Avatar's Garden of Pandora

An Open Letter To James Cameron

2011-05-23T16:00:00.001-07:00

Mr. Cameron:
I just wanted to tell you that I thought the movie Avatar was a fascinating blend of fantasy, adventure, and spirituality. Avatar was clearly a financial success and it clearly stated that the issues you spoke to in the movie resonated with a large number of people in all cultures around the world. I hope that you found it rewarding to produce this movie and I hope that as you ponder new movies you will remember the things that worked in this movie.

As I was reading about your film history I noticed that you did a TV special “The Exodus Decoded”. This special would indicate that you have spent a considerable time in Bible study, especially in Exodus and the Old Testament writings. In addition, your use of Bible symbolism in Avatar would indicate that you have spent a significant amount of time in the prophetic portions of the Bible like Daniel and Revelation as well. Assuming that my observations are correct it leads me to ask you a question. The question is since you are intrigued by the Bible, and your spiritual gift appears to be that of making movies, and doing it very well, then why don’t you make a movie about the real things of life and do IT very well?

It seems to me that you are clearly financially set now so that if you chose to produce a “real” movie you would not be in danger of losing your financial footing in life. A “real” movie might endanger your position in the Hollywood community but you seem to be strong enough to deal with that kind of adversity if you chose to. So I wonder if you have read enough of the “real” to give you an experience like Jake Sully had in the movie Avatar? When God calls you would you be willing to move to a different world to have that experience with Him and undergo the rebirth that you told about in Avatar?

Since I had these questions I thought I would write them to you, at least on the internet. I am acquainted with a series of books, that you may or may not have been exposed to which tells the Bible story in such a manner that you might enjoy them. The parts of the books which I think you would especially like are the expanded scenes of heaven where Jesus and Lucifer interacted before sin came into the picture. I think you would find the interactions of war in heaven fascinating because you have depicted those interactions so well in your movies, for as the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 1:9 “…there is no new thing under the sun.”

If you are interested in those stories I would like to connect you to those books written by a lady by the name of Ellen G. White. She wrote a five book series covering the Bible from before the fall of Lucifer until the final resolution of sin and the recreation of Earth. The five books are:
Patriarchs and Prophets – from the fall of Lucifer to King David
http://www.whiteestate.org/books/pp/pp.asp
Prophets and Kings – from King Solomon down to the time of the return of Israel from Babylon
http://www.whiteestate.org/books/pk/pk.asp
The Desire of Ages – tells about the life of Christ and is of course at the center of the five books.
http://www.whiteestate.org/books/da/da.asp
The Acts of the Apostles – Tells the story of the followers of Jesus from His ascension into heaven unto the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
http://www.whiteestate.org/books/aa/aa.asp
The Great Controversy – the story of God’s people from the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Second Coming of Christ, the Millennium, the final judgment of evil, and the recreation of the Earth.
http://www.whiteestate.org/books/gc/gc.asp

I hope that if you read them you will find them as exciting as I did and that they will be a blessing to you as they were to me.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to these thoughts and I hope that you will take these thoughts seriously.

In Christ Jesus
Greg Goodchild

Avatar and the Pandoran Rules

2010-07-13T01:24:00.000-07:00

Jake Sulley first arrives on the planet Pandora and meets with Colonel Quaritch while the Colonel is explaining the Pandoran Rules to all of the new people. The Colonel is trying to impress on the minds of each person that Pandora is dangerous and that certain rules are required to be obeyed if they plan to live and return to Earth. The primary rule is that the wildlife on the planet can be very dangerous and that many people have died when forgetting that life is dangerous on Pandora. I am sure that the Colonel would have told people about the large predators, and the big animals that while not carnivores can still hurt people. Then there was the indigenous peoples the Na’vi who were much bigger than Earthlings, and while having bows and arrows the arrows were coated with a neurotoxin that could kill in two minutes. All together Pandora would be a dangerous place if not dealt with seriously. To forget the Pandoran rules, even for a short period of time would be very dangerous and very likely to end in death for those who forgot the rules and did not live in harmony with them.

In God’s kingdom He has the same thinking. God knows that He has established the laws of life and all who want to live will keep His laws. God knows that His laws are not something He just made up to be difficult but He shared His laws which are the best things that He could possibly do for His people. God knew that His laws were to be life for His people (Deuteronomy 30:14-20) and that they were all based on love, for God is purely and simply love. I John 4:8 God knew that the world was a dangerous place after Adam had sinned and Satan perceived himself as the God of this world (II Corinthians 4:4). God knew that to believe anything that Satan taught was dangerous and would eventually mean the loss of the physical life of the person as well as the spiritual life of the person. So God gave us an interesting progression of truth. God identifies Himself as love, and then He states that all of His laws are centered in two laws – to love God with all your heart and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus claimed that these two laws are the central laws of God and that all of the other laws that God gave were to hang off these two laws. Matthew 22:35-40 so law is the basis of all of God’s laws.

In the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy God gives us His laws. He gave us His ten commandments, written on stone and then He gave us many other laws to amplify and clarify the original ten. All of the rest of the books of the Bible show how these laws are to function, and are to be carried out, and lived out, by God’s people so that all of the rest of the world could see these laws and then decide if it would be worth their time and effort to learn these laws.

God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel 50 days after they left Egypt. God wanted to use these laws to establish the foundation of God’s government for Israel as a nation, and to establish the foundations of God’s covenant with mankind – they were to obey God in all that He asked them to do, and God would support and care for them in all that He asked them to do. God spoke them to Israel at Mount Sinai and they were listed as follows:

And God spake all these words, saying,

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. Exodus 20:1-19

These Ten Commandments are the simplest and most comprehensive testimony that God could give to mankind so that they would understand what He wants from them and what they can do for His children. For those who follow these laws blessing and life are promised and for those who disobey any of these laws, then chaos and death were sure
to follow. Like Colonel Quartich’s Pandoran rules, so we can listen and learn from truths of God as revealed in His law. If we follow them we will live and if we choose not to follow them we will die.

Avatar and the Mark of the Beast

2010-06-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar Colonel Quaritch is the character considered to be the villain in the story. The Colonel was a very decisive individual and had a clear vision of what he needed to do. He had been given his marching orders by Parker Selfridge and he was ready to do all to accomplish his task including sacrifice any thing that was in his way.

Colonel Quaritch had many admirable traits. He was clean, neat, kept himself in good shape. He was a stickler for detail and discipline and he would not hesitate to do the very things he was asking his soldiers to do. He had a vision, he was willing to pay the price, and he did not suffer fools lightly. He stated that “I take care of my own” to Jake and followed through with getting the corporation to ok the surgery necessary for Jake to get his legs restored. The Colonel was a man of his word and he had the fortitude and determination to make his word a powerful issue. The Colonel understood military issues and he was willing to get the information necessary to plan an attack and he was willing to implement the plan.

Colonel Quaritch also had a few unusual qualities about him. Apparently when he first arrived on Pandora he was attacked by a beast and the beast left a threefold scar on his head, and apparently on his heart as well. As a result of this encounter Colonel Quaritch had the opportunity to go back to Earth and have cosmetic surgery but he chose to stay on Pandora and kind of liked the marks on his head. He appeared to see his threefold scar as a testimony of his character and he approved of his character.

Another interesting, and symbolic, quality of Colonel Quaritch is that he employed the name of “Papa Dragon” when in combat. Not only did he use the name but his calm, cool, condescending behavior toward the Na’vi while in combat “And that is how you scatter the roaches”, signified that he was used to killing and saw it as a necessary evil especially to peoples that he did not respect nor like. Colonel Quaritch was a very powerful man and he used his power in a manner that fulfilled his visions of life.

Since we have been looking at the symbolism in the movie Avatar it appears that Colonel Quaritch has many symbolic applications. One of the symbols is that of the mark of the beast. Revelation 13-15 has multiple comments about the concept of a mark of the beast. This is some kind of symbolic quality that shows that an individual has joined the ranks of the people devoted to the great red dragon of Revelation 12 who gives his power, seat, and authority to a beast that comes up out of the sea in Revelation 13. This sea beast then enter into a relationship with a land beast in Revelation 12 who creates an image to the sea beast and then demands that everyone worship the beast that came up out of the sea. Revelation 14-15 then describes a group of people who refuse to worship the beast and instead they choose to worship God only. This contrast between the two groups of worshippers is differentiated by the symbol of the mark of the beast in their foreheads or hands versus the name of the Father in heaven written in their foreheads.

In the movie Avatar, Colonel Quaritch has the threefold scar on his head/forehead, and he also carries a special name “Papa Dragon”. Those who follow him have a spirit of cooperation with him, even if they do not think identically to him. So they have the spirit of the Papa Dragon even if they do not have the threefold symbol on their heads.

The opposing group, Jake Sulley and company as well as the Na’vi, have different markings including that of war-paint. The spirit and goals of the two groups have markedly different goals and different ways of going about accomplishing their goals. Colonel Quaritch wants more military might, and Jake Sulley is willing to submit to a spiritual path and seeks help from Eywa, the goddess of Pandora.

In the Bible the same issue is presented, two different groups with two different philosophies of how to accomplish their goals in life. The one group attached to the dragon and the beast is open to forcing people to agree and obey – worship, and if necessary they will kill to accomplish their goals. The other group, attached to the Heavenly Father, focus on following the Lamb of God – Jesus. They do not want to be involved with issues of force, but they clearly want to worship God and not the beast. The contrasts between the two groups is one of the major principles in the Bible and the primary focus on the issues of the last events in the history of Earth before the Second Coming of Christ occurs.

So one of the goals of the Bible is to determine what this mark issue is how to get the right one and avoid the wrong one. In Revelation 13 the central around which the mark of the beast occurs is that of worship. Worship is basically defined as understanding and respecting a powerful figure, or source, and then submitting to and obeying that figure or source. So to obey the commands of a powerful figure is a form of worship, especially if one loves and respects the powerful figure.

In the Bible the focus of worship is to obey the commands of God. God gave us a number of commands and humanity has played out its struggles regarding whether they want to obey God or not. All through the history of the planet Earth this struggle has been revealed in life. We have seen the results of evil that has been displayed in mankind. Most of the time humanity has been determined to rebel against such commands from God as “Thou shalt not kill” or “Thou shalt not steal” or “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. We all readily identify that it would be good to obey these three commands and if we did obey them much misery and suffering would be removed from the lives of people.

But as we all know there are ten of these commandments, not just three. Most of us can figure out, and agree with the benefits of the last 6 commandments regarding how we should treat one another. Whether we do them or not we can at least philosophically agree that the last six of the Ten Commandments would be good if implemented.

The part we seem to get into difficulty with is the first four commandments. These commandments are focused on the worship of God. In commandments one He commands that we do not obey any other powerful person out there that would attempt to counter one of His commandments.

The second commandment is not to make images of God and then worship those images. God does not want this because any image of God will not properly reflect the grandeur and magnitude of God and thus lessens our appreciation of how great He is. Any lessening of the wonderful qualities of God reduces Him in our minds and lessens our respect and adoration of His qualities. Many people state that God will understand that their heart is right and that they want to use images as a vehicle to keep their minds focused on Him. So they want to disobey Him and then want Him to accept their obedience as worship of Him. But God says that He wants their worship because they respect Him enough to obey Him out of love.

The third commandment is to not take His name in vain. Most of the time we think of this commandment as an issue of not swearing by using His name, but this is a bit shallow. While this concept is true the larger meaning is that we are not to falsely claim to be a follower of His when we won’t live in harmony with His commands. If we don’t live like a follower of God, but live like a follower of the dragon then we are violating this commandment. God wants us to live in harmony with Him and obey Him because we have had enough experience to know that His ways are better than the ways of the dragon.

God’s fourth commandment is the most interesting of them all. It is interesting because human logic and reason do not compute with this commandment. We have difficulty understanding a commandment based on arbitrary time. Often times we violate the 1st commandment by obeying our own thoughts rather than obeying God’s thoughts thus we place our own thinking higher than God’s thinking and we end up creating a god out of ourselves.

But the fourth commandment, the Sabbath commandment, is viewed by God as a “sign” or mark of our surrender to His ways of thinking. In Exodus 31:12-17 God views His Sabbath as a sign that God sets us apart for His personal use. This sign/mark is a statement that we will serve God and no other. This sign is also a mark that we think that God is the original creator of the world and the universe, including any potential planets like Pandora that might be out there. This sign has a visible quality to it that God arbitrarily assigned. He wants us to worship Him on the 7th day of the week or Saturday. It is interesting that in our culture almost everyone knows that Sunday is the 1st day of the week but they have difficulty determining what day of the week the 7th day is.

It is interesting to note that most of us think that any day of the week will do as far as God is concerned. However, when He personally expresses the idea that He wants us to worship Him on the 7th day of the week, in addition to our daily worship on every other day, we find that a bit demanding. We ask who does He think He is to command us to do something that we can not figure out in our own minds. God, of course, wants us to think of Him as God, higher than even ourselves, and He wants us to think of Him as our Creator and thus deserving of our respect and honor.

To clarify this point of worship God has given us many stories in the Bible to testify of how He thinks about the Sabbath and of whether it is important to Him or not. We find in the Creation story that God created the Sabbath while making the first week of Earth. He wanted His children to join Him in celebrating the completion of His works of Creation. Genesis 1:1-2:3; Hebrews 4:1-11; Exodus 31:12-17. By the book of Exodus we see that mankind has already forgotten this concept and God has to restore the concept to His people who will be priests and teachers to the world in Exodus 5:5. He refreshes their minds again when He gave the manna and gave them manna each day for 5 days, doubled the gift on the 6th day of the week – Friday, and then gave them no manna on His Sabbath, so they would have time to spend with Him on His 7th day. Then He pronounced His will to His people at Mount Sinai and proclaimed His law, and His Sabbath day, as a sign of obedience to Him.

In Jeremiah 17 God told Israel that if they insisted upon rejecting His Sabbath He would allow people to come to Israel and burn their cities down. This eventually happened because the people refused to worship and obey God and refused His protection from the powerful nations around them. I Chronicles 36. When God brought them back to Israel, after 70 years of captivity, God reminded them again of their need to refrain from disobeying Him and keeping all of His laws including the Sabbath day. Nehemiah 13.

But Israel had a difficult time with all of these commandments and by the time that the Law Giver Himself, came to earth in the form of a man, Israel had so altered the Sabbath commandment, with all of the other commandments, that they were offended when Jesus lived out His commandments on Earth. Jesus, Himself the Lord of the Sabbath, showed Israel, and thus all of the rest of the world, how Sabbath was to be kept in Matthew 12 and John 5 and 9. The Jewish leaders rejected Jesus’ testimony and chose to reject His Sabbath and thus His special sign and mark. By the time that Jesus had completed His mission they were ready and willing to kill Jesus, reject His authority and choose Rome as their king and thus they chose Rome’s mark as well.

After the time of Jesus the disciples kept all of His teachings and continue to live out all of the laws of God by faith in Him and His power through the Holy Spirit. They observed their surrender to Him by keeping His laws and displaying the sign of surrender to Him by obeying His Sabbath commandment. See Acts 13. By the time of Paul God was warning that people inside of the very church of God would seek to turn His people away from Him. Acts 20:27-31.

In a few hundred years there were two churches struggling to reveal the commandments of God. Both of them claimed to be in harmony with God and both of them claimed to be worshipping God by obeying His commandments. For 1260 years this contest went on and the only way to tell the difference between the two was by their obedience to the commandments of God and the presence of the spirit of the dragon or of the spirit of the Lamb. One group attempted to keep all of the commandments of God, including the Sabbath, while the other group new and improved God’s laws by substituting laws of their own making, including changing the Sabbath from the 7th day of the week to the 1st day of the week. This will be the identifying mark and test in the end as well.

God has said that the great issue in the Revelation 13 will be worship. One group will claim to be worshipping God, while changing His laws, and the other group will be claiming to worship God while maintaining and obeying the revealed laws of God. Colonel Quaritch revealed His character by how he treated those weaker than himself. He also had the three scars to testify of his toughness. Revelation 14 states that God’s followers will have the three angel’s messages to testify to their relationship with Him, and that they will keep God’s laws by faith in Jesus.

God will have a group of people who will follow Him to death if necessary. The Dragon, and the beast, will have a group of followers that will do the same. We know how Colonel Quaritch ended up. God states that His curse (Revelation 14:9-11) will be upon those who refuse to worship Him for they will have no protection from the deceptive miracles of power that the beast will do. Revelation 13:12-16. Just as the battle between the Colonel and Jake became inevitable so this last battle will happen on this Earth, and each one of us will have to take a decided stand. We know it will happen because of the ability of God to know the future. I hope all of us can learn from the experience of the Colonel and not be on his side. Choosing the side of the Colonel will lead us to acting like him and thinking like him. God would like us on His side but to do that we must decide to worship Him and obey Him. We get to decide which mark we will have.

Why Does James Cameron Use Bible Symbols In Avatar?

2010-06-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

During the discussions of various subjects of the movie Avatar it has been my assertion that James Cameron used Bible symbols in this movie. I have attempted to show these connections in a variety of ways. It will, of course, be up to each reader as to whether my assertions are correct or merely my assumptions and the apparent connections are merely happenstance. But a reasonable question does occur and that is why would Mr. Cameron use Bible symbols in a secular movie? I think that is a reasonable question and I would like to briefly address this concept.

It is my believe that Mr. Cameron wants his movies to be successful in conveying his thoughts, for his ideas and beliefs to have the most powerful impact possible, and to have commercial success for himself and for his investors. In order to accomplish these ideas Mr. Cameron would have to use ideas, methods, symbols that have a positive effect on the audience he is aiming at, and that audience is humanity, worldwide humanity. Mr. Cameron has been in the business of selling ideas long enough to know that one can have an idea but if only a few people see it or hear it there is not much impact. He has refined his craft to the point that he knows what sells, how it sells, and to whom it sells. So Mr. Cameron has been willing to study the most effective ways of communicating his ideas and has settled on movies. Movies are powerful tools because of the truism “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Mr. Cameron also knows that the picture is better if it can communicate a thought in the context of a story that moves the audience to a response, and the response that Mr. Cameron is looking for is repeated viewing of his movie, an open mind and heart to the message, and a willingness to share this thought with others. To accomplish this, the movie, and the message, must contain thoughts that will accomplish these tasks. To accomplish these tasks, on a worldwide basis Mr. Cameron must get to points that every human being can respond to. The best place to look for such things is again to the Bible.

