For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the churchwhom you are to judge?God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." -- 1Corinthians 5: 12-13 (ESV)
https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/behind-the-lens/67567-the-halloween-predicament
It is that time of the year again beloved. It is the time that Christians will seek any validation to participate in the most openly evil event in this country. To support this each year there inevitably will be one or two Christian celebrities who will come out and provide the necessary cover. We are of course talking about Halloween. Steeped in druidic and satanic tradition, Halloween is the one day of the year claimed by those who openly serve the devil. It is quite simply a day Christians should want no part of it. There is absolutely nothing pure or innocent about it. It cannot be redeemed. You cannot decree or declare it away. One year Mark Driscoll wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post defending Christians who celebrate Halloween by using the "relevance" argument. Driscoll argued that he wanted to be relevant to the community around him. How sad that he never learned as a pastor your job is the opposite. You are supposed to create a shining city on a hill. Something different for those looking to escape Sodom. Driscoll would fall from grace a few years later although he has slinked back into the charismatic landscape recently. Another year it was Christian music star Natalie Grant who wrote an article defending it using the "I just want to dress my eight year girl up as a princess" argument. The point I made then was simply that when your child is 14 and dressing up as a zombie from the Walking Dead or 18 and dressing up as a Goth witch remember that you were the one who taught them that it was ok.
Beloved, I know this is not an easy subject and I openly admit I approach it from a very easy standpoint of not having children. I understand the peer pressure. I understand that we don't want to seem like the crazy Christian on the block but we are supposed to be different. We are supposed to stand out. Parenting is difficult. Sometimes it requires the hard conversations that they may not understand at the age of eight. They will remember that you stood for something when they are older though. This year's faux Christian celebrity to stand up for Satan is none other than Darren Wilson, Director of the heretical Holy Ghost movies and purveyor of all that is false and wrong with Christianity today. Now, since Darren plays dress up all year as a Christian, it is not surprising to me that he sees very little wrong with dressing up on Halloween. Let us reason together beloved and review his defenses as presented in the link above:
"Ah yes, it's that time of the year again, when spiritual battle lines are drawn, friends open up to other friends in secret, hoping they won't judge them for what they're planning to do, and the kids aren't exactly sure what to think because they just want candy and don't really care where it comes from. I'm talking, of course, about Halloween." -- Darren Wilson
Where Driscoll went for relevance and Grant for moral relativism, the chosen foundational argument for Wilson is to butcher the proper Biblical understanding of judgment. It is not that Halloween participating Christians fear judgment from their brethren. They fear the truth. Somewhere deep inside they already know what they are doing is wrong. If they have the indwelt Holy Spirit it is impossible not to. What they are looking for is validation and confirmation that they are doing the right thing when they already know they are not. Are we talking the unpardonable sin here? Of course not. The Bible warns us to have nothing to do with the deeds of darkness for a reason though and we readily offer up our children for this one which is something I just do not get.
So it is not judgment that they fear beloved but the truth. The actual truth about judgment is that we are supposed to judge our brothers and sisters in the church. Wait a minute preacher! Are you saying we should judge people? No beloved -- God says it in the key verses today. You see the Church at Corinth was having the same problem the church today has. It loved judging the lost but defended the most unbiblical practices within its own walls. The case in this chapter is a congregant who was sleeping with his father's wife! That is almost as scandalous as dressing your eight year old up in that cute devil costume and sending him out into the streets to ring bells across your neighborhood begging for candy. Almost. As the key verses clearly state we are not to judge those on the outside of salvation. That judgment is reserved for God. It is those on the inside of the church that we are responsible to and for. We are our brother's keeper. If not them then who? We lovingly correct of course but it is not love to turn a blind eye or minimize the seriousness of this conversation as Wilson will continue to do:
