The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of Scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. What do you think of when you think of October 31? Hi, Alex Macfarland here, your personal apologetics professor. Everybody who loves deep biblical truth is going to love this program today.
We're going to talk about October 31, but not exactly just Halloween, although that's a big part of it. I know it's really all Hallow's. Eve, because November one was a church holiday called All Saints Day, but I know for most people they probably think of it in terms of the the costumes and the candy. You know, it pretty is amazing that U.S. consumer spending on Halloween.
They estimate the National Association of Retailers Halloween has reached an all time high of thirteen and a half billion dollars. Yes, b billion, and the previous record about a year or two ago, thirteen point one billion.
So in America, this breaks down to an average of one hundred and fifteen dollars and fourteen cents spent. Per person, listen to this breakdown: billions. It really is amazing. And what's amazing is so many of the people that really get into Halloween are not so much children, but the grownups. You know, cosplay, dressing up like comic book characters.
But this year, four point four billion total will be spent on costumes. And get this, nine hundred and twenty million spent on pet. Costumes, and you know me, I'm a pet lover, big time. But we never did buy a costume for Esther the dog. We didn't.
But nine hundred and twenty million for pet costumes, four point three billion for decorations, and it wasn't like when I was a kid. There were maybe a little cardboard cutout of a jack o' lantern face or something.
Now you know you see it everywhere. People have these big animated Halloween graveyard things. In their front yard, and all of that, of the people. That spend money on Halloween. Seventy-eight percent will spend money on yard decor for Halloween.
Okay, the big one, of course, and dentists everywhere are loving this candy. Four point one billion dollars on candy. Ninety-six percent of everyone who participates in Halloween will buy some candy.
Now, I have to confess, in years past, I've eaten my share of. Candy, and eight tenths of a billion. This is just amazing to me. Just under a billion dollars of the thirteen and a half billion spent on Halloween. Eight tenths of a billion are.
Greeting cards, largely bought at grocery stores. It's just amazing. Everybody's talking about the economy, and things are so expensive. But it doesn't seem that this has diminished the Halloween expenditures here in America. But you know, Halloween has become kind of something it wasn't this way when I was a kid in the late '60s, early '70s.
My sister and I, and the kids in the neighborhood, we did. Halloween. I remember a time or two down on the farm. My mom and dad had a big bonfire, and we invited about fifty kids over. All of my little league baseball team, my sister's girls' softball team, and we were down on the farm.
You know, it's harvest. It's end of summer, and we had a big bonfire. And people wore costumes. We we roasted hot dogs and everything over the fire. Good times, good memories.
But You know now, so many of the costumes are very, very sexual, and there's drunkenness and debauchery among the adults. And you know, not that I ever was that big of a fan of Halloween, but it does seem to have gotten more and more occultic, and more and more basically reflective of the culture that has kind of thrown off moral guardrails. But I wrote an article. That I want to share with you, that is out there on the wire service even now, and and I titled this article "Forget Halloween, Remember the Reformation." Because October thirty one has been a day that really has changed civilization, and I'll talk a little more about that later on. But I want to focus in on a very famous day, October thirty one, fifteen seventeen, five hundred and nine years ago.
Now, this was a day you probably know the story that changed civilization, and I want to make it a challenge for Americans. Twenty twenty-six.
Now, every year, as we said, you know, October thirty-one, millions of Americans participate in Halloween. Adults dress and Occasionally, act like children, billions of dollars spent on candy and make believe. But October 31 really commemorates, you know, something infinitely more consequential than Halloween or cosplay. And what happened on this date really should matter to every freedom-loving American. and And I'll explain.
By the way, if you ever saw the movie Luther. This is a fantastic movie. I would encourage you to watch it with your children. Maybe show it in your church. Show it to your youth group.
The movie came out about twenty years ago. Just Luther. L U. T H E R, and it's the story of the German monk Martin Luther.