The reason the Bible is so powerful is that God wrote it. Since God created mankind one must assume that God knows human beings pretty well. He knows what makes them tick and He knows the things that block thinking, feelings, and decision making and He knows what opens the hearts and minds. God knows how to make people decide and He knows the boundaries of fairness and freedom to choose. God has a perfect understanding of self-control, and He has the requisite understanding of the time necessary to accomplish any undertaking that He decides to do when interacting with mankind. God also has an understanding of sin and of how sin blocks all of the above issues.

With these thoughts in mind let us discuss briefly Mr. Cameron’s goals. We have stated a brief list above of some of the reasons that Mr. Cameron wants his movies to be commercial successes. In order to accomplish His task Mr. Cameron has been willing to study the methodologies that successful sales people have used to accomplish their goals. The greatest sales person is God.

In God’s sales program He is trying to sell us the idea that we have a problem – sin. He wants to sell us on the idea that this sin problem has been problematic for 6000 years on Earth plus the time in heaven when Lucifer fell. He wants us to understand that this problem has a time limit and will self destruct. In addition He wants us to know that there is an implacable enemy that is encouraging us to self-destruct in a thousand ways. He wants us to know that this enemy started his career in heaven as the closest created being to God in the entire universe. God wants us to know that this being – now called Satan – will use every positive thing that God has initiated and twist it enough to cause death and destruction to mankind, and in principle, to any other living organism in the universe. To communicate these ideas God has used creation, mankind, angels, and the Bible. Each of these entities has a special role in communicating the above ideas, while maintaining freedom to choose to respond to His messages. God knows that these messages are difficult to understand because of the effect of sin on our nervous systems, our bodies, and our awareness of data. God also knows that unless He helps, through the power of His Holy Spirit we can not get certain information, nor make certain decisions without His help. This entire process is called the Plan of Salvation.

As James Cameron has studied out God’s plans, and methodologies, he has seen that God wants to affect us at the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual levels. God has chosen to reveal His truths to mankind at a story level for this level allows us to receive His messages at all three levels at the same time. Mr. Cameron is also aware that God has left certain prime directives in each heart and mind. One of those prime directives is the need to worship. Every human being worships something on a regular basis. This worship can be as simple as following the steps of a movie star and trying to replicate that person’s power, persona, and appearance in our own lives, or it can be a destructive worship of trying to copy the lifestyle of a favorite criminal or gang members. But however the worship is done Mr. Cameron recognizes that worship is a principle that all people respond to. Thus in the movie Avatar Mr. Cameron has placed on display a variety of worship scenarios. One of the worship issues is the veneration that the Na’vi has for Eywa. They also show the worship that Parker Selfridge has for money, and of course the worship that Colonel Quaritch has for power. Mr. Cameron knows that the audience can respond to these forms of worship for they are universal in all human beings.

One of the interesting things about Mr. Cameron is that he also has an awareness that there are other prime directives in the hearts and minds of people. In Avatar he has displayed his awareness that people have an innate calling to return to their Edenic home and he has created a little sample of what the Garden of Eden may have looked like by his rendition of the planet Pandora. Many viewers have gone into a state of depression in their longing to return to Eden but do not know how.

In addition Mr. Cameron is aware that to get back to the Garden of Eden God has laid out a process. He reveals this process in the changes in the life of Jake Sulley. As Jake goes through his various stages of change, the audience recognizes these steps and they are hoping that he makes it for they also are aware that they have a similar process to go through. Thus the audience can identify with Jake and they encourage him to be successful in his endeavors. All people like a success story that they can see is similar to their walk in life.

A final concept Mr. Cameron uses is the idea of victory over evil. He has displayed in Avatar the greed and avarice of mankind. All people recognize these traits in others, as well as themselves. Most everyone can recognize sin at this level and are happy when the little guy, in this case Jake Sulley and the Na’vi, wins a victory over these sins. The audience can relate to these concepts and they enjoy the vicarious victory over the villains.

A tragedy in the movie, that is not addressed, is the idea of how each person in the audience will have victory in their lives over the villains that they have addressed. Mr. Cameron does not show how this is to be accomplished for the audience in real time. Mr. Cameron recognizes that not everyone in the audience is a hero type like Jake Sulley. The audience recognizes this as well. The audience wishes that there was a real hero that could help them in their walks of life that could deliver them from external villains as well as internal villains. This hero is not revealed in Avatar because Mr. Cameron is also aware that if he reveals That Hero he might lose the majority of his audience because That Hero is willing to tell the whole story and will openly and freely communicate to the audience what they need to do in order to be saved and to have all the things that they want in reference to returning to their Eden home. That Hero, by the way, is Jesus Christ of Nazareth – the True Avatar – The very Creator of the Universe who came to Earth, in human form, to communicate with His estranged people.

I will be asking Mr. Cameron, in a future article, to communicate these issues in a more comprehensive manner to his audience. But for now I just want to conclude this article by stating that Mr. Cameron has used the principles that God had granted to us in a marvelous manner. Mr. Cameron has studied the communication patterns that God has left us and has incorporated them in many of his movies, and especially in the movie Avatar. If Avatar turns out to be a trilogy, we will see these principles on display again. We have benefited by the efforts of Mr. Cameron but we also can study out these principles directly by studying the Bible ourselves. If we truly would like to go to Eden we can get there. God has given us the plan. He has revealed the principles to us. We can learn them just as Mr. Cameron has learned them. We personally can live out the Jake Sulley story in real time and have real time results. The symbols revealed in the Bible and in the movie Avatar, can be lived out and experienced in this real life, not just in a movie theatre. Make the decision today. Ask God, the One greater than Eywa, to come to you and to teach you the symbols that He has given to us. Ask Him to teach you, and to help you to participate in the plan of salvation. Tell Him of your desire to go to the Eden Home promised to us in Revelation 21-22. Allow the symbols to become reality for you.

Avatar and the Warrior Princess

2010-06-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

One of the central themes of Avatar is the feminization of the Pandoran Government and Religion. Mo’at is the spiritual leader of the Omaticaya Clan, Eywa is the feminine goddess of the planet and the Neytiri is the warrior princess of the clan. Eytukan is the leader of the clan as long as he maintains the blessing of Mo’at. Tsu’tey is also a leader into battle, or the hunt, but is not the leader when it comes to spiritual things which is the basis of leadership in the Na’vi system. Thus the male is the figure head ruler of the clan but the female is the true leader in this culture. But in this article I want to focus primarily on Neytiri and the role as a leader in the clan.

Neytiri was to be the successor to Mo’at as the spiritual leader of the clan and the interpreter of the will of Eywa for various activities that the clan participated in. Neytiri was responsive to the will of Eywa in not killing Jake in the beginning of the movie and of being willing to take him to the home tree. This would indicate that Neytiri was very sensitive to the spiritual issues of her clan and her willingness to suppress her desires for the good of the clan and to accomplish the will of Eywa. In addition Neytiri was a warrior princess and when necessary she was able and willing to use physical force to take care of a problem. Neytiri was going to shoot Jake when the seed of the holy tree rested upon her arrow and she was willing to not kill to be obedient to the will of Eywa. She delivered Jake from the animals attacking him. She recognized that a special message was being communicated about Jake when all of the seeds landed upon him. She was willing to disobey her father’s command to not bring any Avatar to the clan’s home, and she was willing to save Jake from Tsu’tey’s attack. Neytiri was a warrior and a servant to her goddess, she was a warrior princess.

As we have discussed before James Cameron appears to have used the Bible as his original source of symbolic issues. The warrior princess symbol is also expressed in the Bible. This concept is first expressed in Genesis 3:15 where God says that He will put enmity between the woman and the serpent and between her seed and the serpent’s seed. This text gives us some clue to the conflict between the great serpent Satan, and the woman – mother Eve.

The next literal example of a warrior princess is that of Jael in Judges 4-5. God has allowed Israel to be subservient to Jabin king of the Canaanites because of the sins conducted in Israel. God has raised up a judge and a prophetess by the name of Deborah. She alerts a man by the name of Barak that God has called him to deliver Israel and he will get the glory of defeating the general of the Canaanite army. But Barak states he will not fight this battle unless Deborah goes with him to the battle. Deborah agrees to go with Barak in Judges 4:8-9. Deborah also prophesies that if she goes with Barak, Barak will not get the glory of defeating the opposing general Sisera but that the glory will go to a woman who will kill the general. Barak is willing to not receive the glory to be sure that he wins the battle. So in fulfillment of the prophecy Sisera, the Canaanite general flees from Barak because the Lord had delivered his armies into the hands of Barak. When Sisera flees providence directs him to the home of Heber the Kenite because there had been peace between Sisera’s king and the house of Heber. When Sisera arrives he meets Jael Heber’s wife and asks for sanctuary. She offers to give him something to drink and to hide him n the tent and if any man comes looking for Sisera Jael was to tell them that she had not seen anyone. After lying down to rest Sisera falls asleep and while he is sleeping Jael kills him by hammering a tent stake through his temples. She thus has the honor of killing the opposing general in the time of Israel’s great tribulation.

The next part of the symbolism of the warrior princess is spoken of in Romans 16:20 “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly…” This text states that God will subdue Satan through the efforts of His church. In Bible symbolism a woman always represents a church. A good woman represents the church of God, and an evil woman the church of Satan. See II Corinthians 11:2; Jeremiah 6:2; Revelation 12; and Revelation 17. God says that He will use His church to win His great war against Satan and even refers to His church as His battle horse. “…for the Lord of hosts hath visited His flock the house of Judah, and hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle.” Zechariah 10:3

So in the Bible God’s church, symbolized by a woman, is described as a warrior princess, a suitable bride for Jesus. Jesus as the Warrior king, has a bride who is able to fight as well. Thus just as Jake and Neytiri are suitable for each other on several planes, so God and His church are united as husband and wife, and are a warrior couple as well.

Avatar’s Tsahik

2010-06-07T15:24:00.001-07:00

In the movie Avatar one of the main characters is Moat, Neytiri’s mother. Moat is the Tsahik of the Omaticaya Clan. Moat, as the Tsahik was to monitor and facilitate the will of Eywa – the goddess of Pandora.

Moat is introduced in the movie when Neytiri, in response to the “signs” given by the clustering of the seeds from the holy tree on Jake, brings Jake Sulley in his avatar to the clan home. Moat comes out to investigate hears from Neytiri, the next Tsahik, that Eywa has spoken of and approved of Jake. She conducts a judgment by taking a sample of Jake’s blood to analyze it and to see if there is any treachery being conducted by Jake, and his fellow humans. Not much detail is given as to how and what Moat was judging but the end product was that Jake was granted trainee status and was allowed to become a part of the clan if he could pass the training that Neytiri was commanded to grant him.

Moat is also presented as the one with enough spiritual common sense to release Jake after he is taken a prisoner for confessing to be a spy for the Earthlings. Moat also supervises, and facilitates the attempts to heal Dr. Augustine by transferring her consciousness to her avatar, and conducts the successful transferring of Jake’s consciousness to his avatar, on a permanent basis.

Moat seems to be the High Priestess of the religious activities for her tribe and the spokesperson for Eywa. All religious activities are led by her, and all activities are sanctioned by her as god’s representative. Moat is the spiritual leader of the tribe and even the tribe leader would submit to her decisions since she is the spokesperson for God.

In the Bible women play many roles but none are as forceful as that of Moat. The story of Deborah in Judges 4 probably comes closest to the role of Tsahik. The Bible clearly states that Deborah is a prophetess – a female prophet. She also plays the role of a judge, the final arbiter of legal issues in the nation. She can claim to be the spokesperson for God for that is the role of a prophet, and the Bible states that several women were prophets. But one thing Deborah is not recorded as doing. She does not go into the temple to offer any kind of sacrifices to God. This role seems to be an exclusively male role in the Bible. But the role of spokesperson for the will of God, as a prophetess, seems to be an event that is used frequently.

Two other examples of people being prophetesses would be that of Hulda in II Chronicles 34:19-28. She receives the message from the king of Judah and communicates the will of God to the king. Miriam, Moses’ sister, was also a prophetess and led out in various spiritual activities. Exodus 15:20-21. In the New Testament one of the disciples had daughters who prophesied.

So there are similarities in the Christian religion to the role Moat displayed. God’s ideal was for a man to be the spiritual leader of His people. God wanted Adam to perform this function in the beginning and to have the first born son to be that spiritual leader after Adam. In the time of the Exodus God expanded this role and gave it to the High Priest.

After Israel came to the land of Canaan the role of spiritual leader was altered in an unusual way. The people did not want God to be their spiritual leader, or their king, and they pleaded with God to give them a king just like all of the other nations. They wanted someone that they could physically see and hear and they wanted someone to watch over them in a standard way. In this story God allowed them a king, and the king God chose was King Saul. King Saul fulfilled all of the issues that the people wanted – he was tall, handsome, powerful, big, and had some leadership qualities. But his heart did not stay right with God and he led Israel away from God. God countered King Saul with a King of His own choosing and raised up King David – a leader, and a prophet.

God’s goal was to have a spiritual leader, a prophet, and a priest all mixed into one person. Eventually that Person came and He was Jesus the Son of God. Jesus was the Tsahik, as well as the Toruk Makto, as well as the Clan leader. All of the spiritual issues in the Bible were to lead our minds to the One who fulfilled all of concepts of the Bible. Jesus fulfilled every spiritual model in the Bible. He was not only was king, prophet, priest, and man; Jesus was God in the flesh – the true Avatar.

So in conclusion, Moat gives us some ideas of what God is like in her role as Tsahik. But God wanted a larger picture to be presented. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the son of Mary and Joseph of Nazareth was the true Tsahik.

Avatar- "I can See"

2010-05-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

One of the constant metaphorical themes in the movie Avatar is the saying “I can see you”. This is a statement often used in the Na’vi clans as a statement of recognition when greeting each other. Norm, Jake Sully’s Avatar driver co-worker, spent a great deal of time trying to get Jake to see that this statement is not only a greeting but it is a statement of spiritual awareness and emotional sensitivity, toward the person you are “seeing”. “I can see you” is one of those all purpose, multi-level greetings that go as deep as the relationship of the people will allow it to go.

This statement is also a Bible concept. God uses this phrase, this concept, in many different ways as well. God states that when people are in a state of rebellion they cannot “see”, or hear, or understand spiritual things. This statement is made when the disciples come to Jesus and ask Him why it is that He speaks in parables. They are questioning why He does not just come out and say certain things to people? Jesus answers in the following way:

“Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” Matthew 13:13-15

Jesus, Himself, says that people, who are religious, conservative, state that they want to know the will of God, but they cannot and will not see spiritual things that disagree with their preconceived ideas. Therefore, God Himself has to use special teaching methods to communicate ideas to them in a way that hopefully their preconceptions will not interfere with the truths that need to be heard and then they will turn away from truth before faithfully and honestly evaluating the thought.

God also says that people, in a non-converted state cannot process spiritual thoughts. He says the following:

“Which things also we speak, not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I Corinthians 2:13-14

God teaches that when a person is spiritual, having had a conversion experience from a personal relationship with God, then they can hear spiritual truth and then respond logically and reasonably for they have a spiritual understanding of truth. But without this spiritual understanding then spiritual things sound just plain old
foolish. So, for example, Colonel Quaritch could hear the statement “I can see you” and he would evaluate it from the purest form of logic. Yes I can see you physically, or yes my satellites say you are there, but if it came to seeing a spiritual quality, Colonel Quaritch would “see” this as soft and unimportant and thus block off an avenue of awareness that could be helpful.

Probably God’s ultimate statement on the issue of “I can see you” is recorded in the Love Chapter of the Bible in I Corinthians 13. In this chapter God says the following:

“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” I Corinthians 13:9-12

God says that when we are in a state of spiritual love – fully in harmony with the mind of God – then we will see things and hear things and will understand many of the things around us.

These concepts especially apply to the movie Avatar. I have talked to many people about the spiritual symbols in the movie. The people look at me blankly and say “I didn’t see any spiritual symbols in the movie.” I am totally impressed with that statement because they didn’t see anything, they saw a movie about blue people on another planet and they saw it as a movie of entertainment. They did not see the spiritual principles. They did not see the potential for truth or error, they just saw a movie.

On the bright side of the picture, when I shared with them some of the observations I had on the movie, a little light began to dawn on them. They said “Really, I didn’t see any of that by myself, but now that you mention it, there could be some ideas like that. I think I will look at it again and maybe I will see something.” This is one of the major principles of the Bible, one shares thoughts with another and then if they are willing they may go back and look again. Then they may be able to share with God “I can see you.” If that happens to even one person, it will be well worth all of the time of writing to allow someone else to see God, and His truth, in a movie like Avatar.

Avatar and the Providences of God

2010-05-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

Providence is one of those concepts that people use to try to figure out the mysterious workings of God. We can not process the idea that God can organize events in such a manner to have the right person at the right place at the right time to accomplish a wonderful event. Avatar is a story of such a series of events. The hero of the movie – Jake Sulley – is at the center of a series of extraordinary/supernatural events and this series of events is the story of the movie Avatar.

The series of events goes something like this:

Jake is wounded in combat and loses his ability to walk on his own.

Jake does not have sufficient funds to get the required surgery so he is more open to a set of new events should they come.

Jake’s identical twin brother goes through extensive training to be an Avatar driver and the mining corporation invests significant funds to train and to prepare an Avatar for Jakes’ brother.

Jake’s brother is shot just a few days before leaving for the 6 years flight to Pandora.

The Mining Corporation offers Jake the opportunity to go to Pandora to save their investment because he has the DNA requisite to use the Avatar and save the corporation all kinds of money.

Jake is open to going to Pandora because he is totally dissatisfied with life on Earth. He is willing to do something new.

Jake is assigned to Dr. Augustine’s program and has the opportunity to experience being able to walk and perform in a different setting than he has ever done before.

Jake is attacked by the largest land carnivore on Pandora and survives.

Jake’s survival exposes him to the denizens of Pandora and he needs help.

Neytiri finds Jake and is about to kill him when Eywa expresses her wishes to save him by sending the seed to descend upon Neytiri’s arrow.

Neytiri delivers Jake from the wolves.

Jake sees Neytiri as a Savior and does not want her to leave him alone in the jungle lest he die by some other creature.

While discussing issues with Neytiri, Eywa again expresses her wishes to Neytiri by sending a number of seeds to communicate the idea that Jake has been called by her to accomplish a task of importance to Eywa.

Jake is taken to the village of the Omaticaya clan and after assessment, identification as someone who does not know it all, and identification as a warrior, Jake is allowed to train and the trainer is Neytiri the princess and potential love interest.

Jake is accepted by Colonel Quaritch, Dr. Alexander, and Mr. Selfridge to go through the training process, and a time limit of 90 days is established. This puts pressure on all parties to move expeditiously. No time for fearful decisions, action is imperative.

Jake gets so involved in the training, and in his new body, and his new relationships, that it is difficult for him to remember who he is. He can not remember what his old life was like especially in comparison with his “new” life. Change is occurring.

Jake is learning and he likes what he is learning and when he is able to “see” life like a Na’vi would, Neytiri passes judgment upon Jake and declares him ready to take the final steps in becoming a man, a member of the tribe of the Omaticaya, and one eligible to become a mate and husband, and lover, to be fulfilled as a person.

Jake accomplishes all of his tasks and is accepted as a full member of the tribe, and takes Neytiri as his wife.

Jake is now confronted with the rapaciousness of the Mining Corporation when they bulldoze the holy tree on the morning of his marriage. He acts and is recorded as a rebel against the Corporation and against humanity.

Jake is rejected by the Corporation and by the Omaticaya as a betrayer of both clans.

The Home Tree is destroyed and his relationships are challenged at all levels.

Jake is delivered by his friends and is able to get back to his Avatar.

Jake recognizes that he must do something extraordinary and he chooses to become Toruk Makto and flies into the camp of the Omaticaya on the back of the largest flying predator on Pandora.

Jake is accepted as the leader of the resistance and all of the clan leaders are willing to follow him into battle.

Jake recognizes that he needs special help and he is willing to ask Eywa for help.

Jake survives the battle and delivers the Na’vi from the Earthlings.

Finally Jake is willing to abandon his Earthling form to be forever identified as a Na’vi warrior.

Now that is a lot of events and circumstances and providential movings in the life of one man. It thus brings us to an interesting question. That question is whether Eywa is the goddess of Pandora only or the Goddess of the universe. If she is the Goddess of the universe then she would be able to foresee the needs of Pandora as well as the needs of Earth, and of every other planet in the universe. Whoever the God is that Eywa is modeled after is either the real God or not to be able to control all the variables in the story of Jake Sulley.

Now all who have seen the movie Avatar, are satisfied that Jake, Neytiri, and Eywa are fictitious characters and are not real. But as we have discussed earlier, James Cameron came up with all of these spiritual ideas and he came up with them strictly from his imagination, or he got them from somewhere else. It has been the primes of the blog – Avatar’s Garden of Pandora – that Mr. Cameron got all of his true ideas directly from the Bible, including the greatest Avatar of all – Jesus Christ. The reason that the movie Avatar so resonates with people is that it tells the story of Jesus Christ symbolically. All of the issues of the movie Avatar are symbolic and are told in a fictitious story. The Bible tells the same intergalactic story but tells the truth about the real story of the great struggle and tells about the real experiences of people working with God and tells the real story of God Himself. In the rest of this article I will tell the story of Jesus in the same abbreviated way that I told the story about Jake Sulley. For the fuller, more complete version I would recommend reading the Bible for yourself.

Chronologically the story of Jesus starts in the book of Colossians 1. Before there was a universe the Bible tells us that God existed alone. God consisted of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Remember that God is infinitely more complex than can be described in words but we will do the best we can to tell an infinite story in finite terms.

God decided to create the universe and created all of the planets, galaxies, and all of the principles and powers involved in this creation. Colossians 1:12-17

Among the things created was heaven and angels.

In the process of time, the greatest created angel – Lucifer, chose to rebel against the revealed will of God and brought chaos and dissension into heaven.

After working with Lucifer, and those who chose to follow Lucifer, to try to bring them to a point of repentance and reconciliation. When this did not work out there was war in heaven and Lucifer was cast out of heaven but not destroyed.

Earth was then created and mankind was created on Earth to live out their lives and reveal the perfect will of God.

Lucifer, now called Satan, – the Adversary – seduced Adam and Eve, and they chose to listen to Satan rather than to God. This started the sin problem on Earth.

To give Adam and Eve another chance, and to fulfill their plans on Earth, God chose to reveal what is called the Plan of Salvation, of how God Himself would come to Earth as a man and redeem mankind, destroy Satan, and reveal His glory to all of the universe, so that none would ever choose to follow Satan or his ideas ever again.

God informed Adam and Eve that God would come as a man, through the lineage of the church and through the people.

All Bible history is a record of the lineage of the church people, the chaos and confusion of their lives, and yet there is a constant thread of how God watches over His people, and providentially continues to guide His true believers through the difficulties of a life of sin on this planet.

All through this Bible history God gives little revelations of the fact that He is still here, He is guiding, and He is controlling events even in the context of freedom of choice to obey or rebel. These revelations are prophecies to show that God can see the future, long before it happens, and is able to guide and control without infringing on our freedom to surrender and obey, or to rebel.

God promises that he will come as a man, and that he will come through the line of Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. This lineage is more clearly identified in the time of Abraham and a promise is made that of the seed of Abraham all the nations of the Earth will be blessed. Genesis 15:1-6.

God again promises to come and more specifically He will come through the lineage of Judah. In fact Messiah will come by the time there is no longer a descendent of Judah sitting on the throne of Israel. Genesis 49:8-10

God preserves Israel through all kinds of difficulty but still His hand guides and keeps that His prophecies will unfold.

In Micah 5:2 God tells the city where Messiah will be born in.

In Isaiah 53 God tells what the mission of Messiah will look like.

In Psalms 22 God gives great details of how Messiah will die.

In Daniel 8-9 God tells the time of when Messiah will show up and various details of His life. Daniel says that Messiah will be born around 4 BC, anointed in 27 AD, and crucified in 31 AD.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell the story of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth – the Messiah of the Bible.

Jesus, the Creator of Earth, comes to Earth as an Avatar in that He takes on the form of a man and to mankind is indistinguishable from any other man by appearance alone. But when one talked with Him and watched Him any honest open hearted person could tell that there was a significant difference between Jesus and any other man. Those who recognized this difference followed Him and became His disciples.

Jesus fulfilled all of the prophecies of the Bible to show that He was the fulfillment of the utterances that He Himself had given all through Earth history.

Jesus then chose to gather all of the collected guilt of mankind, past, present, and future, and took it all upon Himself and was punished for all of mankind, and then crucified to fulfill all Scripture to reveal that sin brought death.

Jesus then resurrected Himself to show that He had power over death for Himself and all who believe in Him.

Bible prophecy states that from the resurrection of Jesus to His second coming there would be great warfare between His followers and the followers of Satan. God prophesied that there would be a people that He would reveal Himself through so that any who wanted to could follow Him by faith. God reveals all of these things in the Bible.

God tells all of the major issues that would confront His people and warned them that life would not be easy, but that through His power all could overcome anything Satan would throw at them.

Jesus tells us that when all is accomplished He will come a second time to gather His righteous ones, including those who have died all through history.

When Jesus gathers His people He will take them to heaven and then after 1000 years He will return to Earth and resurrect the wicked. He will judge the wicked, for they have refused His gift of sacrifice and death, and then destroy the wicked and recreate the Earth so that it returns to the state of the original creation.

God, and His people, will reign over the universe on Earth for ever.

All of the above concepts are to be offered to any and all who want to have a personal relationship with God. All of the wonderful things, seen in the movie Avatar, will be fulfilled in reality in God’s kingdom. He will grant us new bodies, He will grant us eternal life, and He will grant us the opportunity of traveling through out the universe seeing the things that He planned for us in the beginning when He first created the universe. All of these things are available for any who will accept the Bible truths by faith and experience. The choice is ours and can be started today. To start today simply start reading the story of the Bible with the belief that this story is written for us to train us and to give us opportunity to work together with God Himself.

Avatar – You Don’t Dream in Cryo

2010-05-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

In the opening dialogue of the movie Avatar Jake Sulley, states that when you are in the deep sleep of Cryogenics you don’t dream. You are in a state of suspended animation and your brain processing is virtually at a stand still until you are brought back up out of this state of suspended animation. While you are in Cryo your body continues to function but you have no awareness of anything going on around you, not awareness of time, no dreaming, no hating, no loving, nothing, until awakened by an outside force.

As I was meditating upon the subject of Cryo sleep, I thought that this was a great metaphor for something that the Bible calls “sleep”. In the Bible there is regular sleep that all humans do for some period almost every day. This sleep is the normal rest taken, usually at evening, and from which we all awaken every day to go about our duties; and then there is a sleep from which we do not awaken without the help of an outside force – the sleep of death. I Corinthians 15:6,18,20,51,52

Death as a form of sleep is one of the more interesting concepts in the Bible. Jesus describes it in John 11. One of Jesus’ favorite people, Lazarus has contracted a fatal illness and the family calls to Jesus because He is the great healer. Jesus delays his coming to see Lazarus until Lazarus is dead. When the disciples ask about the delay of Jesus to respond He reports that Lazarus is “sleeping”. The disciples think this is pretty good for they think that he is sleeping in healing rest. Jesus clarifies this thought by saying that He is going to get Lazarus and wake him up from his sleep, because Lazarus had died. John 11:1-14 Jesus was the outside force that would awaken Lazarus and eventually will awaken all who are “sleeping” in the tomb today.

As Jake Sulley stated from his experience, there is no dreaming in Cryo, so there is no dreaming when one is dead. God says that when a man dies that very day all of his thinking stops. “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” Psalms 146:4 Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, 9-10 states the following:

“For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”

Nothing goes on for the person who has died. He has as much awareness of things around him as Jake Sulley described about his ability to dream when in Cryo.
This concept of not thinking, feeling, loving, hating, communicating has some interesting ramifications on things we normally take for granted. One of those things that people accept quite freely are things like Vampires, Witches, Wizards, Ghosts, Zombies, etc. In each of the subjects listed there is a requirement to be dead and yet not dead or to communicate with the dead. The Bible clearly states that when a person dies they do not communicate with anyone living unless they have been resurrected from the dead – or brought back to living, thinking, breathing, sharing by the power of God. So a Vampire by definition can not be for a vampire is supposed to be a dead person who continues to live, thus violating the statement of God. Witches and Wizards get their information and power from communicating with the dead. Now according to the Bible this can not be for the Bible says that a dead person is totally unable to think, or communicate any thing. A Ghost is supposed to be the soul of a dead person who is still moving around due to some kind of unfinished business. And a Zombie is something that should be dead but is still moving around attacking people for some unknown reason. All of these things the Bible says can not happen.

So the obvious question is that people have this belief, and have a variety of experiences of coming in contact with ugly, gruesome, violent, evil persons who appear to have died yet people see and communicate with something. The clearest Bible story we have on the subject is the story of King Saul and the Witch of Endor. I Samuel 28:3-25. In this story King Saul has through his rebellion shut off every normal avenue of communication with God. Since King Saul has not wanted to submit to the counsel of the prophet Samuel, and did not want to pray, or have anything to do with God, he is now in an experience that he wants some comfort and support. Since God is not willing to talk to one who is not willing to listen and obey, Saul decides to consult with a witch. Now prior to this event Saul has attempted to kill every witch, or wizard in Israel to follow the counsel of God in Deuteronomy 18:9-14. Now that he feels desperate he is willing to go against his better judgment.

When Saul goes to the Witch he disguises himself for he does not want people to see him and his activities, and he does not want to frighten the Witch lest she not give him what he wants from her. When Saul presents his case to the Witch the first thing that happens is that she is informed that her customer is Saul. She did not have that information on her own but was provided this information through her supernatural contacts. Saul is properly impressed that she has a source of supernatural information. Saul assumes that it comes from the person he is seeking to contact – the Prophet Samuel. Saul is not able to see anyone but he asks the Witch and she reports that she sees an old man coming up, apparently from the grave, covered with a mantle. She apparently assumes that it is Samuel, and Saul assumes that it is Samuel. She hears the message of condemnation from the apparition which she sees and she passes this message of discouragement on to Saul. Saul faints with discouragement after hearing the message.

Now the great question is, was the thing which the Witch saw the real Samuel? My answer would be no, it was not. It was not Samuel for the following reasons. God says that the dead know not anything. So to attempt to communicate with Samuel would be as possible as talking to Jake Sulley while he was in Cryo. It can not be done. Secondly, God would not allow His dead prophet to respond to a person that God has already declared to be worthy of death. Thirdly God is not going to violate His principles to encourage people to violate His principles. To reward rebellious Saul, and the rebellious witch, would be to train, and reward, people to do exactly what He told them not to do. God does not function that way.

The Second question would be, if the thing that the Witch saw was not Samuel then who was it? The answer is that it would be Satan, or one of his fallen angels, for they are the only supernatural beings who would attempt to contradict God. Angels are supernatural beings and can do many things that are wondrous and supernatural on our plane of existence. One of those things is that they can be invisible around us, they can take on different forms, and they can communicate information that is not readily available to the rest of us. So the fallen angels would, and do, encourage people to come to them for wisdom that God will not give, because it is not good for us. Satan can tell his witches information that is private to all else but Satan was there when an event occurred and can communicate that information to others. He displayed this by revealing the fact that the Witches customer was King Saul. He also can pretend to be something, or someone else to convince people that they are talking to their loved ones.

The key concept is that one of the key factors of information received from demons, through what ever avenue they want to communicate, is that the information is never intended to bring the person into a surrendered obedient relationship with God. God’s intent, on the other hand, is to confront, if necessary, but to offer hope for a renewed relationship if the person is willing. His goal is never to discourage an honest hearted attempt to renew a relationship with God.

In conclusion, God has clearly stated that when a person is dead, that person is totally unable to communicate information to anyone else, until they are resurrected. So any thing that attempts to communicate information, from someone who is dead, is not from God but from Satan. Any avenue of information that presents the idea that the information came from the dead, is from Satan, not from God.

God wants us to come to Him to seek the answers to our questions. He will always help us to get the information we need, not always what we want. He wants to give us the truth in such a manner that it helps us to draw nearer to Him, the source of all information and wisdom. God will not help us to indulge in error, or something destructive. He will only help with the truth, especially that truth that helps us to come to Him. Let us therefore shut the door on that communication that is meant to destroy us and help us to open the door in our minds to that communication which helps us to find our way to God.

Avatar and the Garden of Eden Restored

2010-05-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

One of the wonderful things about the movie Avatar is that it seems to tap into a racial memory about the Garden of Eden. Numbers of people have become depressed over the fact that they cannot go to a planet like Pandora to see the beauties and wonders of nature as depicted in the movie. It is this writer’s perspective that God intends for man to have this very thing. God wants us to have the reality of what Pandora and the movie Avatar have intimated about what we need.

As I have studied the Bible over the years I have found a few signs of the Garden of Eden and what God plans to do with it, and what He wants to do to reunite it with His people. First of all God has sent His angels to watch over the gate way to the Garden of Eden and kept His angels on guard that no unconverted person enters into the Garden. This of course implies that a converted person would have access to the Garden at some time. For this to be true would imply that the Garden of Eden is out there somewhere waiting for God’s timing to allow us to come back into the Garden and to have access to the Tree of Life once again.

In Ezekiel 47:1-12 is a scene described that is similar to that of Genesis 2:1-15 where there is a river of pure water coming out of the Garden and watering the Earth. Around the headwaters is a tree whose fruit comes out monthly and the leaves of the tree have healing qualities. This scene is similar to that of Revelation 22:1-2 where the Tree of Life is very close to the River of the water of life that proceeds out of the throne of God. This Tree is very similar to that of the tree in Ezekiel 47. This Tree, and this River, and this Throne are in the New Jerusalem. It is almost as if this section of the Garden of Eden was preserved by God in the New Jerusalem for us to see when we are taken to heaven for 1000 years. God tells us that the New Jerusalem will descend from heaven to Earth and then God will recreate the heavens and the earth and restore it to its Edenic beauty for us to enjoy forever.

This scene is spoken of in the writings of Ellen G. White – a woman whom the Seventh Day Adventist Church considers to be a prophetess. She wrote of the Garden of Eden being removed from Earth and taken to heaven as a token of the wonders that God wanted us to have. She also talks about Adam seeing the Garden after taken to heaven. The story goes as follows:

“Before the ransomed throng is the Holy City. Jesus opens wide the pearly gates, and the nations that have kept the truth enter in. There they behold the Paradise of God, the home of Adam in his innocency. Then that voice, richer than any music that ever fell on mortal ear, is heard, saying: "Your conflict is ended." "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

Now is fulfilled the Saviour's prayer for His disciples: "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." "Faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 24), Christ presents to the Father the purchase of His blood, declaring: "Here am I, and the children whom Thou hast given Me." "Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept." Oh, the wonders of redeeming love! the rapture of that hour when the infinite Father, looking upon the ransomed, shall behold His image, sin's discord banished, its blight removed, and the human once more in harmony with the divine!

With unutterable love, Jesus welcomes His faithful ones to the joy of their Lord. The Saviour's joy is in seeing, in the kingdom of glory, the souls that have been saved by His agony and humiliation. And the redeemed will be sharers in His joy, as they behold, among the blessed, those who have been won to Christ through their prayers, their labors, and their loving sacrifice. As they gather about the great white throne, gladness unspeakable will fill their hearts, when they behold those whom they have won for Christ, and see that one has gained others, and these still others, all brought into the haven of rest, there to lay their crowns at Jesus' feet and praise Him through the endless cycles of eternity.

