Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries of The Salvation Army, 02 Nov 2025 and 01 Nov 2020 by Major (Captain) M. Ramsay
This is the 2025 version, to view the 2020 version, click here:
https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2020/10/colossians-11-14-all-saints-day.html
Apparently
today is All Soul’s Day. The day before yesterday was, of course, Hallowe’en, aka
All Hallows’ Eve, aka All Saints Eve. And yesterday was All Saints Day. What do
we know about All Saints Day?
I must
confess that I don't know a lot about it as I grew up in an evangelical church–
so most of my information on this is simply from Doctor Google and Professor
Wiki, as well as some proper commentaries. This is what I have ‘dug up’ about
All Saints Day:
On All
Saints Day in some places people visit the graves of their dearly departed and
leave gifts, flowers, cards, say prayers, or sing hymns. In the USA, some
churches hand out candies as people come to pray for the souls of dearly
departed family members, friends, and even pets.
In
parts of Austria and maybe Germany they have special bread that they call “All
Saints Bread” which they make for their godchildren. And then there is
Portugal…
In
Portugal apparently they make something called “Soul Bread” or simply “souls”.
Children then go ‘souling’ on All Saints Day. They go door-to-door and collect
'souls'. (This is probably healthier than trick-or-treating, but I must admit
that the idea of kids going door-to-door collecting people’s souls does sound a
little creepy to me!) Some people actually have the Catholic or Lutheran
Priests bless the ‘souls’ before they are handed out to the children and
apparently the children promise to pray for the souls of the deceased relatives
of the people who gave them these ‘souls’ to eat. Leftover ‘souls’ are then
given to the poor.
I
think that in Roman Catholic understanding All Saints Day is a day to
pray for all those who have ‘gone to heaven’: all Christians who have left this
life. In Methodism, from which The Salvation Army evolved, it is a time to
remember the saints ‘who have gone on ahead’, both the famous ones and the
obscure ones. Methodists don’t have the canonization that Catholics do and John
Wesley, their founder, was opposed to the worship of saints but they do use the
word similarly to the Roman Catholics. ‘Saints’ in Methodism are Biblical
figures and historical Christians who have gone before us: sort of like ‘Heroes
of the Faith’, as I understand it. But it seems that, in the context of All
Saints Day, ‘saints’ for both has its most basic Biblical meaning.
All
this -at least to me - is very interesting; do we remember who is referred to
as ‘saints’ in the Bible? …what does the word ‘saint’ actually mean? Who is a
saint? In the Bible ‘saint’ is another word for ‘Christian’. It is actually the
preferred term for Christians in the NT.
The
New Testament word for saint is ‘hagioi’ and ‘hagioi’ is actually a variant of
the Greek word for holiness, ‘hagios’;[1] so then, every Christian is a saint
and every Christian is by definition holy.[2] 1 Peter 1:16, God says, “…be holy
because I am holy.” Hagios (Holiness) / Saint (Christian) literally means, from
the Bible dictionaries, to be perfect or to be spiritually pure.
1
Peter 1:16, God says “…be holy because I am holy” and being holy, being a
saint, being a Christian is more than being sacred, is more than being worthy,
is even more than being pure, being free from defilement. Holiness is being
perfect. Holiness is to be like God, and God says “…be holy because I am holy!”
And “be perfect as I am perfect (Matthew 5:48)”
Doctrine
10 of The Salvation Army says, “We believe that it is the privilege of all
believers to be wholly sanctified [holy], and that their whole spirit and soul
and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now
before any of us begin to fret and say, “well – I’m not a saint! I am not
perfect and so I am not a Christian” or just as bad “you –Michael, or whoever
else- I know YOU aren’t perfect so you aren’t a Christian”. We need to
remember that as 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 reminds us, God will make us perfect,
He will make us holy. When we become a part of God’s love family, when we take
our first step on the road of holiness, we are holy. And the further we walk,
the closer we come to God, the more holy, the more Christ-like, we become.[6]
Becoming a Christian means becoming a saint, a holy person. The more time we
spend with God, the closer we are to Him, the more we will be like Him.
