Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 170 | Is It OK to Celebrate Halloween? | Guest: Lisa Simmons

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

Discussing how Christians should, or shouldn't, celebrate Halloween. Joined by a very special guest: my mom! 

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. I hope everyone has had a great week so far. It is October, which means that Halloween is just around the corner. So I am going to address a topic that many of you have asked me to talk about. And that is, should Christian celebrate Halloween or how. should we celebrate Halloween if we do? I am going to talk to a very special guest and that is my mother. I think that she did a really great job growing up of showing us how to celebrate things in a godly way. So she's got some insight for us today. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're

moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity and reality itself. on the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts.

I hope you'll join us. Okay, now I am going to talk to my lovely mother about Halloween. So a lot of people have asked me to talk about how I was raised. They've asked me a lot about my parents. They've asked me to interview my parents. And so now I am giving you what you have asked for since your wish is always my command. So mother, could you tell everyone a little bit about who you are, what you do, what you like, to do while you're here? Well, I'm Ali's mom mostly and I have two other children and four four grandkids now so yeah two additions this summer so it's kind of hard to keep count. Yeah, I was a school teacher you know long time ago and I've homeschooled I've done you know I've kind of stayed a teacher I'm just kind of a teacher at heart yes so yeah yeah and a lot of have asked me because I think I mentioned once on the podcast that one thing that I'm so appreciative of because my grandmother was also a teacher. My mom, like she said, as a teacher, and both of them

were at home a lot with me when I was little. And so they took a lot of time to teach me things, to teach me especially how to read and how to write and how to memorize things. And I've gotten questions about that when I've mentioned it on the podcast. So just before we get into the Halloween conversation, which we are going to get into, for the moms that are wonderful, Okay, how do I make sure that my child is a good communicator? What are some things that you did with us when we were little? Well, of course, the biggest thing is to talk to your kids and to read to them. I mean, it's really that simple.

Like even when they're infants or? From the get-go. I mean, I read books to all of you when you were just tiny infants. There was no way you couldn't even hold your head up. Yeah. I was reading to you. Kids books or just any books? books mostly and little words you know and things especially that rhyme because it's very important

and people don't really understand this that there's a rhythm to reading yeah and when you teach your kids to read even mother goose yeah and just little things that rhyme they pick it up easier that's why songs you know kids songs are so popular yeah they learn that quicker so reason why we sing the ABCs rather than say the ABCs. So if you read books that rhyme, they begin to pick up and that also makes them a good reader because it's important as you're reading not to just read like a robot and they get more out of it when they're reading in an energetic way and a fun way. Yeah, I think that does help.

And you kind of had me memorize books and not just the alphabet, but also the words that corresponded with the letters in the alphabet. And I do think, I mean, I don't know that much about teaching your kids or I've never been a teacher either, but it seems from my own distant memory that making those kinds of connections, especially like you said with songs, helps you not just with, okay, memorizing things, but having some kind of comprehension and being able to repeat it in a meaningful way. So I think that's what you and dad and grandma, did growing up and then also I would say we had like a close relationship growing up you also just had conversations with me yes I think yeah and I think that's important that um I'm not against

baby talk I mean I talk baby talk to your daughter and my other grandkids and all that but it's also important to talk to them like a person and to have conversations on their level of course but to not be afraid to use big words and then helping them to understand the context of how that happens. And it's amazing how quickly you and other kids and learn that way just by having conversations. It's just so important to just talk. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think sometimes we think that, oh, well, kids don't understand. And so it's not, we don't really need to talk to them about stuff. but I guess that really is how we learn. It is amazing, just how quickly kids pick up. I mean, obviously my daughter is only 13 weeks old, but you can tell already they start having some kind of emotional or natural reaction to certain things that you say.

It's just amazing to watch their minds kind of develop. Okay, we're going to talk about Halloween. Thank you for dressing in Halloween-themed clothing. That's very important for this podcast. I always get very dressed up, as you can tell. and this is a topic that I think is a little bit controversial. There are a lot of different views on it, and I think that there are a lot of different biblically valid views on it that can differ.

That's not true with every single subject, not everything is relative, but with something like Halloween, there are a lot of different ways that people approach something like this. But from your perspective, and you can start wherever you want to, from how Halloween started and all of that, from your perspective, how can Christians think about this in a way that is God honoring? Well, you know, there's a whole history of Halloween, beginning with the Celtics and starting, you know, back in the... It was like all-Hallows Eve.