As the ransomed ones are welcomed to the City of God, there rings out upon the air an exultant cry of adoration. The two Adams are about to meet. The Son of God is standing with outstretched arms to receive the father of our race--the being whom He created, who sinned against his Maker, and for whose sin the marks of the crucifixion are borne upon the Saviour's form. As Adam discerns the prints of the cruel nails, he does not fall upon the bosom of his Lord, but in humiliation casts himself at His feet, crying: "Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain!" Tenderly the Saviour lifts him up and bids him look once more upon the Eden home from which he has so long been exiled.

After his expulsion from Eden, Adam's life on earth was filled with sorrow. Every dying leaf, every victim of sacrifice, every blight upon the fair face of nature, every stain upon man's purity, was a fresh reminder of his sin. Terrible was the agony of remorse as he beheld iniquity abounding, and, in answer to his warnings, met the reproaches cast upon himself as the cause of sin. With patient humility he bore, for nearly a thousand years, the penalty of transgression. Faithfully did he repent of his sin and trust in the merits of the promised Saviour, and he died in the hope of a resurrection. The Son of God redeemed man's failure and fall; and now, through the work of the atonement, Adam is reinstated in his first dominion.

Transported with joy, he beholds the trees that were once his delight--the very trees whose fruit he himself had gathered in the days of his innocence and joy. He sees the vines that his own hands have trained, the very flowers that he once loved to care for. His mind grasps the reality of the scene; he comprehends that this is indeed Eden restored, more lovely now than when he was banished from it. The Saviour leads him to the tree of life and plucks the glorious fruit and bids him eat. He looks about him and beholds a multitude of his family redeemed, standing in the Paradise of God. Then he casts his glittering crown at the feet of Jesus and, falling upon His breast, embraces the Redeemer. He touches the golden harp, and the vaults of heaven echo the triumphant song: "Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and lives again!" The family of Adam take up the strain and cast their crowns at the Saviour's feet as they bow before Him in adoration.

This reunion is witnessed by the angels who wept at the fall of Adam and rejoiced when Jesus, after His resurrection, ascended to heaven, having opened the grave for all who should believe on His name. Now they behold the work of redemption accomplished, and they unite their voices in the song of praise.” The Great Controversy pages 647-648

http://www.whiteestate.org/books/gc/gc.asp

I personally want to be able to go to heaven, and to see the wonderful events spoken of in the above quotation. I want to see the Garden of Eden and I want to taste the fruit of that wonderful tree. This great opportunity awaits every single person who is willing to explore the truths of the Bible with an open and humble heart. I hope to see you there as well.

Avatar and the Removal of Adam from Eden

2010-05-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

In the closing scenes of the movie Avatar is an interesting scene. The remaining people from the Hells Gate camp are being escorted out of the camp into a shuttle to return to Earth. In the judgment of the Na’vi, with Toruk Makto being the intercessor, have concluded that the majority of the people are not safe to retain on Pandora and must be sent away lest harm come to Pandora as a result of their presence and their potential interference with life. This judgment is a result of the Investigative Judgment and is a result of the evaluation that came as a result of Eywa winning the war between the Na’vi and the people from Earth.

This scene is reminiscent of the events that came about from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God had created a special place for His first two children and God called the place the Garden of Eden. Eden means pleasure or delight in Hebrew, so the English translation would be the Garden of Delight or the Garden of Pleasure. In every way Eden was the picture of perfect peace, safety, and the fulfillment of righteous pleasure. Nothing killed one another in Eden and everything communicated with each other, in a way similar to the communication qualities of the plants and animals as represented on Pandora.

In the center of the Garden were two trees – the great tree was called the Tree of Life and Adam and Eve were to eat freely of the fruit of this tree for it would perpetuate life. God wanted Adam and Eve to never die but to live and enjoy the pleasures that He had designed for them. Near the Tree of Life was a tree to test the trust of Adam and Eve. God created a tree called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat of this tree for it would expose them to evil, the evil of not trusting the good will and care of God. God allowed this tree to be in the garden to allow Adam and Eve to decide whether they would trust God or would they put their own wisdom above His.

In Genesis 3 the story is told that Satan, the great dragon and the great serpent of Revelation 12:9, came to this tree and started to talk to Eve, who had separated herself from her husband Adam. Eve apparently felt that she was strong enough to handle any kind of emergency by herself and did not feel the need to have her husband with her. When the serpent began to speak to her she was shocked but attracted to this new thing. She listened to the words of the serpent and when the serpent told her his reason why God did not want them to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of God and Evil, it made sense to her mind. The serpent told Eve that the reason that God did not want them to eat of this tree is because it would make them like gods and they would know good and evil and implied that they would not have to be dependent upon God any more but could judge things accurately on their own. When Eve heard this she thought that that made sense. The serpent also told her that when God told them that they would surely die if they ate of the tree, that that was not a true statement. The serpent told them just the opposite of what God had said. God said they would die if they ate of the tree and the serpent said that they would not die. Now Eve had to decide whether the Creator knew what was true or whether the serpent knew what was truth. She was not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and had not even tasted of the fruit. After weighing the data, as she understood it, she concluded that the serpent was correct and God was in error. She apparently concluded this, because the serpent could speak, and she apparently concluded that he was able to speak as a result of eating the fruit, a very erroneous conclusion. She did not know that a fallen angel can take on many forms, and do many supernatural things, that she did not understand fully. See II Corinthians 11:13-15 A fallen angel is, after all, an angel who had chosen to rebel against God, just as he was trying to get Eve to do.

After evaluating all of the data available to her, she decided that she was wise enough to eat of the fruit and be as wise as the serpent. After all she did not see, hear, smell, or sense any evil from the tree or its fruit. So Eve decided to eat of the fruit. Again she did not detect any evil and she decided to share this fruit with her husband Adam. When Adam saw Eve with the fruit he decided that she was going to potentially die, and since he also could not sense any evil, he chose to join her without talking to God about this event. After eating he noticed that he was naked as was Eve. To care for this he made clothing out of fig leaves to cover their nakedness. They began to notice that something had changed, but they did not know exactly what it was but they began to have a sense of dread and fear, especially of meeting with God.

It appears that God came to visit with Adam and Eve in the morning and evening of each day. That evening God came to visit his children as He had always done. But this time Adam and Eve did not come to Him. He called them and asked where they were. They said that they had heard his voice but they had hidden themselves from His presence. Adam told God that he was aware that he was naked and that was the reason he hid himself. God then asked Adam if he had eaten of the tree that He had instructed him not to eat of. Instead of answering this question directly Adam told God that it was God’s woman that made him eat implying that he, Adam, was not to blame. God asked Eve about the fruit and she responded it that it was God’s serpent that beguiled her. Then God turned to the serpent. God knew who the serpent was, God knew that the serpent was being used by Satan to be the medium of communication and that it was Satan who had deceived Adam and Eve as he had done one third of the angels in heaven. Revelation 12:4 Satan had deceived the angels and now he had deceived God’s children on Earth.

God condemned the serpent and used it as a symbol of deception and evil. God also made the serpent to crawl upon its belly when once it was a flying serpent, in some ways similar to the flying dragons of Pandora. Isaiah 30:6. God also makes a prophetic statement to the serpent that his seed, his descendents, will fight against the descendents of the woman – the church. But there will be One seed that will strike a death blow to the serpent directly, yet the serpent will wound the Seed of the Woman.

God then tells of the suffering and the changes that will come as a result of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. But inherent in all of these issues is the promise that the Son of God will come and die for the sins of Adam, Eve, and all of their children.

God then offers an exchange. He is willing to exchange the clothing made by Adam and Eve for clothing made by His hand. In order to get the skins necessary to clothe Adam and Eve God informs Adam that the sacrificial system will be instituted and that the animal sacrificed will be a symbol of the death of the Son of God in the future. In addition this death will provide the covering made by God to cover the nakedness of man. These sacrifices, and this clothing, are both symbols of the experience of salvation – provided for man by infinite God.

The last event to take place is that Adam and Eve must leave the Garden of Eden. God did not want sinful man partaking of the Tree of Life to perpetuate a life of rebellion and sin. So God sent them out into the world to be tillers of the ground. They would now have to work for their food rather than just pluck and eat. But again the promise of God was that the way to the Tree of Life was to be preserved. Satan will never be able to block our awareness of our need for this tree. The flaming sword of the Word of God was to ever keep Adam and Eve, and their descendents, aware of the Tree of Life and the original garden. It has been God’s plan to restore humanity to the life that He had originally made for them. This plan will be fulfilled. It is our opportunity to work with God to fulfill this goal. May we choose Him now.

Avatar and the Jar Head Clan

2010-05-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar, Jake Sulley, the hero is asked by the Na’vi to identify himself. He stated that he was Jake Sulley of the Jar Head Clan. The Na’vi could relate to clan hood and they could also relate to the fact that Jake identified himself as a warrior rather than a scientist. The Na’vi stated that they had not met a sky people warrior and they decided to allow Jake to spend some time with them so that they could learn what this warrior was like and how it could help them.

All of the people, the scientists, and the military people were all shocked that Jake, in only one day, had been accepted into the Na’vi clan while many “brighter” people had not been allowed in. But in life, when God calls, and when He wants something done, then things get moving and doors open that might not have been opened at any other time. The movie allows certain things to happen and Jake took full advantage of the opportunities to become a tribe member.

In the Bible this same phenomenon happens. In the Bible one of the major threads of discussion is that of becoming a part of the children of God. To become a part of this national clan would identify one as a part of the family of God. Anyone could become a member of the children of Israel if they chose to be a follower of the ways of God. But there were a few restrictions. In Deuteronomy 23:3 and Ammonite, nor a Moabite, was allowed to come into the congregation of the Lord for ten generations – virtually meaning that no one from Moab or Ammon would come into the camp. Yet, the Bible states that one Moabite came into the camp in less than one generation and was incorporated into the lineage of the Messiah. That individual was a woman named Ruth.

In the book of Ruth the story is told that Ruth married a Hebrew husband and was married to him for several years before he died. After a few years Ruth’s mother in law Naomi was going to go home to Bethlehem of Judah and Ruth declared that she would not leave Naomi and would go back to Israel with her. Not only would she go back but she chose to adopt all of the ways of the Israelite nation, and would accept Israel’s God and that nothing would separate her from Naomi but death. This testimony of Ruth’s, recorded in Ruth 1:16-18 is the testimony of all who would follow God and God will treat each and every one of them, who testify like Ruth, as a true follower of God. Ruth became a full member of the Jewish nation – the followers of God.

This theme of becoming a true Jew – a follower of God, is followed all through the Bible and was one of the major points of contention by the time of John the Baptist. In Matthew 3:9 John attempts to correct the Jewish people from making the claim that blood lineage to Abraham makes one saved. John protests this idea and wants people to produce the same fruit as Ruth did – a commitment to the God of Israel and a willingness to follow God’s counsel given to the prophets of Israel. If they would do these things they would be accounted of the tribe/clan of Israel. If they did not do these things they would be resting on a false promise and God would, and will, reject them at His second coming.

Paul restates this issue in Romans 2:28-29. Paul claims that being a Jew by circumcision and by doing Jewish things does not make a person a true Jew. Paul claims that to be a true Jew is a matter of the heart relationship that bound Ruth to Naomi and to Naomi’s God. That circumcision is more a matter of the heart than it is a matter of the flesh/genetics. Those who accepted God by faith, and who walked in God’s ways, would be considered by God to be a part of His clan. Talk alone does not make it in the Christian world.

Paul again restates this issue in Romans 9:3-8 and Galatians 2:6-8, 29. Paul claims that just as Abraham received children by faith so one becomes a child of Abraham, by faith. When we accept the God of Abraham we are considered by God to be of His family. Our actions will also show that this change has occurred. We will start to act like the heroes of the Bible and especially that son of Abraham – Jesus of Nazareth. And if we accept the Messiah – Jesus of Nazareth – we will be accounted children of Abraham. We will become Jews – the true clan of God.

A final statement on this clan issue is stated in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. Many claim to be Jews but since they have not accepted Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Christ – the son of Abraham, by faith and they do not act like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Christ, they are really of the synagogue/clan of Satan.

When Jake accepted the Na’vi ways he wanted to become a clan member. To do this he had to submit to the rites and ways of the Na’vi including riding one of the dragons of Pandora. Jake had decided that he would go to any lengths to become a clan member and felt fulfilled in doing so. When he had completed all of the requirements then he was accepted by the clan leadership and the rank and file leadership as well. So when we come into the Christian clan we must do all of the things that God asks of us as well. In addition God promises to do all of these things with us and to come into our hearts and minds and do them in us. This promise, when accepted by faith, allows us to become a part of His clan. This promise awaits each and every one of us in the here and now. All of the joys implied in the fantasy movie of Avatar are awaiting a greater fulfillment in the reality of the Christian walk. What choice will you make?

Avatar and the Investigative Judgment

2010-05-09T01:05:00.000-07:00

This article is very similar to the article on Avatar and Probationary Time. This article covers much of the same material with one great difference. This article will focus on the issue of judgment rather than time. In the movie Colonel Quaritch gives Jake 90 days to infiltrate the Na’vi and then will come a final confrontation over the relocation of the Omticaya Tribe to another home tree so that the mining company can dig out the Unobtanium from under their current home. In the process of the 90 days each and every character is revealing more of their focus, desires, and intents. When the probationary time runs out each person will have made their decision as to whose side they will be on and then in the Armageddon that occurs afterward each party will act out their decisions in combat.

In the Bible the issue of judgment is a complicated affair. In virtually every major judgment scene in the Bible there is a predictable process that is revealed. A probationary period of time is given, sometimes in hundreds of years, and sometimes in thousands of years. But in any case when the probationary time is nearing the end God Himself comes down from Heaven to Earth to explore the situation and to make his final assessment and decisions regarding the thoughts, decisions, and actions of the parties involved in the judgment.

In the first judgment scene God assesses the decisions of the angels in heaven. When God created the angels He crated them perfectly with no desire to sin, or to rebel against God. Ezekiel 28:14-15. But somewhere in the process of time, Lucifer, the covering cherub concluded that he wanted to be like God and made a decision to sin against God. Isaiah 14:12-14 Lucifer, and his fellow angels decided that they could take over heaven but Michael, the Son of God – the Head of the Angels, contested with Lucifer and his angels and won the battle/judgment in heaven, and Lucifer and the angels that sinned with him were cast out to the Earth. II Peter 2:4; Revelation 12: 7-13

The next judgment scene is that with Adam and Eve. After Adam and Eve sinned against God, He came to see them. When they did not come to him in the evening He called out to them asking where they were at. Being the all knowing God, He knew where they were at but He questioned them so that they would know what happened to them. He asked them if they had eaten of the tree which He had forbade them to eat of. Their responses revealed that sin had already affected their thinking and they were already blaming each other and God Himself for their sins. As a result of His investigation God initiated a plan of salvation, and a judgment scene of escorting them from the Garden of Eden.

Another judgment scene is when God comes down to Earth to check out the Tower of Babel. Genesis 11:1-9. He had heard of the sins in the Tower of Babel but decided to give it His personal attention. He came and judged that indeed there was a problem at the Tower and as a part of His judgment He confounded the language in an attempt to slow down the evil that was taking place at the Tower. After he confused the language the people separated from each other into language groups and distributed themselves all over the Earth.

In Genesis 18-19 God again comes to Earth to check out the next major problem. This problem was that the cities of the plains were growing increasingly corrupt. God came to investigate it for Himself and He would pass judgment on it and decide whether the cities would continue to live on in their behaviors or to be destroyed. God shares His plans with His friend Abraham and Abraham intercedes for the people because he has family who live in the city – his nephew Lot, and his entire family. God allows Abraham to whittle Him down to the position that if there were 10 righteous people in the city of Sodom that God would not destroy it. It turned out that there were only 4 righteous people and one of those chose to stay with Sodom even when she had left it. God sent two angels into the city to check it out and when the men of the city sexually attacked the angels the final decision was made for the cities of the plains to be destroyed. God removed the righteous and destroyed the wicked.

In the next judgment scene God comes to Egypt to demand that His enslaved people – Israel – should be released. When Egypt refuses to allow Israel to leave God begins the judgment process by sending various plagues on Egypt until He ends up destroying all of Egypt’s armies in the Red Sea and delivers Israel. Exodus 12-15.

Another great judgment scene is when Israel rejects the counsel and correction of God through His prophets and He finally declares that they must go into Babylonian captivity for 70 years. II Chronicles 36:11-21

In the next judgment scene God pronounces that He will set a probationary period of time for Israel of 490 years – starting in 457 BC and going to 34 AD. This period of time would give Israel sufficient opportunities to return to a right relationship with God and if not they would be removed, or cut off, from a relationship with God. Daniel 9:24-27. This period of 70 weeks, or 490 years was cut off from a larger period of time called the 2300 day prophecy which states that there would be 2300 years from 457 BC to the start of the judgment scene in 1844 AD. Daniel 8:14; 7:9-14.

The first facet of this judgment scene is when God Himself, incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth, comes literally to Earth to explore the thinking and behaviors of His people on Earth. While Jesus is investigating His people, they are deciding that they do not want Jesus to reign over them and they reject God as their King and choose a criminal as their Saviour and King, as well as choosing Caesar to be their King. God eventually allowed Rome to come in and destroy the Jewish nation, and its city Jerusalem in 90 for they were judged to be wanting.

In the end of time, God will investigate Earth one more time. He will start the judgment in October of 1844 AD at the end of the 2300 day/years prophecy of Daniel 8:14. This time of judgment started at a later time than what Paul had expressed about “judgment to come” in Acts 24:25. In the end of the 2300 days the “time of judgment” would have come as spoken of in Revelation 14:7. When this time is thoroughly investigated and each person is evaluated as to whether they have accepted Christ as their Saviour, then the end will come and Jesus will come to Earth literally, and take all of his loved ones to heaven for 1000 years. At the end of the 1000 years of Revelation 20:5 then Jesus will return to Earth for the executive judgment and will resurrect the wicked, all those who did not come with Jesus at His second coming, and will burn them up in the lake of fire. Revelation 20:7-15.

When God is finished with this last judgment scene, then He will recreate the heavens and the Earth and restore Earth to its Edenic purity and man will live in a land more beautiful than that of Pandora where there will be no great beasts to endanger one’s life but only peace, safety, and eternal joy. Revelation 21:1-8; Isaiah 65:17-25. The beauties of Pandora will be far surpassed by the newly created Earth, after the final destruction of the wicked. This promise is available to all who will explore these things in the Bible and will allow the real Messiah – Jesus of Nazareth – to forgive them and to help them avail themselves of the promises of Jehovah – Jesus of Nazareth.