Now, Luther challenged the religious establishment of his day, but before we get to that, let's talk about the struggle of his soul, because Luther was just very, very hyper-religious. Very famously, he had gone to Rome and kissed the stairs leading up to the buildings and kissed the toes of the Statue of Saint Peter, and he would flagellate himself and go to confession.
So much, in fact, he wearied the fellow priests and the leaders of the monastery. He would confess, confess, confess, and they were like enough already. Martin Luther, but he was terrified that he was not right with God. He was just under conviction. He felt like he was such a bad sinner, and he would, you know, take whips and beat himself on the back.
How to appease oneself to God? How to inflict enough pain and get right with God, and he didn't have peace in his soul. And then one night he's walking through a storm; it's a lightning storm, and he's terrified. And the movie does such a good job portraying this. He's terrified, and he lays down in kind of the ditch by the side of the road, and he's crying out to God, and he says, "Oh God, please, if you'll spare my life, I'll find you somehow, someway." I've got to get right with you, and so Luther basically locks himself in a room.
You know, in this room in a tower, and he is not going to rest until he has found how to get peace with God.
Well, famously, very famously, Luther is reading the book of of Romans, and he comes across Romans one verse sixteen. Maybe you know this verse. Paul writes, he says, "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.
Of course, Luther also reads in the Old Testament in Habakkuk chapter two, says, 'We're justified by faith, not works.' So he prays. He puts his faith in Jesus. It's euphoric, and he is set free. And he begins to preach the gospel." Throughout Europe.
Well, we're going to take a break. We're going to come back and talk more about the Reformation and why October 31 should matter. Stay tuned. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this.
Christian author and speaker Alex McFarland is an advocate for Christian apologetics, teaching in more than 2,200 churches around the world, schools, and college campuses. Alex is driven by a desire to help people grow in relationship with God. He arms his audiences with the tools they need to defend their faith, while also empowering the unchurched to find out the truth for themselves. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice whose. Speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way.
It's no surprise that CNN, Fox, The Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert. To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event, visit alexmcfarland.com. Then click the speaking tab up at the top. That's alexmcfarland.com, or you can contact us directly by emailing booking. At alexmcfarland.com, he's been called trusted, truthful, and timely.
Welcome back to the Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program, Alex McFarland. Here, your personal apologetics professor.
So honored that you're listening. We're talking about October 31, and there have been a number of things in history that happened on October 31. And I want to remind people of something incredibly significant, very consequential in all of our lives. It's Luther. And before the break, we were talking about Luther and his search for God, and he was just so under conviction, and he would not rest till he got right with Almighty God.
And I was mentioning the great movie Luther that I would encourage you to watch. But Luther, you know, he really is a great example of Jeremiah twenty nine eleven through thirteen. God was speaking to Israel, but these principles really. Apply to anybody because in God's word in Jeremiah twenty nine eleven through thirteen, God says to Israel, but it really it would be applicable for anybody. For I know the thoughts I think towards you, thoughts of good, not of evil, to bring you to an expected end.
And it says you will search and you will seek, and you will find me. When you search with all your heart. And we've talked much about this. If you have read or heard much of my writing or recording, I talk about Blaise Pascal was so moved by this verse.
Well, Luther is an example. He searched with all of his heart. He could not rest until he got right with God, and so he found justification by faith, not works. And of course, in his study, the book of Romans, he came across like Romans four. The imputed righteousness of Christ in Romans five one, therefore.
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, his opposition to selling indulgences, and I'll get to that in just a moment. But salvation by faith, not works, spread throughout Europe, and we're riding on the ripple effect of that to this day.
Now, more about that in a moment. But five hundred nine years ago, October thirty-one, fifteen seventeen, Luther did something that really. Should matter to every freedom-loving American this day. On this day, Martin Luther challenged the religious establishment of that time.
Now he was not running for office; he was not organizing a political movement. He was standing for biblical truth against entrenched institutional power. Let me explain. There were at that time a lot of things. For one, the the Catholic Church, which really kind of owned the Soul of Europe and had for hundreds of years.
