LOTR-Week 2 Spiritual Worlds

With a little rearranging of our schedule and a little better questions this week, our night was vastly improved over week one. Tonight we went straight into our discussion following dinner. This was especially important as just about everyone except us had major traffic issues. For those of you outside of socal, you need to understand that the rain and mud over the past couple of weeks has shut down many streets. So consequently, the open streets and freeways are overly crowded. So we got started a little late.

Our discussion tonight was interesting and lively...and it was aided by having three young ladies joining us. Ordinarily I like to be prepared for church before Thursday afternoon. For several reasons, including I changed what I had planned, this was not the case today/tonight. However, everything came together before the first people arrived:)

So here's the scoup on what went down at the Hudson pad this evening.

We started by talking about the reality of the spiritual world. We talked about how there are real things that exist outside the physical realm. To illustrate this we discussed the mind. No matter where you look, you won't find the mind. You can't disect it nor does it exist in space. Yet the mind is an excepted reality none-the-less.

In the same way there is a spiritual world that is outside of our physical world, and in fact interacts with the physical world at certain times and places. Most of us acknowledge that we have a spiritual dimension. We are not all cells and fluids. We have more to us than meets the eye. Tolkien was aware of this reality and incorporated it in the Lord of the Rings.

We watched the prologue which sets the stage for the movie. It gives the background of the forging of the rings of power and the battle for Middle Earth. We also showed the scene with Gandalf explaining the origen and power of the ring to Frodo and how he must leave the Shire and protect the ring. And finally we showed the great battle between Gandalf and Saruman. In addition to the clips, we looked at several passages in the Bible.

We spent quite bit of time looking at Isaiah 14 & Ezekiel 28 and discussing the demise of Lucifer. It is interesting to note that Lucifer was beautiful, wise and powerful. He had a privileged position and was blameless prior to his fall. But pride got the best of him and he sinned. God would hae no rivals...He has no equals.

Following Jesus requires more than simply acknowleding evil...we must resist it. 1 Peter 5 was our text to deal with this important truth. "God opposes the proud (as Lucifer found out), but gives grace to the humble." Later he describes how we are to resist the devil, take a stand against him. He is like a lion. prowling around for someone to devour. I love that language. It gives me chills.

One truth I hope everyone walked away with tonight is that we are in a spiritual battle. Whether we realize it or not, we are at war. Ephesians 6 tells about our battle and the armor we need to be succeful in it. Let's not fall victim to ignoring the realities of the spiritual world.

C.S. Lewis has a couple of great quotes I will close with.

"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, adn to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them."

"Now, if by "the Devil" you mean a power opposite to God and, like God, self-existentfrom all eternity, the answer is certainly No. There is no uncreated being except God. God has no opposite. No being could attain a "perfect badness" opposite to the perfect goodness of God; for when you have taken away every kind of good thing (intelligence, will, memory, energy, and existence itself) there would be non of him left."

*Both quotes are taken from the Preface to The Screwtape Letters.