Avatar and Probationary Time

2010-05-02T00:28:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar Jake Sulley is given a probationary period of 90 days to win the confidence of the Na’vi and to win the confidence of his superior officer Colonel Miles Quaritch. This probationary period of time will also be sufficient to allow each other person on the compound the opportunity to decide whether they want to view the Na’vi and Pandora as people and resources to exploit or opportunities to share. In either case people will come to a point where their thinking is clear, they will have had opportunity to make decisions, and then would come an opportunity to act upon that decision.

After the 90 day period is completed Jake wants a little more time to go through the final acts of becoming a part of the Na’vi tribe and becoming a man. He also wants to complete his opportunity to choose a mate in the tribe he has selected – Na’vi over human. Jake completed his probationary period of time and he chose which side he wanted to be on and was willing to commit his all to the tribe he had selected.
After the 90 day period Colonel Quaritch had received enough data from Jake to make his decision that he could strong arm a response from the Na’vi or use military force and make the Na’vi comply with his perceptions.

The leader of the Mining Corporation – Parker Selfridge – also completed his probationary time, and decided that whatever it took he would force the issue to accomplish his political, and his own personal, goals to move the Na’vi out of their home and mine the Unobtanium that he was looking for. He had enough information about the Na’vi and he decided that corporate approval was of much greater value than sensitivity for the Na’vi.

When the probationary period was completed the Na’vi had decided that Jake was a worthy member of the their tribe and had passed all of the tests necessary for Jake to be a solid man in the community and would therefore be eligible for all privileges of a man in the community, including that of choosing a wife.
Neytiri had also had sufficient time to evaluate the personality and qualities of the man she was training. After he had completed all of the tests of being a man, she concluded that Jake would be a good mate, and she chose Jake when the opportunity availed itself.

Each other member of the Na’vi, and of the Earthlings, had to choose what they wanted to do and whose side they would be on when the decision was made to force the Na’vi out of Home tree. Norm Spellman, Trudy Chacon, Dr. Max Patel, and Dr. Grace Augustine also chose and decided to be on the side of the Na’vi in case of hostilities.

The last group to decide would be the audience. The audience had to decide in their hearts and minds what they would do if they had been on Pandora and could choose to actually be involved in the final confrontation. The essence of a good film requires the audience to become involved in the decision making and to commit to a response. Avatar was a good film and each audience member chose their side. But in a fantasy world one can make a decision and still live to tell about it. Reality is often much harsher, and as in Trudy Chacon’s case, as well as Dr. Augustine, they paid with their lives, as did the Na’vi, and the Earthlings in Hell’s Gate.

The concept of probationary time is a common theme in the Bible. God sets a time and allows all parties to make their decisions and then acts accordingly. One of the primary differences between Avatar and the Bible is that the Bible deals with reality and finality. It also deals with the issue that God can read the heart and mind of each person, and of each angel, that is involved with any decision or any event. With this information in hand God works to save as many people as He can and still preserve their freedom to choose. God only wants true decisions made from a heart and mind convinced of the truth.

In the Bible there are several probationary experiences that are samples for all probationary experiences. In Genesis 1-3 God establishes probationary time in Eden as Adam and Eve can stay as long as they do not eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. On the day that they disobey God and eat of this Tree they will initiate a death sequence and as is revealed in reality, they are demanded to be removed from the Garden. So the time sequence is open ended but when it happened it was carried out and Adam and Eve received the consequences of their decision.

In Genesis 6:3 God gives mankind a probationary period of 120 years to repent and reform or He would send a flood and wipe out all people on Earth. This message was communicated to man by God’s prophet Noah. In addition God was to give an escape clause. If the people would not repent, God would allow anyone who wanted to get on the Ark and escape the flood. If they would not get on the Ark then they would die in the flood. As in the first probationary experience God demanded that each person make a decision based on faith in Him rather than the event itself. So seven days before the flood, God informed Noah that he, and all of his family, needed to get on board. Anyone wanting to get on the ark would be informed by this movement and could come with Noah, or stay behind but the decision would be based on faith. Only 8 people got on board and when God closed the door, 7 days before the flood, the decisions were irreversible. All of the rest of mankind died in the flood.

The next probationary period was the time given to Abraham that his descendents would be captive in Egypt for 400 years and then God would deliver them. Genesis 15:13-16. When this time came to fulfillment, God sent plagues on Egypt via His prophet Moses. In one of the final plagues Moses is instructed by God to alert the Egyptians and the Israelites to put blood on their doorposts as a sign to protect them from the destroying angel. If they put blood on their doorposts their firstborn child would live. If they did not their firstborn child would die. God also alerted Moses that after this plague Egypt would let Israel go. When the morning arrived God’s warning had come true. All who did not put blood on their doorposts had lost their first born children and Egypt pleaded with Israel to leave lest a worse thing happen to them. One of the side effects of this was that many Egyptians came out with Israel for they had had sufficient information to recognize God and to obey Him. A secondary issue was that three days later Egypt changed its mind and attacked Israel at the Red Sea and when they did that they lost their entire army in the middle of the Red Sea. Exodus 12-15.

The message of the experience of Egypt was spread all through the then known world. Although Israel was to go into Canaan within 2 years time they did not arrive for 40 years. None the less the nations in Canaan had time to ponder what they would do if and when Israel arrived at their doorstep led by the invisible God – Jehovah. When Israel arrived at the Jordan River and God opened the Jordan for Israel to walk over it on dry ground during the flood times of Jordan, the nearest city Jericho got to decide what to do with Israel and Israel’s God. Rahab, and her family, chose to follow God and were saved. Jericho, given a probationary period of the original 40 years, and an additional time of 7 days, decided to not follow God, and were destroyed.

Israel itself was given a probationary period of time to decide whether they would submit themselves to the God who brought them out of Egypt. God sent them into Babylon for 70 years, Jeremiah 25:1-14, and then brought them back out to alert them that God would discipline Israel as well as all other nations. While in Babylon, God raised up a prophet to alert Israel that God would give them 490 years, the 70 week prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, and if they decided not to respond to Him He would bring them to an end as a nation devoted to God. This probationary period of time was decided in 31 AD when Israel chose to reject God Himself in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, and chose Caesar. John 19:14-15. This was culminated in 70 AD when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus and all of the Jews were scattered throughout the world.

Another probationary period was granted to the church of God after the destruction of Jerusalem. The original prophecy, from which the 70 week period was cut off from, indicated that from the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, in 457 BC, until the final judgment time was set, would be 2300 day years. This period would end in 1844 AD. At that time a prophet, Ellen G. White would be raised up to give instructions for the final probationary period of time. Those events happened just as prophecy indicated, and now the people of earth are in their final probationary experience. Just as God directed in the past, He has done so in this final period of time. Each of us has the opportunity to read God’s word, the Bible, and each of us has the opportunity of deciding whether there is a probationary time and if God will follow through with it as He has done in all of His probationary experiences with mankind here to for. God has not given us a specific time period but He has given us specific warning issues, all through the Bible, to alert us to when the time would be completed. See Matthew 24 and Revelation 13-14. When we see these issues occurring we are to know that His second coming is at hand just as it was in the time of Noah. Mathew 24:36-39. It is our opportunity to study these things and to know the reality of this situation.

God is alerting us to the principles of His Word through many avenues including the movie Avatar. We can see how the issues of probationary time played itself out in the movie. We can read the Word of God, if we choose to, and see how probationary time has played itself out in Bible history. Now, each of us must determine whether God had changed or if He will stay the same and act the same as He has in the past. The primary difference between the Bible and Avatar is that what the Bible teaches is reality and that it really will happen just as expressed in the Bible. I hope that we will make our decisions about whose side we will be on and that we will make that decision, and follow through with it before our probationary period of time closes. The choice is ours, make it today.

Avatar and the Sinful Nature of Man

2010-04-26T00:09:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar one of the major contrasting situations is between the corporation representative Parker Selfridge and the leader of the Na’vi Eytukan, as embodied by his daughter Neytiri the future spiritual leader of the Omaticaya clan. In the movie Mr. Selfridge is entirely focused on mining Unobtanium – a super conducting mineral. He is impressed with the multi-millions of dollars that are involved with the sales of this mineral. As a result of this focus Mr. Selfridge is willing to rape the land through strip mining, and to destroy the home of the Omaticaya clan – the Home Tree, and to kill off any and all who would interfere with his task of maintaining the bottom line for the corporation.

On the contrasting side of the process we have Eytukan and Neytiri who are appalled at the insensitivity of the corporation people toward the land, trees, animals, and peoples of Pandora. The Na’vi are totally in harmony with the biology of Pandora and the idea of killing anything to get a mineral out of the ground is almost outside of their range of belief. The Na’vi have developed a religion that emphasizes the natural harmony of life and they were obedient to their religious beliefs.

In the movie Avatar the bad guys area the corporate raiders and their focus on the monetary aspects of their mining operation. The good guys are the indigenous population who are focused on their way of life and do not feel a need to participate in the Earth corporation and do not feel that the corporate peoples have anything realistic to offer them that will further their experience with the planet Pandora or any facet of their lifestyle. Both groups see reality through their belief systems and are not interested in changing to accommodate the other party. Thus the dramatic tension is increased in the movie, and all who watch the movie side with corporate barbarians as they rape and pillage the land to get a substance that Earth needs to continue to function, or they side with the Na’vi who are living in peace and harmony and want to be left alone with their planet and their way of life of being in harmony.

A third group is introduced as well the Scientists, as represented by Grace Augustine. The scientists are aware that there is another greater goal on Pandora, and that is to become aware of the Biological “Mind” that is on the planet symbolized by the Tree of Souls and its ability to connect with all life forms. The problem that the Scientists have is that they are unable to present their findings in a commercially acceptable way to the corporation, and in such a way as the Na’vi do not feel another assault on their planetary resources.

The interesting part of the movie is that there are sufficient causes that each person watching can get fully immersed and desire to defend their perspectives and root for the party the most represents their emotional conviction. Each proponent of a perspective will tend to load the opposer’s of their position with negative qualities so that they can feel justified in the officially acceptable position – the one favored by the individual viewer. These issues build with the dramatic tension of the various parties as the movie progresses to the inevitable final conflict in which each party is willing to shed blood and to have their blood shed to protect their position.

In the end the Na’vi, with supernatural help from Eywa, prevail and are able to stop the corporate raiders from destroying the Tree of Souls. The Na’vi send the remaining survivors of the corporation back to Earth and try to reestablish their lives in accordance with their history. Of course, we watchers are aware that there are greater forces that will come back to Pandora with a greater desire to mine Unobtanium, and if the scientists can communicate their findings in a commercially acceptable vernacular Earth may even want the biological insights from the Global mind on Pandora. The Na’vi will be stuck in between these forces and will try to live out their lives while the external forces will force upon them change in many ways. Jake Sulley will end up having to be the moderator for all of these forces aided by Eywa to come up with a position that can satisfy all of the parties involved.

Assuming that the above is a semi-realistic perception of the movies philosophy it brings us back to another party. It has been this writer’s attempt to compare the symbolism of the movie Avatar to that of the Bible. The Bible sees the above issues as a multi-faceted display of human nature that has been separated from the mind and will of God. In the beginning of God’s creation mankind, and all of the plants and animals did not harm each other and all life communicated through the mind of God. In this case it was similar to the biological network of Pandora but with no death or harm, and no balance of good and evil in nature – there was no evil on Earth in the beginning. Each insect, plant, animal, or person, had an awareness of the needs of those around them and strove, in their own sphere of influence, to be of help to all around them. This was God’s Edenic state of life that He wanted for all of His created creatures. As long as everything obeyed God this state of peace would be maintained, however, if anything chose to disobey then this Edenic peace would be shattered and man and animals would then strive to maintain themselves instead of others. Selfishness, and personal motives would supplant the whole and evil and death would affect all things on Earth.

In Eden God created two primary trees – the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God instructed Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of Life, but not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God told Adam and Eve that in the day that they disobeyed Him they would set in motion forces that would bring about a radical change in life, as they then knew it, and that all things would begin to die and much suffering would take place on all living things.

As the story proceeds, Satan, disguised as a speaking flying serpent, tempted Eve, who had separated herself from the side of her husband. Satan spoke to Eve in a manner that created a desire to satisfy her curiosity of wondering what made the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil so unique that it could cause death. In the process of the story Eve decides to brave the experiment and eats of the fruit of the Tree. Feeling no harm from it she takes some of the fruit to her husband Adam. Hearing what she did he feels that he will lose her and without consulting with God, he chooses to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil under the heading that he loves Eve so much that he will share death with her if necessary. Soon after Adam eats of the fruit God comes to spend personal time with Adam and Eve, His children on Earth. When God comes to talk a unique event occurs. Adam and Eve run from God and hide in the Garden. The very act of disobedience has established a principle – that guilt that comes from disobedience, causes a distancing between man and God. As distancing occurs between man and God then distancing also occurs between man and man, and eventually between man and animal and nature. When God tries to speak to Adam, the first thing he does is cast blame on someone else. When asked if he had eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Adam blames Eve and blames God for giving Eve to him. Eve manifests the same thoughts and behaviors as Adam had displayed when God asks her about her disobedience. Thus the Knowledge of Good and Evil has started to spread and those who professed to love each other unto death were ready to blame one another to avoid accepting responsibility for their actions.

In the Bible, God allows us to see the ever spreading impact of sin by recording the history of man as he has become more numerous and spread over the Earth. God allowed us to follow the life of Cain, the first murderer, and to follow the lineage of the Sethites and Shemites, which would bring us down to the time of Jesus of Nazareth. God revealed to us that without His presence in our lives, we will naturally be selfish, the spinoff of Parker Selfridge’s name. That selfishness will go to any lengths to accomplish the goals of caring for self.

All of us have seen extreme cases of selfishness and evil. We are even used to seeing the end product of selfishness – death. But God says that our hearts, apart from Him, are naturally and readily evil and desperately wicked. That our human nature, unaided by God, will always go in the direction of taking care of self at the expense of others. This mind set was never God’s plan for us. He does not enjoy any of the qualities of the selfish heart. Romans 3:9-20 describes in gory detail many of the wicked things that the selfish human heart is capable of.

“What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

Romans 3:21-24 tells us how to deal with this massive problem and that is to come to God and seek help with this problem.

“ But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:”

God declares, in His Word – the Bible, that without Him in our lives we will naturally be selfish. Just like in the Na’vi religious experience, anyone without Eywa will not be able to function properly. They will not be able to survive and the animals of Pandora will end up killing the person. In God’s kingdom He did not want anything to die. Only when selfishness came into the world, and bore its natural fruit, death, did any harm come to anything. God wants us to see our selfishness, especially in contrast to the complete unselfishness of Jesus of Nazareth. When we can see this quality in our lives we can trust that God has been working in us and through us to allow us to see this problem. Once we see this then we can ask God for the help that we cannot grant ourselves. But once we ask God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Avatar allows us to see ourselves and to see our selfishness acted out in the lives of imaginary people. We all say that if we were on Pandora we would act in a non-selfish manner to all peoples and all things. Yet we all know that if we were on Pandora we would choose sides and see the side we had chosen as the good side. Jake learned the lesson that he needed help to rescue those whom he loved. He was willing to pray to Eywa the imaginary goddess of Pandora. God wants us to see our selfishness and to pray to the true and living God of the Bible – Jesus of Nazareth. If we have a need and if we seek Him to help us we will have victory over our selfishness and God will banish it from our lives. The choice is ours; the power to accomplish this is His. Let us choose today to get that help.

Toruk Makto – The Pandoran Messiah

2010-04-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar the greatest hero was the Toruk Makto, one who could ride the great Leonopteryx. This status had been granted to five heroes in Pandoran history. In the process of the movie Jake Sulley became the sixth Toruk Makto. He did this because he had successfully become a man among the Na’vi, the Pandoran indigenous population but had become disgraced because of his connection to the human population who destroyed the Home Tree of the tribe he had entered. To allow a new start in the “people” Jake felt he needed to do something that would grant him credibility and a renewed status among the “people”. To get there he had to connect to the largest, and most dangerous, predator on the planet of Pandora.

To accomplish the task of becoming Toruk Makto, Jake needed to be able to get close enough to the Leonopteryx and be able to get on its back, and then connect with its queue before it could turn on Jake and kill him. Jake concluded that because of its size the Leonopteryx was not going to be attacked by anything and it had no need to be alert. So Jake flew on his Ikran and approached the Leonopteryx from above. As he approached the great dragon he flew low enough to jump off of his Ikran onto the back of the Leonopteryx and connect with his queue. When he had control of the great dragon he flew to the meeting place where the Na’vi were weeping over the destruction of their Home Tree, and the potential loss of the Tree of Souls. When Jake saw the “people” he flew into them in such a manner as to cause the greatest amount of respect and awe that could be generated. The symbolism was sufficient and the people received him as the Toruk Makto. Jake had become the Pandoran Messiah and thus had the authority of leading all of the Pandoran tribes against the Earth peoples.

In addition to being the military leader of the Pandoran peoples, Jake also felt a need of being the spiritual leader as well. He knew what the Na’vi did not know and that was that the Earth military forces were still too much for the Na’vi to handle. To win the fight not only would the Messiah need the military forces of the Na’vi, but would need supernatural help as well from Eywa. Therefore, Jake came to the Tree of Souls, the connecting site between the Na’vi and their goddess Eywa. Jake prayed for special help and was submissive to the goddess of Pandora.

As the movie continues Jake, Pandora’s Messiah, leads the collected representatives of the tribes of Pandora and although fighting furiously are being relentlessly massacred. At the crucial moment when all looks lost the large animals of Pandora suddenly join the fight and with the help of Eywa, and the animals, the battle is won and the Na’vi are victorious. Thus Jake’s position in Na’vi history is secured – the Toruk Makto had accomplished the task that Eywa had raised him up to do.
Again, it is remarkable that the symbolism between the theology of Avatar and that of the Bible is so strong and so clear. In the Bible the phrase of Toruk Makto is not present, but the concept is clearly there. In the Bible there is a clear need, and a clear promise of the coming of the Messiah – the hero sent by God to deliver the people of Earth from the evil enemy of Satan, and his forces.