Yeah, and they were really celebrating the harvest, but they didn't know who God was. They weren't Christians, you know, at this point. It was when the Catholic Church came in and kind of mixed those two, that it began to take a little more of a turn toward what we know now as Halloween. And so there were, yes, a lot of satanic rituals that we would associate with the original Halloween celebrations.

And there probably still is some. There is. There are people that are with the occults. The Wiccans and things like that, yes, they, they. take this opportunity to just to celebrate evil. And, and that's very true. I grew up, you know, the traditional trick-or-treating, dressing up in every kind of costume that there was. And so I didn't really think about it when I was growing up. And no one ever said to me, oh, you shouldn't do that. And we were church-going, you know, Christians. So that was an issue.

It was only when I had children and that it started, I heard just sort of this rumbling among moms, oh, should we really be dressing up and celebrating. So you hadn't really thought about it. I had not thought about it. Yeah. And so I took the tactic, okay, well, maybe we just won't dress in evil, you know, costumes. And that's what I remember. Yeah, that we'll just dress in fun costumes.

I mean, my favorite costume for you was Lambchop. Oh, yes. That's another thing. She's very creative and crafty. She made my Lamb Chop costume. Now, there are people listening to this podcast that are too young to know what Lambshop is, which makes me feel very old. Yes, Lamb Chop was a little puppet that she loved and she just loved it. So she was probably about two years old and I got a white sweatsuit and glued. I mean, literally, this is how creative I am. I glued felt red buttons on it and got a little hat and put eyelashes on it. And that was... That is pretty great.

If I can find the picture, the picture is somewhere in your house. Maybe I'll post it on Instagram. Yeah. Anyway, that was my favorite, my favorite one. So not scary stuff. Tried to do not scary stuff. I do now looking back, I saw some pictures like I think Justin was a vampire one year. Oh, yeah.

So would you do that? Would you now, knowing what you know, would you still... allow your kids to dress as a vampire or witch or something? I would not. You know, I just don't see any point in sort of glorifying evil or scary. Even if it's make-boys. Yeah, why do that? I mean, there's just no point. It's fun to dress up. Kids don't know the difference. If they're dressing up as a ballerina or a doctor, they think it's fun. So why don't just do something fun? So for years, I really, decorated for fall. I didn't do really the Halloween, you know, black cats and witches and that kind of stuff. And it was really when you were little, probably when you were five or six years old.

And Allie was always my, let's have a party person. So everybody else's houses were decorated with the traditional Halloween. And, um, I think you let me put spiderwebs up once. You said, mom, can't we just have a black cat? I was trying to explain to you why we didn't do that. Yeah, she never decorated for Halloween. I think her grandma finally bought you like a little statue with a little witch and a black cat, and I'll let you have it. So anyway, it was, you know, I just was always torn because I didn't want to be, you know, that.

Fuddy-duddy. Yeah, it was fuddy-duddy, yeah, just a stick in the mud about it. But I just didn't want to glorify something that shouldn't be glorified. So probably when you were about 13. I was sitting in church one Sunday and the pastor started preaching from Ezekiel. And the verse he said was, oh, dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord. Now, I'm sure I'd heard that verse hundreds of times before. It never hit me.

But that Sunday, it was like this huge light bulb went off like, I could use that for Halloween. Yeah. And so I went home, literally went to the home improvement store, got some cloth like drop cloth that you use for paint and came home and drew that on this drop cloth decorated it and fun Halloween colors and put some skeletons you know out beside it and that was my Halloween thing and then I was like I got so excited I went and made another one with jackal lanterns and you know said like let your light shine yeah let your light so shine and so shine and so I put those were my only two that year and in that at that time the neighborhood we lived in

we would have at least 300 trick-or-treaters yeah it was like constant it was constant you i every year i would run out of candy i would think i have enough and i never had enough and um so and the reason i knew that there were about 300 is because i made up about 300 of these little tracks just on construction paper about a pumpkin and how we are like a pumpkin, how God comes in and scoops out the yucky stuff and puts a light inside of us, you know, very simple. Yeah. And I would put those in with the candy. So I made up the first year, I made up 300 of those thinking, you know, I'll have enough

for two or three years. No, I ran out. So I know that we- So did you type up those little cards? I did. I typed them up and printed them on orange and like so basically shared the gospel in a kid friendly way and it was yeah tiny little thing and I put a couple of scriptures on it only had one child give it back to me and that was because she was not of the Christian faith so and I thought it was very polite of her and you know she wasn't rude about it she just you know said thank you very much and she handed it back So mostly the parents loved it.

