and man, did we get a ton of candy. And yeah, that's what's gonna draw them. I get it. Just like Anchor Club. You know what draws kids to Anchor Club? Games. Games. And every church that has Anchor Club that I've gone and helped and trained them say, listen, I didn't write the program so you can invite unsaved kids to a discipleship lesson. They're not gonna come. But your clubbers are gonna like, man, we had this cool game, it was a lot of fun. Come to Anchor Club, we have a great time. Boom, that's the draw card. Okay, that's the draw card. And so I get it, the candy is the draw card. But the treat is the gospel. And we have a chance. Very rarely will they come to us automatically, voluntarily. So the rest of the year we have to figure out creative ways to go get them. to contact them. But we can plan this so that kids come to us. And it could be, it could be we get say a dozen little stations and And I'm just gonna throw names out so don't get upset at me. I'm just, potentials, okay? And yet as they work through the stations, the last place they stop is at JD, the Sunday school superintendent, and he gets names and addresses. How many families can we touch? Every child that comes has parents. Potentially siblings. younger or older, there's the potential to touch a lot of families. And they're going to come to us because we're going to advertise, hey, free candy. They're going to be like, oh, sweet, let's go get some free candy. Mom and dad's going to be like, well, that's awesome. We can get and go right home. Sweet. You know. Or we can retreat and hide from the dark and not do anything. You can eat the candy by yourself and then go to the dentist Okay Now I get it and not everybody will want to do it I understand I understand and especially because it's Halloween I get all I really I get it all I get it. I'm just tired of retreating into the dark Let's advance Let's go on the offense for the gospel. I Okay, great opportunity. Anyways, you say, oh, that was an ear-bending, okay, blame Renaud. Yeah, it's his fault. Now, just, yeah, he's not here, he's over there. But just, I'm not trying to throw Ronell under the bus. Ronell was not challenging me in any fashion, he just wanted clarity. And I appreciate that. But his simple question made me think about this all day long. It's like, hmm, hmm. Because there's things that we are not gonna do because I'm not gonna get compromised. But if we can dress up as Bible characters and give kids free candy and gospel tracts, when they're gonna go out looking for candy anyways? Hey, that goes with Noah. That goes with Noah. He had the animals on the ark, okay? Great. So, I thought, Rick, you should dress up like a police officer. That's Romans 13, right? Anyways. OK. You. I just want to share. I want to share my heart. I wanted you to have clarity of your running. Why is Pastor doing this Halloween thing. To me it is not a Halloween thing. This is an anti Halloween thing. This is an evangelistic offense offense against the darkness of Halloween with the light of Christ. OK. That's my motivation. So, if the Lord gives you the freedom and direction to be a part of that, great. Okay? Amen. Father, we thank you for this day and your love for us and the privilege to be here tonight. And I do ask you to help us. We don't want to just have an event where we give candy and that's it. Well, we want to see fruit, families reached, the darkness driven back. Would you help us with that, please? And I pray you might bless now as we think of our missionary coming on Sunday and time we spend in the Word of God together worshiping and Would you work in our lives for your glory? Bless now, please, in Jesus' name. Amen.