Christ's victory; Conquering 'The Nightly Neighbors.'

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Nightcrawler Experience!
Sorry it's been such a long absence, so much has been going on in my life and my walk with God.
Here is the first in what will hopefully be a two- part Halloween- related entry set.
I explained in my 'Bride of Frankenstein' review a couple years ago my personal thoughts on the ethics of if a Christian should celebrate Halloween or not, so if you have any questions about that, see that entry. If not, full steam ahead!
I recently was given a great pop- culture and theology revelation, tying into the resolution of something on TV which had scared me bad as a kid, so I think I'll share it with all of you.
NOTE: This might get a little scary, so proceed ahead with some caution.
The Early- mid 1990s, when I was a kid, were an absolute golden age for the TV network Nickelodeon. So many awesome, diverse shows came out during that period which gave me hours of entertainment, and many of them still hold up pretty well today. One of the shows in that period which really stuck out for me (And helped start my enjoyment of horror entertainment) was a show called  "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"

For the uninitiated, it was a kind of horror anthology show in which a group of kids calling themselves "the Midnight Society" would meet regularly at a clearing in the woods to tell scary stories around a campfire, with each episode featuring one of those stories, involving kids coming into contact with the supernatural or the otherworldly.
It was a show which wasn't afraid to take risks and push the envelope as far as kids' programming is concerned, I seriously doubt it would be allowed on Nickelodeon today. Many of those episodes (Especially in the show's first season) were quite scary, especially considering that a) I was only eight years old when it first premiered, and b) the episodes aired at 9:30 PM on Saturday nights, so they'd often be the last things I'd see before going to bed that night.
One episode that I recall particularly scaring me was entitled 'The Tale of the Nightly Neighbors.'
SPOILERS!
In this episode, two siblings, the adventurous and imaginative Emma and her couch- potato brother Dayday, get mysterious new neighbors who've come all the way from the Ukraine: Mr and Mrs. Braun, and their young son Lex.

(Meet the Brauns; Credit for this picture and the one after it go to the user "Villainslover98" on the Villains Wiki)
Emma quickly grows suspicious of her strange new neighbors. They only come out at night (Hence the title of the episode), dress all in black, and shortly after they arrive, several other people in the town suddenly appear very sick and weak, all sporting bandages on their throats, and all saying that they first started feeling that way shortly after being visited by the Brauns. Emma quickly comes to the conclusion that the Brauns are vampires, and convinces the more skeptical Dayday to help her investigate. In what seems to be the final nail in the coffin (No pun intended), upon sneaking into the Brauns' basement, the two siblings discover a refrigerator filled with large bottles of blood.
 Shortly after that, they to their surprise run into Mr. and Mrs. Braun in broad daylight! The Brauns explain to the kids that they are paramedics and the hospital where they work has a surplus of blood, so they were asked to help store some of the extra units of it in their basement. This explanation and seeing them out in the daylight lay the siblings' suspicions to rest, so when Mrs. Braun then asks if young Lex could come over to their house that evening to play video games, they agree. The siblings walk away, with Dayday laughingly assuring Emma that he won't let her forget this embarrassment.
However, we then find out that Emma's suspicions were not that far off. It cuts to the Brauns'  basement, where we learn that while Mr. and Mrs. Braun are not vampires, their "son" Lex IS one! Rather than being his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Braun are merely his human servants/ protectors. They inform him that he has been invited into the siblings' house so he can now feed on them with ease, point out it was wise to come to America where there's so much fresh blood, and Mr. Braun smugly says "And no one would believe that a little boy could be a vampire!" He and his wife laugh evilly as Lex awakens for the night, and opens his mouth in a wide grin which reveals his fangs, and so the episode ends.

(Behold, the image that haunted me for days afterwards!)
Being an eight- year- old boy at the time who hadn't seen all that much scary stuff outside of the show, 'The Tale of the Nightly Neighbors' so thoroughly terrified me that I remember I had to in my mind make up a happier ending for that episode just to get any sleep that night. I recall it was at least 6 months before I could work up the nerve to even watch that episode again.
About a year or two after that episode premiered, a book version of it was published, which expanded the story greatly (The plot of the episode only made up about the first half or so of the book) and apparently did indeed give it a happier ending. Problem is, back then, I was unable to acquire a copy of the book, let alone read it, so I had no way of knowing what eventually happened, and if Emma and her brother managed to survive or not. It remained a mystery to me for a good 24 years or so.
Fortunately, I just recently discovered on Youtube that someone posted a series of videos of himself reading the book aloud, so I was able to follow along with the extended story that way, kind of like listening to a book on tape.
I was satisfied to at last learn that the book version of 'The Tale of the Nightly Neighbors' did indeed have a happier ending than the episode itself suggested; Emma manages to destroy Lex by tricking him into being exposed to sunlight, all the people he bit and infected then return to normal with no memory of what happened, and Mr. and Mrs. Braun quietly flee the town in defeat, never to be seen again.
Somewhere, my eight- year- old self is grinning with relief.
This, then, leads to the point I'm hoping to make. For so many years, upon remembering that episode, I remember it as the Brauns' evil plans triumphing, with the heroes Emma and Dayday almost certainly about to join the ranks of the undead. But, finally, several years later, I learned the full ending through the book and saw that the Brauns were ultimately defeated and Emma prevailed through her courage and resourcefulness.
While vampires obviously aren't real, we live in a fallen world where there are many real people as evil as the Brauns (Rather than being driven by a literal thirst for blood, they may be driven by greed, sadism, a longing for power, devotion to a twisted ideology, or any one of countless other dark desires) who thrive and at times seem to win in life, while good people seem to lose and suffer regularly. Also, much like Lex in the story, they can at times take on seemingly innocent or harmless forms to make it even harder to recognize or stop them. It's what happens when Satan so thoroughly controls our world.
But, the good news for us as Christians is, it won't always be that way. We serve a God who loves us enough and has a strong enough sense of justice that He won't let the forces of darkness prevail forever. Right in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, God said to Satan (Who at the time was in the form of the Serpent) that the Son will not just defeat him, but flat- out destroy him. He says of Him in Genesis 3:15, "You will bruise His heel (Indicating the crucifixion), but He will crush your head." Think about that for a second: Bruised heel vs. crushed head. That is a full- on landslide victory, not even close! God won the first major victory when Christ died for us to save our souls, and He will win the ultimate victory in the End when Satan and his forces are defeated and cast down once and for all.
In Malachi 4:1, it says ""For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch." In that day, not only will the evil people and forces of this world be defeated, but there will not even be anything left of them. From then, we who follow Christ will enjoy an eternity with no more tears, no more pain, just pure joy and peace.

We may have to wait long for this final victory to come, as I waited so long to learn of the happy resolution to 'The Tale of the Nightly Neighbors,' but it will most definitely be worth it when that day comes. Until then, we are called to help bring it about in small ways through serving Jesus and bringing His love and compassion to those who are most in need of it.

Through trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and His inevitable final victory, we can be at ease knowing that the day will  eventually come when the "Nightly Neighbors" of this world will fail and goodness and righteousness will reign forever.

Keep your eyes open, part 2 of my Halloween series will come soon. Until then, God bless you all!