The
Chronicles of Narnia:
The Silver Chair
(British
Broadcasting Company Movie Edition)
 |
Authorship: The Chronicles of Narnia were written by C.S. Lewis, a Christian English professor at Oxford College in England. The first volume was published in 1950 and was a story meant to remind us of the greatest story of all, the Bible.
Setting: 1942, England,
during World War Two: sixty years later in Narnia since the sailing of the Dawn
Treader
Discussion
Points
*(0:10:00) Eustace
and Jill entered Narnia after praying to Aslan. But Aslan tells Jills, “You
would not have called to me if I had not been calling to you.” What does this
mean?
A lot of
times, we have this idea that we are
in control of our relationship with God. If I pray to God, then God will answer me. If I ask God to forgive my sins,
then He will do so. You see, we like to think that we are in control. But God is not Somebody that we can
control, is He? Let’s see what Scripture says about who controls the
relationship.
See John 15:16
We think that we can choose to believe in God when
we decide that we’re ready to do that. But that isn’t what this verse is
saying. It says that we do not choose God like it’s our own idea. God chooses
us first and invites us to believe in Him.
See Ephesians
1:4-6
God chose to offer us salvation before the
creation of the world. That was His plan for us.
See 1 John 4:19
The only way that we can love God or choose to
follow God or pray to God is because He first loved and reached out to us. Let’s
look at again at what Jesus says in John 15:16.
See John 15:16
What happens after God chooses us? He appoints us
to go and bear fruit. What does that mean? It means that God gives us a job to
do. He assigns us a task. Just like when Aslan called Eustace and Jill to
Narnia. He didn’t call them just for the fun of it. He called them to perform a
task. God gives each of us tasks. The task that God gives us is different for
everybody. What are some of the tasks that God gives people to do? To tell
other people about Jesus, to be pastors, to be teachers, to be missionaries, to
be really good parents, to serve the Church in various ways, to live the kind
of life that pleases God.
*(0:34:00) The owls reveal who the enemy is in this situation. We saw a flashback
of a serpent or a snake, who killed the queen. And then the snake turned into
the Green Lady, a witch, and did something to Prince Rilian. Does the idea of a
snake being the enemy remind you of anything in the Bible?
See Genesis
3:1-5
The snake tempts Eve to disobey God. The snake is
Adam and Eve’s enemy. Who do you think that snake was?
See Revelation
12:9
The devil, or Satan, is described as a serpent, or
a snake.
See John 8:44
Jesus is
talking to the Pharisees in this verse. What does He say the devil is
like?
The devil
is a murderer and a liar. We see that in the movie. The serpent or the green
lady kills the queen and lies to the prince. We’ll see just how much she lies
later in the movie. The thing that we need to understand is that the devil lies
to us. He does nothing but lie to us, and the thing that he wants most is to
kill us, not just physically, but spiritually as well.
And the
devil is tricky. Just like the serpent turned into the Green Lady, the devil
will try to make himself look better to us than he is.
See 2
Corinthians 11:14
*(0:45:00) How
would you describe Puddleglum? Puddleglum is a very negative person. He never
looks on the bright side. He never has any hope. Is this the way Christians are
supposed to act?
See Joshua 1:9
Knowing that God is with us gives us hope.
See 1 Timothy
4:9-10
Romans 8:28
Because we know that God will eventually bring
everything around for our good, we can have hope. Hope is simply the idea that
we can look forward to something better happening in the future. The Bible
tells us what our ultimate future will be; Heaven. Therefore, anyone who
believes in God can have hope as they look forward to spending eternity with
God and being happy forever in Heaven.
*(1:20:00) Jill was doing pretty good remembering what Aslan told her, but the
group got distracted by how cold they were and how much they wanted to get to
the city to have a nice bath and a nice bed and good food. Because Jill forgot
to recite Aslan’s words, they got themselves into a bad situation. They were
tricked. I suspect that we’re like that a lot of times. We let the devil trick
us because we haven’t been spending enough time remembering what God has said
to us. If we don’t spend enough time reading and studying the Bible, it will be
easy for the devil to distract us from God and what God wants us to do.
See 1 Peter 5:8
Genesis 4:7
The devil is an enemy that will try to attack us
whenever he has the opportunity. We have to be ready for his attacks. When he
attacks us, with temptation, or depression, or a bad attitude, we have to be
able to defend ourselves. The way that we do that is by knowing God’s word.
See Psalm
119:105
What does a lamp or a light do? It keeps us safe
so that we can see where we’re going and so that we don’t bang into things and
hurt ourselves, so we don’t get lost. That’s what the Bible does for us. It helps
us to see where we’re going and where we should be going. It protects us by
helping us to see all the dangerous things that the devil has put in our way.
See Psalm
119:9-16
Let me pull out a couple of things from this
passage. “How can a young person keep their way pure? By living according to
God’s word.” Hiding it in their heart. What does that mean? Memorizing it. Reading
and studying the Bible so that you know so it well, it is a part of you. It is
inside you. Not neglecting God’s word. Neglect means to not spend enough time
with it. I bet that most of us in this room neglect God’s word. I bet that most
of us in this room do not spend enough time with it as we should.
*(2:10:00) Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum knew
what Aslan had told them to do. They were supposed to obey whoever asked them
to do something in Aslan’s name. But when somebody did ask them to do something
in Aslan’s name, they were unsure whether they should do it or not. If they let
the prince go, they would be taking a risk. They had to decide whether they
would trust what Aslan had said or not. Either they would have faith or they
wouldn’t. We’re faced with the same situation. Either we’re going to believe
and act on what God has said, or we’re not. Either we’re going to have faith,
or we’re not. And just like it was scary for Jill and Eustace and Puddleglum to
have faith, sometimes it’s scary for us to have faith. It’s a risk. But here’s
how we can trust God what God has told us. How does God tell us things today? Through
the Bible and through the Holy Spirit.
See 2 Timothy
3:16-17
2 Peter
1:20-21
We know that we can believe the Bible because it
is from God. And not only is the Bible from God, but it also has a purpose. God
doesn’t just say things for the fun of it. He has a reason for everything that
He has told us in the Bible.
See Isaiah
55:10-11
God has a purpose for everything that He says. And
because God has promised that His word will accomplish His desires, we can
trust what God has told us. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to us, just like it
didn’t make it sense to Jill and Eustace and Puddleglum – sometimes it means
taking a risk, but we have to trust God.
See Proverbs
3:5-6
If we trust in God and not in what we think about
something, God will make everything turn out okay in the end.
See 2 Samuel
22:31-33
God’s way
is perfect, and His word is flawless. If we trust in God and what He has told
us, He will give us the strength to do what we have to do. Even though it’s
taking a risk, God will give us the courage to do it.
We’ve
been talking about trusting what God has told us in the Bible. But there’s also
another way that God speaks to us. God speaks to each one of us through the
Holy Spirit that lives inside of us.
See John 14: 26
The Holy Spirit teaches us. We have to learn to
trust what God says to us through the Spirit. We have to learn to listen for
the Spirit. He’s always talking, but we need to learn to listen so that we can
hear Him.
See John 13:17
No comments:
Post a Comment