It was pretty dead, and I'm not saying you can't hear the gospel in the Roman Catholic Church because we've corresponded with many born again believers that listen to our programming, and some are Catholic. We've even had a couple of Catholic priests come to our conferences and compliment me for the work that we do. And and by the way. By the way, this is going to amaze you. On the the Holy See, the Vatican website, right now, in two different places, it says we are saved by faith.
Not works. We're saved by faith in Jesus. It's pretty amazing, on the Catholic website. But over the centuries, as I think we all know, works have obfuscated the salvation message by faith. But Luther discovered it, and he nailed a document to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, the the very famous Ninety Five Theses, Ninety Five Grievances.
Against the church, now one of his big problems, and rightly so, the sale of indulgences. Say that you had a big weekend of sin, and you go, and the priest says, "Okay, you know, pay this amount of money, and you're absolved, or you're going to go out." And sin, and you could pay it ahead and be absolved of sin, or you could give money to get loved ones' souls out of purgatory. And Luther knew this was not right, and so, having gotten into the Bible, and all the great revivals in history involve a rediscovery of God's word. God's word takes us back to truth. How we personally know God, what God's expectations are for life, and what we need to do to live a holy life, pleasing in the sight of God.
Well, Luther, like people periodically do, by the sovereignty of God, he. Rediscovered Scripture and God's Word, and so it ignited what we now call the Protestant Reformation, and it spread throughout Europe. And really, we are here today as the beneficiaries of His courageous obedience. It transformed not just the church, but eventually the political, educational, and social institutions of entire nations.
Now, with election day approaching, November third, twenty twenty-six, the lessons of Wittenberg could hardly be more timely. This is so significant. I want you to consider the connection.
Now, the Reformation proclaimed that ultimate authority belongs only to God. Not to any earthly institution or kings, church officials, magistrates, governments, even teachers, anyone in a position of leadership is accountable to moral standards beyond themselves. These convictions that they fueled and nourished an idea essential to what would become our constitutional government in America, the foundational idea that no human ruler possesses unlimited authority. Thomas Jefferson would wax eloquent about this. In fact, Jefferson would say, "Disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God." So the Reformation, some of the things as they read the Bible, and one of the great cries of the Reformation was "Sola Scriptura," Scripture alone.
And they they begin to read, and of course there was you know William Tyndale, and he was very responsible for getting the New Testament into English, and he said that he would not rest until every plowboy. In England, had a New Testament in his back pocket, because they believed in something called the perspicuity of Scripture, that the Bible was understandable. That's what perspicuous means, and so as people read the Bible, they came upon precepts and teachings like personhood. This is a foundational biblical principle in a world of kings and peasants. Luther's Reformation brought to the forefront the ideas of both the dignity, and the responsibility, of every individual made in God's image.
So we've got to take a break. We're going to come back and talk more about the connection between October thirty-one and Reformation Day. And voting day in 2026. Stay tuned. I hope you're a truth junkie because we've got more truth when we come back.
Truth to transform our lives and motivate our actions. Don't go away. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Over the last several decades, it's been my joy to travel the world, talking with children, teens, adults, people of all ages, about the questions they have related to God, the Bible, Christianity, and how to know Jesus personally.
Hi, Alex McFarland. I want to make you aware of my book, The Twenty-One Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. You know, we interviewed. Hundreds of children and parents and families to find out the questions that children and people of all ages are longing to find answers for. In the book, we've got practical, biblical, real-life answers that they have about how to be a Christian in this modern world.
My book, "The Twenty-One Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask," you can find it wherever you buy books or at resources.afa.net. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program. We're going to continue our look at October 31, but before we do, I want to remind everybody of some pretty exciting things coming up.
If you'll go to my website, which is alexmcfarland.com, and look at my travel schedule, I'll be in Florida the first week of November, speaking for Preborn, a wonderful, wonderful pro-life event. Very exciting. About that, and then of course we've got all of our content. We're on the radio seven days a week, exploring the Word live Monday through Friday. Then the Alex McFarland Biblical Worldview Show that you're listening to right now, that's on stations all across America.
