The Light Meets the Dark (and kills it.)

The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. – Romans 13:12

The world is dark. I watched the movie “House” today (**CAUTION: RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF SPOILERS!!!**), based on the Ted Dekker book, and the premise of the story is that these two couples get trapped in a house where someone is trying to kill them because they’re sinners. The killer gives them three “Rules of the house,” one of which was that anyone who comes in the house would be killed, but if they gave him one dead body by sunrise, he would let that rule slide.

The movie opens on a girl, running through a darkened house. She runs into her husband (Officer Lawdale), who has a loaded rifle. The opening scene ends with him killing his wife. Obviously, he tried to follow the “rules of the house,” but fails epically, and I’ll tell you why later.

The couples are faced with memories and feelings they’ve tried to hide from their spouses, and it gets the couples turned against each other. One man, Randy, killed his father when he was a little boy because his father was verbally abusive. When he’s running through the bowels of the house, the memories flood back to him. His fiancée, Leslie, was sexually abused by her Uncle Pete, who she murdered as a teenager. She ends up being kidnapped by one of the housekeepers, Pete (how coincidental!). The other couple (Jack and Stephanie) is haunted by a memory of their only daughter drowning while she ice skated because they were both too involved in their careers to pay attention.

Jack finds a girl named Susan locked in the house, who is supposed to represent Christ. She keeps trying to lead them out of the house, but they want to find whoever is trying to kill them and stop him. The movie ends with the killer shooting Susan, one of the couples killing each other, and the other couple remembers what Susan said about light destroying darkness. So they use her sacrificial death to save themselves. The killer was supposed to represent Satan, and the little girl kept saying, “He breaks his own rules!” This is where Officer Lawdale and his wife come in – Officer Lawdale shot his wife, and at the end of the movie, he’s chained to the house. I think that’s the perfect way to describe Satan. He tries to turn you against people you love by making your feelings rule your actions. He tries to distract you with your past, while Christ wants you to look into the future with Him. He makes promises that he doesn’t keep. We can only be freed from Satan’s grip by the death of Christ (and His resurrection). Light destroys darkness.

It was a frightening movie, but it was very relevant. Jesus came into the world so that we would no longer be slaves to sin (Galatians 2:19). So why do we keep letting Satan make us vain promises? He HATES us! (1 Peter 5:8)Jesus promises us a life with Him eternally in Heaven! What could be better? We have to say no to the world. It’s difficult (duh! It’s our nature!), but we have to! That’s how we prove that we love Jesus. By obeying Him (John 14:15). So go and prove it. It starts with the small stuff.

Small stuff like...complimenting a stranger - and genuinely meaning it. Letting your brother have the last donut. Using kind speech, even if you're having a bad day. Help your mom and do the dishes when she's not looking. Do something nice for someone else without even expecting a thank you. Think about what *one* teenyyyy thing you can do that will strengthen your relationship with Christ just for today. Maybe it's reading a Bible passage. Maybe it's saying "no" to a sin that you struggle with. Like Tobymac says, "If you gotta start some time, why not now?"

You hear that you gotta be the change that you wanna see in the world - but how can you do that TODAY?