The Sycamore Church ========== God vs gods: What about Meat and Halloween Pastor Eric Burton Sunday Oct. 25th 2026 ========== Leviticus 10:10, 16-17 Corinthians 8:1, 4–13 God vs. gods The Apostle Paul says we should test the spirits, whether they be of God or not. (1 John 4:1) In order to test the spirits, you have to know about the spirits. Key vs. is Leviticus 10:10: you must distinguish between what is sacred and common, what is ceremonially clean and unclean. Main Question: The question asked in the early church was, is it wrong to eat meat offered to idols? The question in the modern church might be, is it wrong to celebrate Halloween? Both have pagan connections. Today I want to be practical about how we walk out our faith when there are pagan and false rituals happening around us. Do we abstain from festivals because they are connected to witchcraft or paganism? What if someone else thinks it’s wrong? Reality has been defined as any existence that is not dependent on another. The physical world we experience through the senses was created by the one we can’t see. It’s important to know there is a REAL world controlling what we see. I’ve heard people say there is a spirit of fill in the blank. But just think of a spirit as being any influence on the natural world. There is an invisible transfer that occurs when what we do in the natural becomes spiritual. There’s a point when prayer on Earth connects with Heaven. There is a moment when your human efforts become spiritually beneficial. The first ceremonial acts we see to cover up sin were the shedding of blood. Adam and Eve tried to use fig leaves to cover their shame and sin, but God required blood, and so a lamb was sacrificed. Something physical was performed to activate atonement in the spiritual. Sin offerings were physical sacrifices and transactions that had spiritual benefits. Somewhere between the sacrifice being chosen and the sacrifice being offered on the altar, it became something you could see to something that covered your sin. I want us to know there are activities and ceremonies we take part in that affect our spirit. Halloween is coming up this Saturday. It seems harmless enough to us church goers because we’re not involved in actual satanic practices, but you should know it is steeped in demonic overtones. It’s traced back to the Celtic festival “Sow-in,” where fall was ending and winter began. It was the night when the lines between the dead and the living; the spiritual and the earthly became blurred and reduced Many Celts were concerned about the access darker and evil spirits had to influence those in the real world. So they dressed their children as demons to confuse the evil spirits and marked their doors with animal blood to deter unwanted visitors. Halloween simply means "eve of All Saints". Regardless of its origins, Halloween has become synonymous with death, fear, gore, the dead haunting the living, and sensuality. Moses was told to teach the people to distinguish between sacred and common, and what is ceremonially clean and unclean. You have to determine if the you are engaging in glorify God. We read in Leviticus that the priest was to eat the sacrifice. The policy for eating meat was that the animal couldn’t be strangled. Meaning the blood couldn’t remain in it when it was killed. Leviticus 17:10-11 “And if any native Israelite or foreigner living among you eats or drinks blood in any form, I will turn against that person and cut him off from the community of your people, 11 for the life of the body is in its blood. I have given you the blood on the altar to purify you, making you right with the LORD. It is the blood, given in exchange for a life, that makes purification possible. Leviticus 10:17 says the sacrifice was a holy offering. The Lord has given it to you to remove the guilt of the community and to purify the people. The priest ATE a portion of the sacrifice in a sacred place to remove the guilt of the people. Moses asked the priest to partake of what represented their sin to remove their guilt. What began as a physical ceremony turned into spiritual purification. There is power in the blood! It was a shadow of the coming sacrifice of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. Jesus became sin so we could be free from sin. This brings us to our text in Corinthians. The church has a question that goes back to the Old Testament system of sacrifice and worship. Paul helps reconcile this difference by addressing this sacred custom while dismissing the superstition. He divides between weak and strong, culture and acceptance, and knowledge and love. 1. Concerning your question: Can we eat meat offered to idols? It’s a legitimate question, but of all the things you would imagine God could be concerned with, why meat offered to idols? Because meat offered to idols represented the misuse of power, the abuse of others, sexual immorality, and ultimately the drawing away from God. When the early church was including the Gentiles, they only required 4 things: abstain from eating food offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from eating the meat of strangled animals, and consuming blood. 1 Corinthians 10:6-8 was a warning to prevent what happened before It ensures fellowship with your brothers and sisters. The Jews wouldn’t eat meat offered to idols, but the Corinthians would. So in order to be able to eat with Jews, they were asked to abstain from eating meat offered to idols. Sometimes NOT doing something so you can include your brother or sister in fellowship is required. 2. So what does it mean? Pagan and Christian alike know the significance of the blood. Culture continues to glamorize vampires that survive on blood. The Celts allegedly put blood above their door post on Sow-in; eve of hallowed saints in order to ward off evil spirits. But Paul says those idols aren’t really gods. We have one God who made everything. The sacrifices to Him pointed toward Christ who is our ultimate sacrifice. Jesus said eat my body and drink my blood. The Jews put blood over their door post so that the death angel would “Pass-over.” What we do may look silly, but we have a God that hears us and forgives our sins and heals all our diseases. It looks silly in the natural, but as soon as it’s offered up to God, it becomes spiritual. 1 Peter 3:21 And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