They did? So what were some of the responses that you got? Parents would come to me, you know, when their kids, they would go, I love your signs. Because then, of course, each year I would add a different kind of sign. So you had just so everyone can get a picture. Out front in front of your house, you had the sign like, oh, dry bones. Here are you the Word of the Lord with the skeletons on it that you made. And then you would also have the like let your light so shine with the pump.

pumpkins on it. And so you would take Bible verses and not not you're not changing them. No. You're just kind of decorating around. You're attaching it to a traditional a traditional Halloween decoration and then but putting a Christian message with it. Yeah. And I started calling it Holying. Now I realized that hallow means holy. Yeah. So it's not like I changed it. But people don't really think about that. Yeah. Yeah. We don't really use the. word hallow that much so I want it sounds now I think of it as scary yes yes and so holy to me just said the what I wanted people to see so I painted a banner that of Jesus and you know the the traditional Jesus

and the children coming to him picture that we see well I painted the kids coming in costume and so let the children come to me. And, you know, that was one of the banners. Then I did a Charlie Brown one, you know, about Walk as Children of Light. And I did that one. So it was becoming, people were starting to want one of these banners. And I was like, I can't paint everybody a banner, you know, and I was trying to get them to, you go paint it. You know, I'm not an artist at all. And you can tell from some of the banners. They're really bad. You were just doing this for fun at your own house. You weren't like, oh, these are professional. I'm not trying. No, not at all. But,

but parents would come to me, where did you get your signs or can you make me a sign? They just like the idea so much. They probably didn't care that it wasn't perfect. And literally when, and I started do it for other holidays as well. And when we moved, somebody who I did not know, walked up to my door, rang the doorbell and said, are the new owners going to do the banners? Oh. So I felt so bad. But anyway, I did find an online company that I can create vinyl banners. I've sold a few of those. I'm not trying to go into the vinyl banner business.

You can go on the same website and make your own. They have some just really stock vinyl banners that you can add your own pictures to and your own words. It's very simple. So I encourage people to do that. And I've also done T-shirts and the little baby things. Oh, yes. This is a little onesie that she gave me. It's cute. Let your light.

So shine. Matthew 516. It's super cute. Yeah, there are all kinds of ways I think that you can redeem things like this. Although I do understand, it's kind of like I was talking, someone asked me a couple weeks ago about Christians in alcohol. And obviously you don't drink.

There are a lot of Christians that don't drink. And I've always said that is a totally viable, valid option. maybe that's the best and the wisest option. But it is, there is a way to responsibly drink as a Christian. The Bible warns against drunkenness and filling yourself with wine for that as debauchy, as Ephesian says, but there is a way to responsibly drink as long as you are keeping those things in mind as well as keeping in mind the faith and the struggles of the people around you.

And I think it can be similarly said of Halloween, that if someone feels like they can't celebrate Halloween at all. that it's strictly pagan, it's strictly satanic, there is no part for a Christian to play in it. I think that's okay. And I know I mentioned earlier, oh, you don't want to be a fuddy-duddy. I don't want to imply the people who don't celebrate Halloween are that way. There are valid reasons. But I also think it can be valid to redeem it as much as you can and use it to share the gospel.

And I think you don't have to decorate. You can do, like I still just decorate with really fall things and now my banners. but I think you could just have a cookout at your house. Our church does a thing called Light the Night. And they just encourage people, we don't have a fall festival anymore. We used to have this gigantic fall festival. And now they just encourage people to stay home and have a cookout in your front yard or your backyard or invite your neighbors and just do fun stuff like that to encourage people to, one, get to know each other. We don't really know our neighbors anymore.

And just to, if you can, share the gospel. And I just think, what other night or day at the year do people come knock on your door? Are you having strangers? Yeah. And you open the door without, you know, hesitancy. Yeah, yeah. And then, and they're asking for something. And you can give them what you want.