In the Bible the Messiah, as with the Toruk Makto, must be one of the people. The Bible records that Jesus, the True Messiah, was born of the flesh of Abraham and of David. Hebrews 2:9-18; Romans 1:3. He came to live among men and to be a man Himself. This Messiah had to feel the needs of the people and to be able to lead the people as well.

In the Bible there are a number of people who are considered Anointed ones. We know that Aaron was an Anointed one and he served as Priest in Israel. King Saul was the first Anointed King of Israel, and he was followed by King David who functioned in the position of a Prophet, a Priest, and a King. We also know that Cyrus, King of Persia was considered an Anointed one in Isaiah 45:1. Of this group David was the individual most connected with the concept of the Anointed One. As we see above, David was the great grandfather of the Messiah – Jesus of Nazareth.

One of the things that is unique about David as the Anointed one is that he fulfils all of the prerequisite issues of the Messiah. David was clearly born a man. He grew up simply and he experienced a personal relationship with God at a young age. One of the unique components of David was that he was Anointed by Samuel after being hand selected by God Himself. David was then brought by the providence of God to a unique testimonial experience. In I Samuel 17 we are told the story of a battle between Israel and the Philistines. The then king of Israel was Saul who had been officially rejected by God as being the Lord’s Anointed. When the Philistine champion came on to the battle field, no one dared to fight with him. The Champion of Israel, the King of Israel should have come forth to fight the greatest opponent. When it was clear that no one in Israel would dare to fight Goliath, God brought forth David. David was small compared to Goliath’s height of nine feet. David had no armor other than faith in God as compared to Goliath’s armor of Brass. David had no fear of this giant and strode out onto the battle field in the name of God Himself. When David defeated the Giant all Israel accepted David as their king in their hearts. Most of Israel did not know that God had already Anointed, as well as chosen David, to be their king. David was the type of the Messiah to come – his great grandson Jesus of Nazareth.

In the process of time, God also revealed Cyrus as a type of Messiah as well in that he used this king as the deliverer of Israel from Babylon. Cyrus responded to the instructions of Daniel and he chose to follow through the instructions given to him by God a hundred years before his birth. Cyrus, when he had conquered Babylon, gave directions and financial support to allow Israel to return to Canaan and reestablish their nation and their city in accordance with Isaiah 44:27-45:13 and Daniel 9:24-27.
But the focal point of all of the prophecies of the Messiah as of that of Jesus the Christ (the Anointed One) of Nazareth. He is the unique and comprehensive Messiah. Jesus is the I Am of the Bible as clearly stated in John 8:58. He was the One who spoke to Moses in Exodus 3. Jesus is also referred to as the Creator God the One who created the whole earth, and the universe. John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:13-17. This Creator God promised to come as the Seed of the woman spoken of in Genesis 3:15. As time continued He was incorporated in many other prophecies including that of Abraham and of David. He would come as God, and He would be fully man, a concept that is beyond our understanding. Yet when He came He was announced by an angel, and given the name of Jesus – the Saviour, and the name of Emmanuel – God with us. Matthew 1:21-23

Jesus’ life was marked by many unusual things but especially that of being so humble and loving that no one could identify anything physically unusual but that His Spirit was that of God. When He was about 30 years old He was baptized by the prophet John and when He came up to the banks of the Jordan River, He was Anointed by the Holy Spirit and was blessed by His Father. Luke 3:21-23. This happened in 27 AD in fulfillment of the 70 week prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27. In accordance with the 70 week prophecy Jesus was to be Anointed in 27 AD and then after a three and one half year ministry then He would be cut off from His people. During this ministry Jesus would meet His Goliath – Satan. He would have to defeat this giant the same way His great grandfather had done by the weapons of God. He would conquer the great dragon of Scripture that great Serpent Satan. Revelation 12:7-13 Jesus was the One who bound the strong man of Matthew 12:22-30 and thus won back all that was lost by father Adam.

Jesus won the great battle against Satan in the wilderness, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the Cross of Calvary. Jesus also won the battle in the grave and came forth from death in His own power. In the end Jesus will win the battle again when He returns to gather His people whom Satan is seeking to destroy. Jesus will win each and every battle for He is the Messiah of God.

One of the interesting themes of the movie Avatar is how many symbols the movie borrows to move the hearts and minds of the people. But what Avatar borrows in order to tell an imaginary story, the Bible tells of the true story. We are involved in the fight with the great dragon Satan to this very day, and Jesus, the great Messiah is preparing to come again to gather His people to Himself and take them to heaven, and then return to them to Earth a thousand years later. The difference is that Avatar is pretend, and the Bible is real. The Toruk Makto of Avatar is a wonderful hero, but none the less he is a pretend figure, but the Messiah of the Bible is not only real but He offers all of the wonderful gifts spoken of in the Bible to all who will honestly seek Him with a heart open to truth. This offer Messiah will confirm when He returns in the very near future. This gift is free to all who want it today.

Avatar and the Balance of Life

2010-04-22T00:52:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar, it appears that the philosophy of life is that there is to be life balanced with death. If there is too much life, then there must be enough death to compensate and keep things balanced. This appears to be the requirement on the planet Pandora the imaginary dwelling place of the Na’vi and all of the exotic wildlife of the planet and all of the exotic plant life of the planet. In one scene in the movie Neytiri attempts to explain to Jake that Eywa, the goddess of Pandora, only answers prayers in the sense of keeping a balance of life and she does not answer any prayers that would cause an imbalance to life. So Neytiri does not expect any answers to prayers that would “favor” one element over another. So Neytiri is shocked to see the wild life join in the battle in the end of the movie to save the Tree of Souls, and to save the Na’vi.

In the Bible God presents a plan of life for the Garden of Eden. On the Earth God wants all things to live in harmony with no loss of life. God writes about it in the following text:

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah 11:6-9

Notice in the text that they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, or in any part of God’s kingdom. In the text it reveals that God’s intent in the original creation, and in the new Earth Isaiah 65:17-25, was for no animal to kill or harm another animal. There was to be no sin, and no death, and no harming. God had arranged for all created life to live in harmony with each other. Thus God would produce a balance of peace and harmony without the use of death. In the Bible, death – the function of harming one another – was a by-product of sin. Without sin there would be no death.

A major element in the philosophy of God was that He was able to maintain ecological, as well as spiritual, harmony. He would limit the numbers of people and animals to that there would not be so many creatures that the food supply would be insufficient to care for everyone and everything. God would not need, nor use, death to be the stabilizing force. God would be the stabilizing force and thus love, rather than death, would maintain the balances of life.

A question comes up of where then did death come from? God told Adam that in the day that he ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, then the issues of death would start to function. On the other hand, if Adam, and Eve, remained faithful to Him there would be no death, and thus no destabilizing forces, no curses on the land or on Earth, or on the people.

A scenario is presented in Matthew 13:24-28

“Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?”

In the Bible, the reason that there is death or suffering is because of the work of an enemy – Satan. God’s purposes have always been life and love. Satan brings death and suffering to all things. So the Bible encourages us to come back to God, receive of His gifts of love and to allow Him to bring us back into harmony with Him. In order for this to happen our thinking, as well as our perspectives must change. We must see God as a God of love. When we can see this we can allow Him to adjust our thinking to the point that any vestige of sin, and thus any vestige of death, will be removed, and we will think like God thinks. We will find that God does not need, or want, anything to do with death, or sin.

It is an interesting thing that we are so accustomed to death that we see a strange sort of beauty in the stark qualities of life. We see rocks, dead trees, waxed colored leaves, as sort of having a distinct beauty. This indicates that God has left some awareness of beauty even in these things, but rocks with no covering of soil and grass, trees dead, fallen, and without leaves, and the colored leaves showing the changes brought about by the death process, all are manifestations of an alien process. God did not want any of these stark reminders of death. God did not want us to have to see these things for to see these things meant that sin had come into the world, something that God did not want.

Yet even here, God, knowing all of the future, recognized that when giving mankind freedom to choose, must take into account the possibility of sin occurring. When it did occur, God initiated the plan of redemption – to eventually restore His natural balance, a world without sin. To get there God Himself was willing to come to die to save not only the human beings, but to restore the Earth to its original beauty and purity. This is briefly described in Isaiah 65:17-25.

One of the strongest features of the movie Avatar was the emotional movings of being able to see a planet of such beauty as that described on the imaginary planet of Pandora. This primeval calling to return to home was the emotional hook for many of the movie goers. Yet God wants to far surpass the beauties of Pandora. He wants to redeem His planet, remove the disease of sin, and restore His people to their rightful position of ruling the planet in a manner that will be totally in harmony with His thoughts and His plans. This return to Eden restored, is offered to each and every human being on this planet. If you have a desire to experience the wonders of Eden, the purity of an unsinful, undying planet, God calls for you to choose Him today. All you need to do is to start seeking Him and you will find Him for He is not far from you. Ask Him to communicate with you and He will seek you out and start that relationship with Himself. He offers you more than what Avatar and Pandora offer. He offers you the opportunity to go to the restored Earth that will have no death or any suffering. Please accept this offer today.

Avatar and God’s Use of Nature

2010-04-12T00:23:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar one of the emotionally charged scenes is where the Na’vi are getting slaughtered by the more sophisticated weaponry of the soldiers of Colonel Quaritch. Earlier Jake, knowing that he was going to be outgunned, had prayed that Eywa would help him to win the battle. Jake did not have a full understanding of what Eywa would be able to do but he did recognize his helplessness and he was going to ask help of anyone, and anything, that would deliver his people, the Na’vi, from sure slaughter. In the final moments of the battle, when disaster appeared to be sure, there was a significant movement on the horizon, that could be picked up by the Colonel’s instruments on his ship. The Colonel could tell that something was moving but he could not tell what it was. Then, all of a sudden, the large land animals, and the Ikran, sent by Eywa, attacked the soldiers. The overran the soldiers on the ground and destroyed all of the robots. The Ikran attacked the helicopters, and Jake used the Leonopteryx to halt the air battle. Even Neytiri was able to mount a Thanator and carry the fight to Colonel Quaritch. The Sacred Tree was saved and the battle turned for Jake and the Na’vi.

The concept of a god, getting involved in the affairs of men, and doing something substantial is an awesome thought. It is wonderful to think that some supernatural entity would want to assess and then get involved with resources that we do not have to offer and hopefully to do the right thing for us at the right time.

Again, it is intriguing that Mr. Cameron would be able to utilize the concept of divine intervention through animals to save the people. I believe that Mr. Cameron is aware of the many Bible stories that tell the story of God getting involved with the affairs of men and helping man in various ways regarding animals, and chose to incorporate this story into the movie Avatar. I would like to share just a few stories of animal involvement through the interventions of God.

1. In Genesis 6-9 God calls the animals out of the forest to enter into Noah’s Ark – two by two for the unclean animals and seven by seven for the clean.

2.In Genesis 6-9 God also uses nature to cleanse the Earth and He effected nature in such a way as to overflow all of life, that was not on the Ark, and to destroy all people and animals through the flood.

3. Exodus 7-14 tells the story of the various plagues that God sent on the then greatest nation in the world, the Egyptian nation. He sent frogs, lice, flies, locusts, and used many of the natural elements including the Red Sea to conduct warfare on Egypt.

4.In Numbers 11 God sends flocks of birds to feed the Israelites in addition to what He fed them each day through the Manna and supplying water from a Rock.

5. In Joshua 10:10-14 God uses hail to kill the enemies of Israel and stops the sun and moon, to allow the warfare to continue without obstruction.

6. In I Kings 17:3-7 God uses Ravens to feed His prophet Elijah.

7. II Kings 2:23-25 God uses two bears to kill 42 teens who were mocking the prophet Elisha.

8. In Daniel 3 God displays how He is able to control fire when his servants are cast into a fire without being burned.

9. In Daniel 6 God controls the lions in the den from harming Daniel.

10. In Matthew 8:23-27 Jesus controls a storm and brings it to a close.

11. In Matthew 14:15-21 Jesus feeds 5000 men, plus women and children.

12. In John 11 Jesus resurrects a man who has been dead for 4 days.

13. In I Thessalonians 4:13-18 Jesus resurrects all of the righteous of all ages.

14. In Revelation 16 Jesus uses plagues again to destroy the earth.

These 14 stories tell just the surface of the many ways that the God of the Bible, the God of the universe is able to control nature and use it in any way that He needs to in order to accomplish His Holy Will.

As Jake was thrilled by his deliverance from the Colonel, so we are to be thrilled by all of the resources that Jesus has to accomplish our deliverance from Satan. When we read the Bible we have the opportunity to have our hearts go out to Jesus and trust that He is interested in us and He can care for us in a 1000 ways of which we know nothing. It is our privilege to get to know God and to learn how to trust Him and interact with Him while we help others. This is our gift from heaven.

Avatar and Gaia Worship

2010-04-08T11:51:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar there are many scenes that communicate the idea of the plant life and animal life of Pandora being in a unified relationship. Each animal is equipped with an antenna, or a queue, that allows the animals to communicate with each other and that the whole would be the planet Pandora. This unified communication theme, and all of the ecological issues that go, with it are very similar to the Gaia hypothesis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis In the Gaia hypothesis it is thought that the Earth is in many ways similar to Pandora, that all ecological systems are entwined and are reactive and supportive to each other. The whole Earth is viewed as a singular ecological system and that this whole system can be regarded as a singular entity – Gaia. When this thought is combined with a theology of ecology one is confronted with the spiritual worship of the Earth or Gaia – the earth mother. This process is expanded and enhanced through the Gaia mythology system as described in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(mythology)

In the movie Avatar there were several scenes in which the science of the Gaia hypothesis was presented. Dr. Augustine attempted several times to communicate to Mr. Selfridge about the communication potential of the planet and even stated that the real treasure of Pandora was not Unobtanium but the communication abilities of the flora and fauna of the planet. Several scenes are presented in which Dr. Augustine is attempting to process the idea of the interconnectedness of the trees and how it matched, or even surpassed, the connectivity of the brain. Dr. Augustine wanted to get to the Tree of Souls and take samples of the tree to complete here analysis, but was killed before she could do this as a scientist. Other scenes were presented that when one of the Na’vi died they were buried in the earth with one of the seeds of the sacred tree planted with them. This was the normal course of life and death on the planet Pandora.

There were several other scenes that communicated the spiritual nature of Pandora. One of the scenes was when Jake seeks to take the wounded Dr. Augustine to Mo’at the Tsahik, or Shaman, of the tribe. She takes Dr. Augustine to the Tree of Souls and attempts to transfer her "soul” into her Avatar body. In the event itself the Tree of Souls sends forth fine root like tendrils to enter into the body of Dr. Augustine to facilitate the process. But the attempt failed due to the weakened condition of Dr. Augustine and the lack of time to complete the process.

Another scene shows Jake coming to the Tree of Souls, as the gateway of speaking to Eywa, the goddess of Pandora, to pray for help in the coming battle. Jake is aware that 2000 warriors is not enough to take on the weaponry of the mining encampment. So he ask Eywa for help. Neytiri replies that Eywa only helps to maintain the balance of life, and does not interfere with such things as warfare. None the less, Jake prays as the best that he can do. In the ensuing battle the Na’vi warriors are being destroyed systematically and have no functional chance to win the battle. But then Eywa sends all of the large animals of Pandora to attack the Earthlings. Through this direct involvement of Eywa the battle is won. Neytiri is excited that Eywa had responded directly to Jake’s prayer and that good had triumphed over evil

The third scene is after the decisive battle Jake asks Mo’at to again attempt a transfer of a human soul from a body to the Avatar body, but this time he asks it for himself. Jake’s human body is brought to the Tree of Life, as well as his Avatar body and this time the transfer works out properly. Jake is now integrally united to his Avatar body and will never go back to the human body. Jake is once and for all Na’vi.

All of these scenes are wonderfully symbolic of things that are spoken of in the Bible. The greatest of all is that of Jesus. Jesus came to earth, as Jake came to Pandora. Jesus came, however, as a decision on the part of God to become a human being, once and for all. In this process the Holy Spirit implants Jesus into the womb of Mary. Jesus grows up, in harmony with the laws of human growth and becomes Jesus of Nazareth – the Anointed One – The Christ – The Messiah. Jesus became a part of mankind forever. He is now in heaven working in our behalf to help us become prepared for the Earth made new.

The Bible does not view the planet Earth as a goddess. The Bible clearly declares that Jesus is the Creator of not only the Earth but of the universe. He is the Creator of everything in the universe living or not. Colossians 1:13-17 He is the One with all power and He is the One to Whom we are to pray and seek for help in times of peace as well as in times of crisis.

On the other hand, the Bible clearly indicates that the Earth, as well, as people, are fearfully and wonderfully made. Every system of life on the Earth was designed by the infinite mind of God to be interdependent and interlocking. See Genesis 1 and 2. He made the Earth to be a perfect habitation for His most wonderful creation – Man. Man was unique in that Man was designed to be able to enter into the spiritual things of God. All other things were made to support Man, on Earth and for Man to watch over and nurture on Earth. Earth was a perfect place to give honor and glory to God.

God warned Man not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil but to eat of all of the trees of the Earth but to especially eat of the Tree of Life. If they would do this then no death would ever come to the planet. Yet Man sinned and turned away from God and listened to Satan – the one proved to be the enemy of Man and of God. When Man sinned against God, He initiated the plan that He had already planned out and that is that Jesus, the Everlasting Son of God, would come to the Earth to become a Man. Through His efforts all who chose could come to Him and He would effect a change of nature so profound that Man would be able to again come into harmony with God and to be able to live in the presence of a Holy God, whose very brightness was deadly to sin of any kind. When God was finished there would be a transfer of His life and power into the follower of God which would accomplish the miracle of being able to life the Christian life. This process is called salvation, and when it is done all evil will be removed from the world, the planet itself will be cleansed and restored to it’s Edenic beauty and Man will be able to live on this planet forever.

