Halloween always gets dark because you and I sat back while our culture surrendered to demons.
The supernatural is real, and there are two sides to the war. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you’re caught in the middle, and you’re surrounded by products of fear. Because Satan wants you chained to lazy bitterness.
Thankfully, some Christians are waking up, but their response is too harsh.
I saw a clip of Allie Beth Stuckey arguing that Christians shouldn’t watch horror movies because they trap us in fear, and as Christians, we’re taught not to be afraid.
There’s some truth to what she said. Fear can be deadly.
But she overlooks a critical fact. Darkness, whether at Halloween, in horror movies, or anywhere else, serves as a reminder of the spiritual battle raging around us. When properly understood, even fictional depictions of evil can strengthen Christian faith because they remind you you’re in the middle of a war you don’t get to sit out.
All month long, I’ve shared 2 dozen miracle stories showing how the light continues to fight the darkness. Today, I want to explain why the darkness bears purpose.
It’s easy to think darkness is the problem, but the real problem is that you’ve given up hope.
When Horror Had Hope
There was a time when horror movies and stories and imagery understood good and evil. No matter how terrifying the monster, how powerful the demon, or how hopeless the turmoil, the heroes would prevail. The main characters would face some monstrous evil, fight tooth and nail, give everything they had to defeat it. Some failed. Some died. But as long as someone stood against the darkness, evil had an enemy and could and would be decimated.
Around 2008, that changed. Western culture drifted far away from its Christian foundations. Philosophical naturalism and other secular ideologies (postmodernism, Marxism, etc.) gained greater influence in entertainment, education, public life, and government. Hollywood especially.
Christianity, once a major influence on Western storytelling and morality, increasingly became something to balk at, ridicule, dismiss, and/or exclude. And as the Christian worldview lost cultural influence, stories about evil began reflecting a different portrayal of reality.
Without ultimate justice
Without a Redeemer
Without hope
And what was told in fiction soon became recognized in real life as an unbeatable foe.
When Evil Became Unbeatable
As cameras improved and became commonplace, stories of paranormal encounters spread across TV and the internet. Ghost hunters, mediums, occultists, and paranormal investigators attempt now to explain strange occurrences through spiritual worldviews disconnected from Christianity.
Humanity still wants answers about the unseen world, yet they search everywhere and everything except in and around Christ.
A hopeless form of horror likewise lurched forward like a ravenous beast. Main characters encounter a terrifying spiritual entity or seemingly unkillable force. Fight, run, hide, and sacrifice. Same schtick as before. Only this time, the main character(s) always lose.
Used to be just the rare Jason Voorhees, the Michael Myers’s, the Freddy Krugers, the walking dead, but now it’s any demon, any undead, any killer. An endless onslaught of reviving, thriving evil. Supernatural horror stories where demonic forces manipulate families, destroy innocent lives, and make escape impossible.
No matter how hard they struggle, darkness rises from the grave.
The unending message drilled into your ears, searing your eyes, and gobbling up your brain? Monsters never die. Dragons can never be beaten.
And that message translated from the screen onto the occult hauntings witnessed everywhere by everyone.
Where’s the hope? How are you supposed to confront real darkness in this world when even our fictional heroes seem powerless against evil? If every waking moment holds the possibility of some monstrous force attacking you, and nothing you do will stop it, what’s the point of fighting?
You either resign yourself to self-destruction or make peace with the devils. And that’s precisely where Satan and his globalist rulers want you. Isolated and controlled by fear.
Because surrender to fear keeps you dead…
Surrender to Fear Keeps You Dead
Here’s where I think Allie Beth Stuckey identifies a genuine problem but misses an important distinction. Fear itself isn’t the issue. Even the bravest men and women experience fear, but it didn’t own them.
The real danger begins when fear becomes your master. When you believe the darkness is stronger than the light. When you stop resisting because you’ve convinced yourself resistance is pointless. That’s when you become enslaved.
Scripture warns us against this kind of surrender.
Paul says, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). Power. Love. Self-control.
Not an immunity from fear. The spiritual strength to remain faithful despite whatever threatens us.
Fear indwells as long as you’re human, and it should. Because you have a conscience built in by the Creator that knows the difference between good and evil.
Fear’s the bloodhound that sniffs out the dark.
Even Christ experienced debilitating anguish before His crucifixion. In the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing how terrible the suffering that awaited Him, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
Luke tells us His anguish was so intense He sweated blood. The ground beneath Him a crimson prediction of the cross He soon faced.
Instead of surrendering to fear, He surrendered to the Father, and though the Father didn’t remove the cup of wrath, He strengthened Jesus to endure the torment ahead. Christ then went willingly. Dove upon the destined mission that would strip from us humans the punishment we deserve for our rebellion and sin.
Courage is the willingness to do what’s right despite fear.
Faith means knowing Who reigns over the darkness. Jesus conquered Satan and the wrath of darkness through obedience, sacrifice, and resurrection.
John writes, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). And that’s what He did. So why are you living as though Satan is the victor?
Displaced reverence pushes God to the sidelines. We lost the culture because we let fear take the lead when we should’ve told it Who’s in charge, and we never learned our lesson…
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