Yeah. And they'll take it. Yeah. Now, you don't necessarily know what they do with. it but you can't control it happens after that after that you don't know but from my experience people came back year after year I love your house not yeah not my house but what we did with our house yeah coming to your house I love that you do this and I would always say think go do it yeah yeah it's it's fun I love thinking of you know

scripture in a different way and how can I share this and in a way that's not um a scary or like I'm coming at you with a, you know, giant Bible or something. And I, like I said, I've really never had anybody. I've had more people say, I love this. I love what you're doing than any kind of negative. Well, they don't have to take it. They can throw it away when they get home if they want to. I'm not following up with them the next day.

Did you read that that I put in your trick-or-treat bag? Yeah. I think that you make a really good point. A lot of people think of Christians is going door-to-door knocking on their door and saying, do you know Jesus? Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but now the rules are reversed. People are coming up to you knocking on your door and saying, what do you have for me? And there's no reason for a Christian, yes, you can give candy too, but there's no reason, yeah, there's no reason whatsoever for a Christian not to give something

that's actually going to give sustenance forever. Yes, eternal. Eternal sustenance. And I think so many times Christians, we're just afraid, we're afraid that we're going to offend someone. We just want people to think that we're nice. We want people to know that we're not the bigot kind of Christian. Like we're not the mean kind of Christian. And so, unfortunately, a lot of people use that as an excuse to not talk about Christianity. To just blend it. Yes, to just blend it.

And to not share the gospel, I'm just going to share candy. And maybe if I'm really nice to them, they'll see the love of Jesus in me. But I think more times than not, and especially from what you said from your experience, people like not only the kindness, but they're looking for truth. And maybe they're looking for light in a night that they feel like it's dark. Don't you think as a young mom when you were conflicted about whether this is good or bad if someone had reached out to you and shown you some sign of redemption in Halloween, you would have felt, I don't know, comforted by that? Oh yeah, absolutely. I, you know, I was trying to figure it out on my own. Of course, there was no internet to go look at or look up

answers or in a chat room or any of that. You know, there was nothing. So, you just kind of did what other people did and tried to figure it out. And this, you know, I'm sad that it came so late and you didn't get to really experience it since you were already a teenager. If you want to without the Lamb Chop costume, I'll try to see if I can wear it again this year. I'll go trick-or-treating just for you. I'll save it for baby girl. Yeah. Yeah.

I do think it's important, though, for Christians to stay away. from the glorification of evil and the satanic and things like that. And to stay on the light and right side of it as much as they possibly can. Because I quote Ephesians all the time, but I was thinking about a verse the other day that convicted me that it was talking about the fruits of darkness and the people of darkness. And it says, God through Paul says, it's shameful to even speak of the things that they do in secret.

But the fruit of light is everything that is good and right. and true walk is children of light, which is one of the verses that you have used. And that's so convicting to me, how often do we just kind of like toe the line in the evil works of darkness? Like we talk about it. We might even be fascinated by it. We might play with it a little bit on something like Halloween. But I don't think Halloween is an excuse for Christians to all of a sudden be like,

yeah, the darkness and evil is okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think it's just some of the. verses that I've used of the years I've mentioned the Ezekiel one, which is Ezekiel 374, O dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord. Psalm 139.14, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

And the banner that I did with that was just one of children dressed in Halloween costumes. You know, great message. And it's just, you know, it still has a Halloween theme, but I'm getting a message out there through that verse. The one you mentioned, Matthew 516, Let Your Light So Shine, Ephesians 58, Walk is Children of Light. This one was a little out there. And this is for verses that you can use for banners and things like that.

Or just to think about. Yeah. And I just found, you know, really easy to attach a verse with that. This one was a little bit out there. I had just read Mark Batterson. I think it was grave robber book at the time. So I thought, oh, grave robber, how can I do that? And so I came with 1st Corinthians 1555

that death has no power over us. There's no sting in death. And so I found a traditional Halloween graveyard picture, put it on a banner, and put ultimate grave robber with that verse. So most people don't really get it. that one but I still like it. Oh I like that. There's definitely something you can do with tomb and grave. Yes. Yeah and you know what if nothing else it gets people to go look for that

verse. Yeah. Maybe they'll go read it and go oh I never thought about that. Well if we believe that the word of God is powerful and sufficient and certainly that the Holy Spirit works as another thing that you could use. Holy Ghost. Yes. Holy Spirit. And that's kind of that's one that's sort of been around for a long time. I'm sure people have seen no one lives here. No ghost lives here, but the Holy Ghost or something like that, you know, and that's been around for a long time. And then the Matthew 1914, let the children come to me and having, you know, a Jesus thing. I haven't really found a vinyl banner option for that one yet. So still working on that one. Genesis 121, God created every living creature. And that one, I did spiders and cats and bats and, you know,

which are all living creatures that God made, and then just put that verse with it. And they also happen to be Halloween items. That's cute. And then Romans 1013, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I used an owl for the who, you know. Oh, okay.