So again the issues of the concept of Gaia are true in its limited manner. But the concepts involved in the worship of God are true in a comprehensive manner. God is not limited to one planer but is in charge, as the Creator, and Ruler of the entire universe. God can be talked to at any time though the miracle of prayer. God is always willing and interested in His children and any thing that effects them. Through His power God wants to change us from the effects of the disease of sin to that of living a life without sin, or it’s negative effects. When we become so aware of our limitations God will assist us in victory over sin, and will change us and bring us into harmony with Him and to be able to live in His presence for ever. All of this God offers us if we will but allow Him to communicate with us. All of this story is told in larger degree in His Bible. It is wonderful that Mr. Cameron has allowed God to lead him to present His truths in such a creative manner. Yet, God has more to offer than what has been presented in movies such as Avatar. God will come and communicate to you personally if you will but ask.

Avatar and the Gospel

2010-04-07T13:56:00.000-07:00

The gospel is one of those words that people use and they are often not very familiar with the theology that goes behind it. In the movie Avatar the gospel is revealed through the experience of almost every significant figure in the movie. Both bad and good responses tell the story of the gospel, of opportunities slighted and opportunities taken advantage of. But for simplicity’s sake let us focus on Jake Sulley and Colonel Quaritch.

The movie starts with Jake leaving earth due to the death of his twin brother. Jake has decided to take the offer of the mining corporation who want Jake to fulfill the obligations of his brother whose DNA was used to make an Avatar for the mining corporation on Pandora. Duet to the DNA match Jake would save the corporation and would give Jake a new start. Jake could make good money and perhaps get the operation that would allow Jake to regain the use of his legs which he lost due to a spinal injury during his time as a Marine.

When Jake made the final decision he was willing to leave his old world and head out for the new. With the death of his brother he no longer had any emotional attachments to Earth and could leave Earth and not look back. Pandora offered distance and the opportunity for a new life.

When Jake arrives at Pandora he has spent several years in suspended animation while traveling to Pandora. Jake arrives at the mining station of Hell’s Gate and is able to ignore all of the comments that people make about his disability and is interested in learning about the new things in his sphere of influence. Jake meets Colonel Quaritch and they feel a mutual respect for each other due to their military activities on Earth.

Soon, after this experience with the Colonel, Jake is able to have his first experience “driving” an Avatar body. Jake is overwhelmed by being in the Avatar for he can feel his feet again, although those feet belong to the body of the Avatar, rather than his own real feet. Jake runs out of the awakening room, and experiences running for the first time in years. Being in his Avatar body is an awakening to a new way of life and Jake enjoys it thoroughly.

Soon after this Jake goes on a mission with the rest of the Avatar crew and we are shown Jake experiencing the newness of life in his Avatar body. He is able to do, to move, and to experience life at a level that he has almost forgotten about. While moving around in the field he encounters the larger life forms of Pandora and gets separated from the rest of his team. During this time he meets Neytiri who saves his life from Viper-wolves. Neytiri attempts to send Jake back to the Earthlings, but Jake asks for help from her. During the interchange the Tree of Souls communicates to Neytiri that Jake is different and something special. She decides to take Jake to meet the Shaman of the village, her mother. When Neytiri’s mother finishes her examination she allows Jake to stay and commands Neytiri to train Jake in the ways of the Na’vi. Jake is thrilled and passes this information on to the rest of the team when he returns to his real body during the time of rest for his Avatar body.

Upon returning and sharing the information about the Na’vi accepting him and training him, Quaritch offers Jake a new life if Jake will get him pure data on the living arrangements of the Na’vi. For this information Quaritch will “take care of my own” by having the corporation grant Jake the funds sufficient to get the surgery necessary to restore his legs. Jake is willing to enter into this new opportunity for a new life. The Colonel is willing to give Jake 3 months to learn how to be a Na’vi and get the information and then the Colonel will have sufficient information to be able to properly attack the Na’vi. This is what is referred to in the Bible as an Old Covenant gospel the good news of a new life by working out an arrangement usually at the expense of other people and usually by some human method of change.

For 90 days Neytiri trains Jake about the ways of life in her village and with her people. During this time Jake grows stronger as an Avatar, while his human body grows weaker. In the training process Jake has to wrestle with many new ideas of love, life, death, and the ways of a spiritual person. At the same time Jake is exposed to the ways of Colonel Quaritch and his views of life. Colonel Quaritch is a very simple and straightforward man. He is loyal to the corporation and he will do anything to accomplish his mission – not to save people but to fulfill the quota that he promised to assist with. The Colonel will do anything to fulfill his promise and nothing of the heart or of the spirit will change his direction.

As the time draws near for a final decision Jake is torn between the new feelings he has develop for Neytiri, and her family and way of life, and those feelings for his earthly connections including Colonel Quaritch, and the science team that he has been sharing his observations with. Jake has been making great progress with Neytiri and she feels that he has made enough progress to take the final step of bonding with an Ikran – the flying dragons of Pandora. If he survives this final step he will be a man, in the eyes of the Na’vi, and will be accepted into the village as a man.

Jake is allowed to go through the experience of bonding with his own selected Ikran and survives the harrowing process. As a result Jake is admitted into the fellowship of the Na’vi. As a result of this step he is allowed to accept a mate from the people and he chooses Neytiri and she chooses him. That very next morning Colonel Quaritch, and company, sends a bulldozer to start the mining process near the home tree and Jake decides to defend one of the sacred trees, as well as rescuing Neytiri. His loyalties are growing more and more distant from the mining company and the ways that they use to accomplish their goals.

In the process of defending the sacred tree Jake attacks the bulldozer and takes away their sight – they can not see the literal forest, and they can not see the spiritual forest that surrounds them. Jake goes back to the home tree and attempts to warn the people of the coming of the mining camp. The people are distressed for the damage that the miners have done to the planet, and now to a sacred tree. While trying to explain what happened Colonel Quaritch sees Jake as a traitor and brings him back from the Avatar body to face the judgment.

Colonel Quaritch accuses Jake of betraying the company for the sake of the native. Jake pleads with the company boss who gives him one hour to warn the Na’vi to leave the home tree area for that is where the company has come to mine the minerals under the home tree. Jake is rejected as a traitor by the Na’vi as he has been by the Earthlings and the Na’vi fight and end up losing their home in an attack by Colonel Quaritch in home tree itself. For a time he is persona non grata to both sides. Again Jake has to face his feelings and has to make decisions that will affect his destiny in life.

After being rejected by the Na’vi, and by the Earthlings, he is given an opportunity to flee to the mountains with the Avatar crew. He decides that he will help the Na’vi come what may. He is able to regain his Avatar body and is granted an awareness of a plan of how to become the Toruk Makto, or the Messiah, of the Na’vi. He is able to link with the giant dragon of Pandora and when he arrives at the meeting with the Na’vi he is granted the opportunity to share the plan of saving Pandora that he has thought of. He rallies the other tribes and they have enough warriors to try to take over Hell’s Gate.

Colonel Quaritch is also aware of the gathering of the warriors and initiates a plan to destroy the Tree of Souls and make a spiritual scar on the people so that they will never again attack the Hell’s Gate camp. The Colonel gathers his troops and sets out to attack the Na’vi. During this battle Eywa comes to the aid of Jake for Jake came to recognition that he would not be able to defeat the Colonel even with the help of the warriors. Jake is willing to surrender to the point of praying to Eywa, Pandora’s goddess of nature, to ask for help in defending the planet and the way of life of the Na’vi.

In this great last battle Eywa sends the large animals to assist Jake and the battle is slowly won. During the battle Jake and the Colonel have a final encounter. Both Jake and Colonel Quaritch are in artificial bodies – Jake in his Avatar, and the Colonel in his robotic external suit. In the battle Jake decides that he wants to be with the Na’vi forever. When he wins the battle with the Colonel Jake asks if he can be transferred into his Avatar body forever and Eywa grants this request. Jake becomes a Na’vi forever.

In the above brief description of the events of the movie Avatar, many different concepts were expressed. In the movie Jake finds his true love and is allowed, by the movie, to find true happiness, justice, and success. It has been this writer’s goal to reveal the gospel of the Bible in the various articles written about the symbolism incorporated in the movie Avatar.

From the Bible’s perspective the movie tells the story of the gospel in a twisted way. God would have each person see the gospel of the Bible so that the joys displayed in the movie can be acquired in the way that God has intended for it to be acquired. From the Bible’s point of view Jake Sulley both Messiah – the Toruk Makto, and he is an individual in the process of accepting the gospel of Christ. Colonel Quaritch represents both the role of Satan, and the role of a sinner trying to decide to either follow God or to follow the things of the world. The interactions of these two figures – Jake, and the Colonel summarizes the story of the gospel

Jake makes the decision to follow his heart and the Spirit of God. So each of us on Earth can follow the movings of the Holy Spirit and can respond to God when He reveals Himself to us on Earth. At the very same time there is a Satan and Satan wants to interfere with our relationship with God. As Jake discovered that there was a plan that was unfolding for him he was willing to let go of his old world and embrace truth as it came to him. So for us each of us we have to let go of the old and accept the new revelations granted to us by God. Jake had to accept help from one whom he could not see, so we have to accept help from a God that we can not see but that has provided abundant evidence of His presence and His power. When we are willing to see that the things of this world have little lasting value then we will make those final decisions that God requires in order to make a change in us.

In the Bible each person can have a personal acquaintance with God. God will unfold events in such a manner that each individual will recognize that God, and no one else, is talking to us. Based on our decisions, in light of the information granted, God will work for us to draw us closer and closer to Him. When the final decision is made God has promised to give us a new body one like the one originally given to Adam – tall, powerful, intelligent, and immortal. We can have that body if we are willing to accept all of the gifts of the one true God – Jesus of Nazareth. If we accept God’s gifts then we will have the opportunity of going to heaven, and then will return to this earth to participate in the judgment scenes of the symbolic Colonel Quaritch – Satan. When Satan and all of his people are judged, then God will recreate this Earth and make it again like it was in the time of Eden. Then all of mankind will live in an environment much more glorious than that of Pandora.

The story of the Bible is the offer of the gospel – the good news of total restoration to an open relationship with God. Each person will have the opportunity to receive this gift or to reject it. What will you do?

Avatar and Prayer

2010-04-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

In one of the pivotal scenes of the movie Jake recognizes that unless something supernatural happens, he, and his warriors have no chance of winning a battle against a seasoned and well armed Earthly military force. So with this thought in mind Jake goes to the Tree of Souls and submits to Eywa and asks for her help. Jake is not sure what it is that he is doing, or if it will be successful, but he asks from the perspective of one who has nothing to lose and everything to win.

Neytiri was watching Jake in prayer and approved of the fact that he was praying at all but counseled Jake that Eywa only gets involved with supernatural support to maintain the balance of life. But she was happy that Jake was at least asking in the Na’vi manner.
Jake’s prayer was simple, heartfelt, and to the point. He needed help and he was willing to get help any way that he could even if it meant to pray.

In the process of the movie, Jake, and his warriors attack and get soundly defeated. As the casualties mount Jake is discouraged and is wondering if he did the right thing to rally the warriors to fight knowing that they were no match for the advanced weaponry of the company. When everyone’s hope was lowest and Neytiri was contemplating sacrificing her life with one last attempt to kill an enemy, the sound of much movement is heard and what is seen is all of the larger animals of Pandora have been sent by Eywa to fight against the company. With the land animals fighting the ground troops and the Ikran fighting the helicopters all of a sudden the odds of winning the war increase for the Pandorans and Neytiri cries out that Eywa had heard Jake’s request and had answered his prayer. Eywa gives Jake, and the Pandoran warriors, the victory.

James Cameron used the issue of prayer in a very successful manner in his movie – Avatar. He gave a wonderfully touching rendition of prayer through Jake and Neytiri. The Bible also tells us that prayer is an essential part of the relationship between man and God. God wants us to come to Him in faith trusting that He will answer prayers, and He will even prompt us to pray for things. In Romans 8:26 it says that the Holy Spirit, one of the three member of the Godhead, prays for us for we know not what we should pray for.

Prayer, in the Bible, is a communicating link between God and man. God is all knowing, and foreknowing as well. God knows what we will pray about, what will happen, and He even prompts us to ask for specific things so that He can help us, and still keep us focused on the small tasks of life.

In the Bible, God has prayers of all kind taking place. He encourages communication with Him at all levels and in all ways. The following are references for a variety of different prayers and communications:

Genesis 3:8-19 Jesus comes looking for Adam and Eve to find out what happened to them.
Genesis 4:6-15 God’s communications with Cain about Abel.
Genesis 5:24 God’s interactions with Enoch were of such a nature that the Bible records it as walking with God, and God took Him.
Genesis 15:1-21 Interactions between God and Abraham.
Genesis 17:1-22 More interactions between God and Abraham.
Genesis 18:1-33 God informing Abraham about his son to be, and discussions about Sodom and judgment.
Genesis 21:1-20 God’s discussions with Abraham about Hagar and Ishmael and then God’s discussions with Hagar.
Genesis 24:1-27 Prayers about getting a wife for Isaac.
Genesis 28:10-22 God’s communications with Jacob and Jacob with God.
Genesis 32:24-31 Jacob wrestles and prays with God.
Exodus 3:1-22 God’s communications with Moses just prior to leading Israel out of Egypt.
Exodus 15:1-21 Israel’s prayer to God in song.
Exodus 20:1-26 God speaks to Israel and they become afraid and want an intercessor to speak for them rather than directly to God.
Exodus 33:9-34:28 God and Moses communicate with each other.
Joshua 2:1-21 Prayer between Rahab the Canaanite and God’s messengers.
Joshua 5:13-15 Prayer between Jesus and Joshua.
I Samuel 1:9-18 Hannah’s prayer for a son and God answer her through Eli.
II Samuel 7:1-29 David’s prayer of thanks to God for allowing him to have success and to have a son who will build the temple for God.
Psalms 51 David’s prayer of repentance for taking his friend’s wife and then for killing the friend.
I Kings 3:5-28 God and Solomon discuss spiritual gifts and then Solomon applies the spiritual gift in judging Israel.
II Chronicles 5:11-7:3 Solomon’s prayer to God to bless the temple and all of the worship activities that would be there and the various ways God responded to the prayer.
II Chronicles 20:1-30 Jehoshaphat’s prayer and God’s answer.
Daniel 9:1-27 Daniel’s prayer of repentance for Israel and God’s answer to the prayer.
Luke 1:26-56 Mary and Elizabeth’s prayers of thanksgiving for the births of God’s forerunner and the Messiah.
Luke 1:67-80 Zacharias’s prayer of praise for the Messiah.
Matthew 5:1-7:28 Jesus, the Son of God, communicates His holy will to His people.
John 17:1-1-26 Jesus’ prayer to His Father in Heaven for His disciples.

The above list is a small sampling of a variety of prayers that shows how God speaks to His people and how they speak to Him. All through the Scriptures God shows how He handles difficult situations and how He chooses to take care of His people. II Chronicles 20:1-30 is one of those crisis situations similar to the experience that James Cameron attempts to reveal in the movie Avatar.

It is this writer’s hope that as you meditate upon the events of the movie Avatar that you to would seek to have a prayer experience with the real God of the universe. As the people above prayed in faith to Him which can not be seen but whom we can experience, God answered those sincere prayers and revealed enough of Himself that they wanted to have a deeper experience. This opportunity He offers to you today. Read the prayers, and then read the stories and by reading them your faith will be strengthened and you to will seek God to have your own personal experience with Him. This is the promise of the Bible. That which was intimated in the movie of Avatar, can be experienced in reality through direct communications with God.

Avatar and the Resurrection

2010-03-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting themes in the movie Avatar was how often Jake’s Avatar appeared to die in front of the Na’vi. If something happened to Jake’s communication chamber, interrupting his connection with his Avatar it would appear that Jake died and then he would come back to life when reconnected with his Avatar. To me this was very similar to the Bible concept of resurrection – the process in which God recreates the body and reconnects the individual – his thoughts, memories, and awareness, with his body. The resurrection is one of the major themes in the body and explains how a person can die and then come back to life to face the judgment scene – either for good or for bad.

The first resurrection story is in Genesis 22, where Abraham is to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Abraham understands from God that he is to take his son to Mount Moriah and there he is to kill his son as an offering to God. Abraham goes through the whole process and is fully prepared to offer his son. When he starts to put a knife into the chest of his son, God stops Abraham and Isaac is rescued from death and Abraham receives his son back from the “dead”. Hebrews 11:17-19 states the following:

“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”

The second story of resurrection is told in the story of Joseph. Joseph becomes Pharaoh of Egypt’s right hand man and is responsible for rescuing all of Egypt from death by starvation during the 7 years of famine spoken of in Genesis 40-42. After saving all of Egypt Joseph predicts that God will deliver Israel and when that happens, even though it is many years after the death of Joseph, he asks that Israel will take is bones with them when they leave Egypt. Genesis 50:24-26 This is another figure of resurrection.

The first actual resurrection of a dead person is the story of Moses. God clearly describes the death and burial of Moses in Deuteronomy 34:1-7. He also comments into the process of Moses’ resurrection in Jude 9. We know that Moses was resurrected because he shows up in the story of Jesus, many years after his death, and is one of the two men that come to comfort Jesus in his time of distress in Matthew 17:1-4.

We know that the Bible states that when a person is dead he is unable to communicate love, anger, hatred, revenge, or any human thought or experience. The Bible says that “the dead know not any thing…” Ecclesiastes 9:4-10 Since the dead know not any thing, then in order to communicate with mankind the dead must experience a resurrection, a returning to the world of the living.

