The scariest thing about Halloween this year, will not be the Ghost and Goblins running around town or even the Zombies for that matter. No! The scariest thing is what is in the heart of men and women everywhere. Last Saturday an armed gunman walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh PA  screamed anti-Semitic slurs and began shooting, killing 11 innocence people and wounding 6

What does it take for that kind of hate to be in someone’s heart? It has been said that the problem with our world is not the presence of darkness but the absence of light. Many respond to this and other tragedies like it, by believing we need tougher gun laws. But I don’t believe the problem is the lack of laws. I just believe we have failed to follow the most important law given to us many years ago when Jesus told us “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  

If we would all follow that one simple law there wouldn’t be a need for any others. What has happened to a society that will turn on it’s own kind? The problem isn’t gun laws the problem is a matter of the heart. Our hearts are broken, from a deterioration of a society that has turned its back on its creator and now believes it is it’s own God.

Like the children of Israel who cried out for a king to worship, we have become such an idolized society that we worship ourselves. We now live in a world where there is no absolutes, no right, no wrongs, if it feels good do it. Some of the newest phrases around are “You be You Boo” which is often said in innocence but at the same time is subconsciously telling us we don’t have to follow any laws, that there is no right or wrongs we can just be who we want to be and do what we want to do.

And where is the church in all this? Have we set silent so long that satan now has taken over, or is it totally the opposite that we have pushed this generation to where it is, because of the years of our own self-righteous attitudes or our own cynicism or perhaps it is even both. For so long and in some cases still today, we in the church judge people for what they wear, how they look, who they hang out with, in some places Jesus himself would not of been welcome in our churches because, he didn’t hang out with the right crowd or wear the right clothes. (after all he did walk around in a robe) all the while we sit in our self-righteous pews judging others for what they have done, and forgetting what we have been forgiven of. We are no different from the people in the bible days who stoned people to death, today we just use our words and our rejection of them and then wonder why they don’t want to serve God.  

It is this kind of attitude that I am afraid as pushed people away from the church looking for their own God which has then in turn cause them to look to themselves and thus we have become our own idols. So we don’t want any gender laws or anything that remotely states marriage is between one man and one woman, we don’t want anyone taking away our rights to choose, unless of course it is to defend ourselves then we have no right to that because defending ourselves means that we are standing up for what we believe, whether it be on social media or with a gun in our hands we have no rights to opinions only the right to follow the crowd but yet look where the crowd is taking us. We are headed to a Godless sin filled nation like in the day of Sodom and Gomorrah,  We have mayors and other government officials calling out begging for us to become a socialist nation that would take away our guns and pretty much any right to govern ourselves because we are looking for a savior. Like the children of Israel who cried out to Moses “Give us something we can worship” and while he turned his back and climbed a mountain to get the 10 commandments, they built themselves and idol of a graven image. We in America are crying out for a saviour and yet we reject the one who has already come. Why? Because we don’t want a God we serve, we want a God that serves us and if we don’t get what we want we reject Him.

No the scariest thing this Halloween is not what will be walking around in costume it will be what is walking around in the hearts of those in costume. Because we are raising a generation of children that are being trained to worship themselves, like an army of little sinners, we have defined direction, and absolutes as offenses and unlawful acts. We no longer direct our children to the Savior we allow them to roam free condoning their selfish desires to be the god in their own lives.

What will it take for all of this to change? Only one thing, that most important law that Jesus told us all those years ago to follow. “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ That means that we put Him first. We put Him and His ways, above what we want, what we feel, and what we think and until we do that, I don’t care how much you say you love Him, or how many times you sit in the pew. If you haven’t done these things you can’t say you are His child and expect to get to heaven one day. It is an absolute and I don’t care how many times you say it or want to deny the fact, that absolute is for all time and will never change. Our idea may change of it, but we can never change what it means because the one true and only living God makes it a fact.

It is only when we learn the first part of that law then we can fulfill the second part which is “And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”, Because we can’t love anyone else until we love God, it is in the love we find it God we realize the worth we really have and in that, we can love someone else, as we love ourselves and that is when the light will negate the darkness in this world. And there will be an absence of darkness in all the light and that is something that even the 10 commandments or any law we put into place can’t do. It is only in the Love of Jesus Christ we will change this world. So what do you plan on wearing in your heart this Halloween season?