Yeah. I know, that's a little out there too. No, she's very creative. Very creative. So anyway, those are just some fun ones. And every year I try to, think of a new way to use a verse and so anyway so for for moms that maybe are where you were and maybe where I'll be in a few years of okay they're not creative they're not crafty they can't do

this stuff or maybe they feel like they don't have time to do this stuff what are some other ways that moms can kind of feel like they are celebrating this in a glorifying way or what are some ways they can talk to their own kids about it. Yeah. Well, I just think, one, you don't have to go, we don't do that. We do this. Like we're better than some other people who maybe celebrate in a different way. Because you don't want to ever, one, make your kids feel like they're better than everybody else.

But you also don't want to make them feel ostracized. Like, we are so different that, you know, we are not, you know, we're in the world, not of the world. and we get all hung up in that. But I think you can explain what fall is and how fun, how God created the fall season and we celebrate things in lots of different ways. We have Thanksgiving in the fall and Halloween. And that's a day, you know, this is a day the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice from Psalm 118. And so don't let it be a day. that Satan has taken over. These are all days that God has made. And I think you emphasize that to your kids. And just, you know, you don't have to make a big deal about we don't do this. We only do this. Yeah.

It's kind of this is who we are as a family. This is what we believe. This is what our heart is surrounding this. Now, I do think I could imagine that there could be some points of clarification that might be needed for older kids or it depends on what age they are for okay can people really like rise from the dead to skeletons really rise from the dead are they're really witches or they're really vampires um and they might have questions about that and i do think it's important for one for parents to know the answers to those things theologically to know what the bible says about those things you can

even if you want to get really in depth you can talk to your kids about the resurrection of the bodies that's going to happen and the difference between that and skeletons walking around today and zombies and all that kind of stuff. I know at some point maybe that can be easy for older kids to be able to compartmentalize. They know witches aren't real and it's not a big deal to them. But it might also be important for parents to have those conversations with kids that, okay, you might see some people celebrating this kind of stuff. But here's what the Bible, here's what the Bible says about this. And you don't need to be scared because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. You're going to see a bunch of scary stuff

tonight you don't have anything to worry about because the god of the universe is protecting you. I think that's all so important because kids can, even if you celebrate it in the right way, kids can get scared. They see stuff on TV. They have a friend or a cousin who told them a scary story. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like anything with your kids. You don't talk to your two-year-old in the same way you would talk to your eight or 10-year-old about any subject. So you do the same thing with Halloween. You know, you have fun with it in an appropriate way that you feel is right for your family. You use as much biblical background as you can. And use it to share the gospel. That's the most fun thing to me is that I even got to where I would sit on the front porch. And of course,

we're in Texas. So it's still like 80 degrees at Halloween. And I would sit on the front porch in a rocking chair and I had the skeletons hooked up to the rocking chair so that when I rocked, they danced. And I had Mary Mary playing in the background take the shackles off my feet. Yes. And you had your banner and everything. Yes, and the banner. Yeah. I kind of went maybe a little overboard, maybe, kind of. But it was so fun. It just, it became probably. It was really fun. I mean, I love Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it was just so much fun because Thanksgiving and Christmas. And people aren't really expecting that for Halloween. They're not. And it just lit up my life, you know, for to do that.

And to see people probably like surprise reactions. They're just not used to seeing things like that. Okay, tell us about the Holy Ween Acrostics. So mom's dads can remember, okay, this is how Christians, this is a good way for Christians to think of Halloween. Yeah. So I just kind of did H as the history of Halloween. If you want to teach your kids kind of where Halloween started and go back to the Celtics and the Catholics. It's, you know, pretty easy to look that up on Wikipedia. So H is history. History, but also to change hallow to holy. And, you know, that's just, it's, I guess, semantics a little bit, but holy is more understandable, I think, to kids and to most people than hallow. O is you're opening doors to strangers.