Then after this radio program airs on what we call terrestrial radio, it's out on every podcast platform known to man, even a. Occasionally shows up on the in-flight entertainment, like on American Airlines, and of course next year we've got three and maybe four revive U.S. events that are coming up, and then we've got our Conversations That Matter speaker series with Dinesh D'Souza and more in the fall, October 15, 16 of next year. We'll be doing a national summit on the evangelization of Muslims. And we'll be telling you all about that.
Finally, the Cove next summer. I'll be at the Billy Graham Training Center in July. I'll be teaching the Book of Romans. Then I'll also be doing a five-day seminar with Lauren Green of Fox News and Dr. Dylan Burrows of the Chuck Colson Center.
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Well, we're talking about October thirty-one, and of course Luther was obedient. And let me just say this: you and I are riding on the ripple effect of his courage and obedience, and.
So the personhood, the dignity of people—these are foundational biblical principles. And you know, every person is made in God's image. The militant secularists of our culture don't really believe that, but every person is made in God's image. Every person has moral accountability. Every person has obligations that cannot simply be surrendered to powerful institutions.
And and these cornerstones of modern society really owe their market share, if you will, the the knowledge of this to a Christian event five hundred nine years ago, October thirty one, fifteen seventeen.
Now, our Bill of Rights, really. Was only made possible by Luther, the scripture reading in the 1500s that would eventually spread throughout Europe and come to the colonies. Codified in the Bill of Rights, the principles that they found in God's word contributed to the development of liberty, representative government, the rule of law, constitutional limitations on political power, and so many. Things that we just take for granted.
Now let's talk about how do we apply all this to our own lives.
Well, at the heart of the developments of the Reformation was a precept that I alluded to a moment ago: the perspicuity of Scripture.
Now, what does that mean? That means clarity or understandability. Luther and the other reformers taught that the Bible's message could be understood by ordinary people. Scripture was not reserved for the educated religious elite, and so they. Preached literacy and teaching peasants to read so they could read the Bible, and think about the civic implications of this: a population.
Encouraged to read Scripture, evaluate truth, and exercise moral judgment, was better equipped to question immoral, unjust authority, recognize corruption, demand accountability, because a Bible reading people are a thinking. People, a thinking people, are far less easily manipulated by those who seek power, and the reformers' emphasis on scripture reinforced God's teachings about marriage, the welfare of children, property rights. In other words, the Reformation carried major, major public consequences: stable families and strong communities. In other. In other words, the the convictions that would build America and shape civic life, and that brings us to November third, 2026.
Our constitutional republic depends on citizens who understand that our our freedom requires responsibility. Elections determine who writes the laws, who oversees the schools, who spends money, and these elections determine who we entrust with our government. And folks, these are not at all trivial matters. And so, November third, this is not just another day on the calendar. This is an opportunity to help determine who exercises power in our name.
So.
So I want to ask you to pray, consider the candidates, look at their records, and then go out and participate. Wittenberg, remember Wittenberg, a man Luther who refused to surrender his conscience to powerful institutions. There's no way he could have foreseen the worldwide consequences of the stand that he took, and we can't see the consequences of every decision either. And we don't have to agree on every political question to recognize the seriousness of this day. But I want to challenge you to not, not surrender and be indifferent.
Our constitutional liberty is in our hands, and folks, America is worth showing up for.
So pray for wisdom. And take responsibility, and let's get out and vote. By the way, do you know October thirty one is a very famous day in that also it's the day that Michelangelo finished a a painting in the Sistine Chapel on the Last Judgment in fifteen forty one, just a few years after Luther's Reformation. And let's remember that we are accountable to God. There will be a judgment, and.
One of our sacred stewardship issues are our inherited freedoms—not merely blessings to enjoy, but sacred trusts to preserve. Let's all do our part. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ, and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmcfarland.com.
You may also reach us by calling one eight seven seven yes God and the number. One, that's one eight seven seven. Yes, God. One. Thanks for joining us.
We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarland Show.