Colossians 1:12, which we read from today, says that God has already brought
us into the inheritance of the saints.[7] Philippians 3:16 says that we can
live up to that which we have already obtained. God has already made us holy
and – no matter what you are struggling with viz holiness – God can help you
with it; He can help you live up to that holiness. He can make you Holy. He has
made you a saint.
On
this All Saints Day, I think this is important because we are all saints
here. All of us who serve Jesus. The passage we read today (Colossians 1) is
what Paul wrote to the Christians/Saints in Colossae. Paul gives us the same
encouragement. Paul encourages us, as saints, as Christians, that we have the
opportunity to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will (Colossians 1:9) – we
can receive this through praying to God, meeting together, studying and even
just reading our Bibles – This is a means to be filled with the knowledge of
God’s will. And as we are filled with the knowledge of God’s will, as we know
what God’s hopes and dreams are for us, we can use this knowledge to accept His
invitation to a life worthy of the Lord. As we are now – each of us – holy
saints, God can actually help us to be even more holy (Colossians1:10) and His
helping us will please Him in every way.[8] God is certainly pleased when we experience
this holy life that comes from, Colossians 1:11, resisting temptation. This is
important!: When we are Christians (saints), temptation doesn’t just vanish. Resistance
to temptation is like a muscle. The more we resist, the stronger we get – and also
Be careful! Don’t try put yourself in a situation where you might turn the
wrong way and temptation might pull your holiness muscle!
I
often think of holiness in terms of addiction but we can think of it in
relationship to anything that has the potential to drag us down and make us
miserable. God is with us Saints/Christians when we are addicted and/or
struggling with other struggles. God is with us when we are carrying a grudge.
God is with us when we are overwhelmed. God provides us a way to be free of the
burden of sin and all of these things and everything else that tries to
interfere with our life, our salvation, our holiness.
My
friends, my fellow saints, let me be clear on this: God is never going to give
up on you. No matter what you have gone through and no matter what you are
going through, God will never give up on you. No matter what you have done; no
matter what you compulsively keep doing, no matter what horrible thing you may
possibly do, God will not give up on you. God will not leave you. God will not
forsake you; so whatever you are going through right now – no matter how difficult
it is – don’t give up! God has faith in you.
You
can make it. This is what it means to be holy. Even if you are struggling with
something as absolutely terrible as addiction, God will not give up on you.
Even if you are struggling with something as soul-destroying as not forgiving
someone; no matter what you are struggling against, God will not give up on
you. He will offer you a way out and He will offer you comfort while you are
still in the midst of it trying to get to that way out.
God
invites us to the peace and security of being holy even and especially in the
middle of our troubles. Hebrews 13:5, Deuteronomy 31:6: He will never give up
on us and so, Philippians 3:16: we can live up to the holiness that we already
obtained when we first gave our lives to Christ and Colossians 1:12: so, you
and I, we will receive the full inheritance of the saints. On this, the day
after All Saints Day, I want to encourage you that each of us who has placed our
hope in the Lord are God’s holy saints and He will never give up on us and He
is more than able to deliver us from everything that concerns us today and
forever more. He will deliver you and He will make you holy, even as He is
holy.
There is
one more thing I want to share about this. Yesterday was All Saints Day.
Today is All Souls Day. Yesterday the mainline churches prayed for all
Christians who have gone on ahead. Today is All Souls Day when, as I
understand it, they / we pray for everyone (dead and alive!) – even those who
do not know the Lord yet; so that they too, some day, even today, might be able
to experience all the blessing of serving our Lord and Saviour; all His Grace
and all His comfort – even now in the midst of everything else.
So
today, on All Souls Day, let us do that. Let us pray that we and all our friends,
all our neighbours, all our loved ones, all of everyone else, that we all experience
His love, His comfort and Grace for now and forever more.
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