You don't do that any other time of the year, probably. You're very careful. You're looking through the peephole. You're not answering the door because you don't know who it is. But on Halloween, you open your door. And for L, it's a good way to love your neighbors. You know, if you're going to have a cookout and you're just trying to get to know your neighbors, that's a great way to show love to them.

The Y is, of course, young children. teaching young children about the gospel, the younger they get exposed to that, the more likely they are to believe that later on in life. Studies show that past the age of 13, it gets harder and harder to share the gospel and for them to want to have that in their lives. They've gotten a lot of other influences at that point. Exactly. And they're going to get a lot more through college. So the W is the Word of God. And just using the Word of God like that, it's amazing.

The Word of God is alive. And it touches people. It can surprise you. It touches people in ways that you had no idea that it was going to do that. Which reminds you, I love when that happens, when you share a verse or you talk about a verse, and someone get something out of it that you didn't even think of. It's just a reminder that it's really the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit.

We're just ambassadors, messengers. Exactly. We proclaim truth and the Holy Spirit has it. And I think that that's true. That's a... Yeah. And so we try to get all fancy and, you know, share the gospel and we do all these procedures that we go through. And really, it's sharing the word.

Yeah. And so that's pretty easy. Yeah. So E, everyone gets something for free. and you know that's that's just an example of God's love and grace that his grace is free salvation is free it's to anybody who asks for it not cheap but free because and like candy it costs you something yes it costs you something but the person you gave it to it costs nothing and obviously we know that salvation costs the cost of God's only son Jesus but for us it was free

so that means it's not cheap yeah and they're they're at your door knocking and you just open it and give it to him. I love that. The other E is eternity. You may be affecting someone's eternal destiny by sharing the gospel this one time. You don't know that that five-year-old that sees your heart during this time of year,

you don't know what he's going home to, but that little seed may have been planted. You just don't know? So why not do it? you know, if there's a chance. The parents are, that's a huge, you know, children lead their parents to the Lord a lot of times. Because what if that child now ask his mom, well, who is Jesus? Or what is that lady talking about, you know, eternal life?

What does that mean? And then it makes their parents who may have gone to church when they were children and then as adults they stopped, it may get them to thinking, maybe we need to, you know, go back to church. Yeah. So. And then in is new. You know, you're starting something new in your neighborhood.

And I mentioned before our church does like the night where somebody in the neighborhood has a cookout or just a get together. And you're being the bearer of good news. And that's so rare in our day. We hear so much bad news. And you also fake news. We hear the term fake news all that. the time. And this is the least fake news you'll ever hear. This is the truth. Yeah. This is probably the

only truth that matters. The ultimate truth and the source of all truth, the beginning and the end of all truth too. That's right. And so, you know, Satan wants us to believe that it's, that God's word is the fake news. You know, he's been saying this from the garden. He's been saying, did God really say? You know, he got Eve to doubt. And so that's the fake news that we have. But God said God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes. It's for everybody.

And so don't believe the lie. Believe the truth. And so I can... That is the new good news that we are giving people. and also new in the sense that this could be a new tradition that you start for your family. Like my mom was saying, like one of her goals is not, it wasn't to sell banners, but to get other people to use this as a mode of redemption and to share the gospel and to love your neighbor and to be hospitable to those around you. This is such a rare opportunity that all of us have. And that's me included.

I don't think that I've thought about it necessarily in this way. I think just now that I have a child, I'm starting to think about it. I haven't celebrated Halloween in a long time. But now I am starting to think about that. And she's right, what an opportunity that we have. So this could be something that you start with your family. You could find your own verses, your own pictures. Maybe you are an artist.

Maybe you're not, maybe you're like me and you're not an artist at all. But there's a way that you can share this message of truth with those around you. Yep. Anything else you want to add? No. I think I can, I'll share, you know, and you can share on your different social media outlets. Yeah, I'll show you how she does it and the banners that she's made before. Yeah, and the pumpkin story, you know, you can share that.

And yeah, just go out and have fun. Yeah, okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for listening. I will see you back here on Monday. I think on Monday you can tell me what you think about this. We will talk about biblical forgiveness. This is a question that a lot of you guys have asked me.

There was a recent murder case in Dallas surrounding this particular issue, and a lot of you guys have asked me to address it. So I think that's what we're going to talk about on Monday. And I will see you guys back here then. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity,

and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives, and we don't. and offer false comfort, we ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV

or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.