There are many more examples of the resurrection of the dead in the Bible. There are several in the Old Testament – II Kings 4:8-37; II Kings 13: 20-21 - and several in the New Testament writings – Luke 7:11-17; Luke 8:49-56; Matthew 27:50-53. Perhaps the greatest single resurrection is that of Lazarus in John 11. In this story John is dead for 4 days and has started to decompose, when Jesus comes to visit the family of Joseph and comfort them for the loss of their brother Lazarus. Jesus gives us the most detailed speech on the subject of the resurrection and then resurrects His friend Lazarus. This resurrection places a seal of God on Jesus

The next major resurrection is that of Jesus Himself. All four of the gospels discuss the various aspects of the resurrection and how God conducts His business. The Bible states that Jesus was able to lay down His own life and then to pick it back up. John 10:17-18

Finally God tell us that there will be two final resurrections – one for the righteous and one for the wicked. John 5:25-29 says the following:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. “

Each person will decide which resurrection he/she will be in. If they choose to accept Jesus as God, then they will be in the resurrection that comes about when Jesus returns for the second time. This resurrection is discussed in I Corinthians 15:51-58 and I Thessalonians 4:13-18. The resurrection of damnation occurs a thousand years later at the third coming of Christ. Revelation 20:1-15

James Cameron was kind enough to give us the symbolism of the resurrection in his movie Avatar. God was kind enough to give us the reality. I pray that as we evaluate these things we will choose the reality over the symbolism and the fantasy. The choice is ours; the gift of the reality is God’s. He longs for us to be resurrected to live with Him forever.

Avatar and Hell

2010-03-21T00:26:00.000-07:00

In the movie Avatar, the name of the mining camp is “Hell’s Gate”. This apparently is a statement that when you leave the fenced camp you were entering into someone’s perceptions of hell – meaning a gateway to death. The basic understanding was that the planet'’ atmosphere was death producing to humans, the animal life was dangerous to humans, the plant life had some deadly components, and then the people of Pandora – the Na’vi were also antagonistic to human beings and would try to shoot them with poison arrows. All of these death-producing things were present on the planet, and thus the warning that the mining camp was the gateway to hell.

In the Bible there is a similar story with some major differences. In the Bible story there was no death in the Garden of Eden. Nothing killed, and nothing harmed in God’s kingdom. Isaiah 11:9. God put only one warning sign up and that was that Adam and Eve were not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If Adam and Eve left that tree alone, there would never be death of any kind. On the other hand if Adam and or Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, then death would come.

As the story unfolds Eve eats of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She eats because she accepts the thoughts of a speaking serpent/dragon. See Genesis 3:1-7, 14; Revelation 12:9. When she eats of the fruit, she then becomes the medium of temptation to Adam. When he chooses to eat of the same fruit, he concludes that he is naked and would be ashamed to come into the presence of God with no clothing. God comes at His normal time to talk to Adam and Eve and finds that they are now afraid to talk to Him. God asks if they had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and they prove they had by their blaming one another. After discussing it, God offers them new clothing that is purchased by blood and death. Genesis 3:21 Thus, the first death that happens on earth is a symbol of the coming of the true Avatar – Jesus Christ.

After God clothes them with clothing that He made for them, He then informs Adam and Eve that they must leave the Garden of Eden and they must leave the Tree of Life. Thus death is inevitable for Adam and Eve for they no longer can eat of the tree that brings healing and life. In time Adam and Eve will die.

Shortly after leaving Eden, Adam and Eve come face to face with death again. In Genesis 4 death comes to their second born son at the hands of their first born son. Cain kills Abel over the struggle of whether to bring an offering of fruit and vegetables or to bring an offering that symbolizes the slain life of Jesus. Cain is upset that God did not accept his sacrifice while God did accept the sacrifice of Abel. This disagreement led to the death of Abel and the running away of Cain.

This process continued with increasing frequency until by the time of the flood people were thinking evil thoughts continually and when people think evil thoughts all of the time they get violent. One of the concepts from the Old Testament is that when Israel turned away from God they practiced human sacrifice in the sense of offering up their children to their heathen but non-existent gods. They offered their children as sacrifices by making them pass through the fire. II Kings 23:10; II Chronicles 33:6. After 120 years God sent a flood to wash away the sins of the world, but in the act of cleansing there was death to all of the animals, and people on the planet Earth except for those animals and people on the Ark that Noah built by God’s instructions.

After the flood, the same selfishness of people began to manifest itself again in the meanness of people toward one another. All of the things that people did before the Flood were repeated by their children after the Flood, which eventually led to God confounding the language of man. This would slow down the negative process but man still found ways to think of evil continually. Man seemed to love death while rejecting life. The selfishness of man seemed to know no bounds, yet God, through His people Israel, tried to offer man another way – that of life. Israel, as a nation, was raised up to show an alternate way of life through obedient connection with God. All who would, could, and eventually would live forever and return to a way of life that nothing was to die or to harm one another.

Yet Israel did not do a very good job of revealing the life of surrender to God. They most often left their post with God and went to worship other Gods. They often ended up practicing the same behaviors as those who hated God. This went on for hundreds of years until the time finally came where God Himself came to be among the people. God lasted a few short years on Earth until He was hung on a cross and died. After His death Jesus Christ became the First to be raised from the dead. By this I do not mean that Jesus was the first to be raised from the dead, but that by His resurrection authorization had been given for all of those resurrected from the dead in the Old Testament times and those in the New Testament times. God revealed that there was a solution to the death problem and that solution was God Himself.

This process of rebellion against God, as started by Adam and Eve, has continued all through time down to the year 2010. God has revealed that any rebellion against Him, and His law, creates death. With death comes the trip to the grave. But God’s goal is to remove death once and for all time. God plans to bring everyone to an understanding that to live means to surrender in love to God. To die means to enter into rebellion against God and the principles of life. God offers us freedom to choose, but all must choose and deal with the consequences of that choice.

One of the interesting concepts in the Bible is that of death. One of the odd things that death presents is that all who follow death must end up in the grave. All through the Bible the name given for the grave was hell. Psalms 16:10; 86:13 marginal reference; Proverbs 7:27; I Corinthians 15:55 marginal reference; Revelation 20:13-14. Thus, Avatar’s Hell’s Gate is a way of stating that all who go through this gate love death and want the grave, or are willing to go to the grave. In the movie all of the people who had come to Pandora were willing to die because of the high potential reward. Pandora was supposed to be a very dangerous place to be but all that came were willing to take the risks.

In the Bible the stakes are a little higher. God did not intend for anyone to die on Earth and He did not make anything evil or harmful. God says, “an enemy has done this”. Matthew 13:27-28. God did not want anyone to go to the grave. But when God warned man not to sin, He told them that in the day that they would sin then death would come to them and they would then go to “hell” or to the grave.

But God also had a solution for all those who would go to the grave. God promised to resurrect them to eternal life, if they wanted it. God does not want to be separated from us. He wants us to live forever and to be with Him. All who will choose Him can have the gift of eternal life and to be resurrected to heaven, and then eventually to return to Earth. But for this to occur each one of us must have a personal experience with God. If we choose to do this He will resurrect us from the grave, and eventually He will destroy death and destroy the grave, because no one else will ever go there.

This little study is a response to Avatar’s message of “Hell’s Gate”. God recognizes what hell’s gate means – that we have chosen to reject God and have chosen death over life. God wants us to live forever with Him, we can choose to reject eternal death today. Even though we may die, and go to the grave, yet the promise of God is available to us, He will come and resurrect us and we will live forever. What choice will you make today?

Avatar’s Dragons

2010-03-10T23:45:00.000-08:00

In the movie Avatar one of the right of passage experience is to go on a strenuous climb to find a dwelling place for the smaller of Pandora’s dragon species the Ikran. Jake is told that he is to find one of the Ikran and he will know if it has chosen him by the attempt to kill Jake. If Jake can subdue his Ikran then he can connect with his antenna, the queue, and complete the process of Tsahaylu. When Tsahaylu is completed then Jake would be able to control his Ikran and become a successful member of the clan. He would have proved that he was a successful man and have passed the tests of manhood and be a functional member of the village. Jake, on completion of subduing his Ikran, would be thought of as a successful hunter and warrior. When Jake completed his growth tasks he would then be considered eligible to mate with one of the females of the clan. All of these things Jake accomplished and in a positive manner.

It is interesting that Mr. Cameron chose to use a flying dragon as one of the symbols of growth and maturity in the culture of the Na'vi. In the Bible a flying serpent, Isaiah 14:29, is used to communicate an evil messenger, someone to avoid if at all possible. The dragon, or the great serpent, is named Satan – the Adversary. Revelation 12:9. This adversary came to Adam and Eve and tempted them to rebel against the revealed will of God, and thus introduced sin into the world and opened Pandora’s box. Sin led to death and destruction.

The use of a dragon in Avatar is an interesting mix of symbols. In the movie Avatar, friendship with a dragon is a function of becoming an adult in the Na’vi culture. There is a greater dragon – the Great Leonopteryx – that is so deadly that few make any connection with this dragon. But there is an occasional hero that is able to make Tsahaylu with the Great Leonopteryx and when that rare thing happens the hero is called Toruk Makto and he is able to lead all of the tribes of Pandora together.

In James Cameron’s mind, the dragons of Pandora are used for positive purposes, to show maturity, courage, and to allow the warrior access to the air to be a greater hunter and thus a greater deliverer. In the Bible’s perspective contact with the Dragon is to open the door to being deceived and to be harmed in some way. God warns us to stay away from the dragon, in any of his forms, and to stay focused on Jesus. To not go through the rite of passage ceremonies by keeping your distance and not entering into a deep, personal, and emotional contact with a dragon would be good in the eyes of God. It would show a dependence upon God and trust in Him to care for all of the needs of the culture as well as the needs of the individual.

In conclusion, God warns us to flee from the dragon and we will be blessed. Avatar encourages us to have contact with the dragon and that this contact leads to blessings and social advancement. Each person has to make these decisions for themselves. God has revealed His holy will to man through the stories He has told us. We have seen the impact of sin on people and we have seen the destruction of peoples, cities, and nations through their disobedience to the will of God. The concept of uniting with a Dragon in the mind of God is to commit sin and to turn against God and against your community; this God warns of and encourages us to stay faithful to Him so that He can do great things for us. Stay away from the dragons, in any shape, form, or culture. The True, and real God, has warned us to flee from dragons and enjoy sweet communion with Him. Today we can choose the fantasy or to choose the real and the true.

Avatar and the State of the Dead

2010-03-01T23:46:00.001-08:00

In the movie Avatar there were several presentations of the dead. In one scene a dead member of the Na’vi is shown being prepared for burial and a seed from the Tree of Souls is placed in the burial place. Apparently this seed was to be a connecting link to the soul of the dead family member.

In another scene Neytiri is presented as attempting to explain to Jake how the Tree of Souls keeps an account of each dead member of the tribe. The dead people, and their memories, are retained in the Tree of Souls and anyone can come to the tree and “connect” to this record of lives and thoughts. Apparently one could communicate with the record of the dead one but perhaps not to the person himself or herself.

In the Bible the state of the dead is a complex set of concepts. God tells us in Genesis 2:7 that God made a living soul out of the dust of the ground and then God breathed into the person the breath of life and he/she became a living soul. This formula requires to parts to be a living soul – a body and the breath of life. Without either of these to parts the living soul does not take place. In Ecclesiastes 12:5-7 God tells us that when death occurs that the body breaks back down into dust, and the spirit, or life energy, returns to God. Thus the living soul comes to an end.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-10 gives us some additional information as to what happens to us when we die. It says:

1 For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.
7 Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.
8 Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.
9 Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun.
10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

In this text God tells us that we will all die, unless we are translated to heaven without seeing death. Death happens to all people and if the normal process occurs we all will experience this death process. When we die, the Bible says that our love, hatred, envy, knowledge, and wisdom all stops. There is no communication with the dead for all mental, and physical processing, is terminated. God even goes so far as to say that all our thoughts perish (Psalms 146:4) and that we no longer can praise God. Psalms 115:17 So from the Word of God all cognitive processing stops and ceases to function.

An interesting question comes up and that is many people claim to have communications with the dead, or tap into the memories of the dead, as in the Tree of Souls in the movie Avatar. If we use the Bible to guide our thoughts, since it is God who only knows all about life or death, then we are instructed not to seek wisdom from the dead. God wants us to seek wisdom and instruction from the living, He wants us to come to Him and He will grant us wisdom and truth. He does not want us to seek other avenues of information controlled by Satan, He wants us to come to Him and He will guide us.

“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God, for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it I because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:19-20

“When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.
For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.” Deuteronomy 18:9-14
(Necromancers are people who attempt to communicate with the dead, and familiar spirits are the supposed spirits of dead people dwelling in animals to communicate their thoughts to Necromancers, Wizards, and Witches. God forbids all of this.)

God is aware that Satan has chosen to attempt to communicate his will through avenues that God has forbidden us. The reason He forbids this is because the information sent to us from Satan is based totally on deception, error, and sin. Satan attempts to use avenues that God has forbidden. All communication with the dead can not happen because God says that the dead do not think, feel, share, praise, or anything, for they are dead. The dead do not communicate. So any communications that supposedly come from the dead come from Satan, not from God. Therefore all “communications” with the dead come from Satan, not from the person that can not communicate until they are resurrected. God wants to communicate the truth, and only the truth, Satan wants to communicate error to prevent us from trusting in God.

So God’s answer to the dead is to allow them to “sleep” until Jesus comes to awaken them again. I Corinthians 15:51-58; I Thessalonians 4:13-18 When He puts the breath of life back into their bodies, they will then be able to communicate again. Until then they simply rest in God and are not aware of anything under the sun.

Satan, on the other hand, wants to communicate with us his thinking. He wants us to distrust God and to disobey Him. Satan communicated this thought to Eve and through her distrust in God, and trust in Satan, she opened the proverbial Pandora’s box and introduced sin to Adam and then they disobeyed God and ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thus they introduced death to the Earth, something that God did not want to occur. So all communication with Satan will eventually produce death if accepted, for Satan always wants to do anything and everything that God forbids.

So, as in all things, God has given us a choice. We can obey Him and prosper or we can disobey Him and get into trouble. God wants us to have truth only. He does not want us to have error for error produces death. So leave the dead alone and allow God to watch over them until the resurrection takes place. Let us connect with God and get all of the knowledge we can possibly use and live a life that will help all around us.

God’s Purpose in Using Films like Avatar

2010-02-24T23:53:00.001-08:00

Avatar has sold over 2 billion dollars worth of tickets. It is closing in on 2.5 Billion and it would not surprise me to see Avatar making 3 Billion dollars when it goes to DVD. That is a lot of impact on the thinking and feelings of the people of the world. With all of this impact how does God see movies like Avatar? Does He like it, or dislike it?

We know from Scripture that God likes that which is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of a good report. He wants us to think on these good things. Philippians 4:8 Many who have seen the movie would say that all of these good things are displayed in Avatar. The people, who have seen Avatar, would say that all of the good things are there, and that they were blessed by the story line and all of the wonderful scenery, the heroism, and the determination to do right though everything is against the truth. But we still don’t know if God likes movies like Avatar.

God says the following in I Corinthians 9:19-23 through His prophet Paul:
19 For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.

It was Paul’s purpose to be anything and do anything that would allow the gospel out to the people of the world so that they would choose to select it. Paul became a servant, a Jew, to them that are without the law, anything to win people for the gospel’s sake. That is God’s plan as well. He will do most anything, as long as it does not deny His laws and His ways of conducting business. God wants His children to see that He loves them and that wants to do what is best for them. God may not like fantasy but if people are determined to see it He will work with them the best that He can.

God also says:
Philippians 1:18
“What then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.”

God wants His people to see and know the truth. But God will use any and all meetings to stimulate some to ask questions about God and then He can give the answers that they need and help them to find Him when they search for Him with all of souls. So God is willing to use movies like Avatar. He prefers to use the Bible and His people to proclaim the truth. But if people will not use His avenues, God will use the avenues people like to move them to ask questions about Him.

Another text on how nature moves us is found in Psalms 19:1-6
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

Nature reveals God and encourages people to ask questions about Him. Avatar shows us the beauties of Pandora. We experience our longing for Eden when we see Pandora, for Eden is our home. We still have genetic/spiritual connections to Eden our original home. Whenever we see something as beautiful as Pandora, God is trying to get us to see Him in nature and to remind us of the experience, the longing for Eden restored.

God wants to reveal Himself to us in nature. Romans 1:19-21 reveals this thought to us:
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

God has chosen to use nature as a revelation of God. When we study nature, and get into harmony with it we can see God. When we hear His voice we are ready to accept these messages as true things.

There is much beauty in Avatar, heroism, love, joy, adventure, success, victory over evil. God is calling to each person to come back to Him. He promises to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from unrighteousness. He wants to stimulate our hearts so that we will seek to know Him for ourselves.

One final thought about the ways God uses to draw us to Him. In Daniel 3 the story is told about Nebuchadnezzar, the king of ancient Babylon. He had been granted a dream by God to tell him about his future and his kingdom in Daniel 2. Nebuchadnezzar did not like the idea of his kingdom ending so he decided to build a statue of the image in his dream and instead of many metals Nebuchadnezzar would build his image out of solid gold. When doing this he thought to bring all of the leaders of his kingdom to show them the vision, or the movie that he had prepared. If anyone did not like it, or bow down to his image he would throw into an actual furnace and burn them to death. God had three of His people on sight and they protested against this blasphemy of idolatry and they would not bow down to the image on command. When Nebuchadnezzar heard this he was very angry and threatened to kill the three men. They stood fast and said that they would not bow down to the image, regardless of what the king would do to them. The king responded by casting them into the furnace. By the very act of throwing these servants of God into the furnace Nebuchadnezzar created the real event that moved people to see things God’s way. We do not know how many people have chosen God because of the scenes Nebuchadnezzar thought to create but we do know that when feeble man creates an alternative to God’s plan, God will use the very plans of man to bring people to Him.

Avatar is a beautiful movie about a fantasy place in the mind of James Cameron. He thought to make a commercial success and to perhaps influence people to see what he wants them to see. I believe God is using Avatar, the creation of man, to accomplish a larger purpose. I believe that Avatar has reminded people of the ancient symbols of the Garden of Eden, the Trees of Life, and the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Avatar has reminded people that there is a God out there that wants to know us and to work with us so that all of the beauties of Pandora will be experienced in the Earth made new. All that Pandora offers in the imagination, God offers to grant us in reality. Today is our opportunity to communicate our desires to God and He will help us reach the goals He has put into our hearts. God wants to have us be with Him. Will you take advantage of this offer?

Avatar and Satan’s Pandoran Deception

2010-02-24T06:09:00.001-08:00

In the movie “Avatar” Jake Sulley is encouraged to come to Pandora to participate in the Avatar program and he will make enough money to get the surgery to repair his spine and he will be able to walk again. He went to Pandora to “drive” an Avatar – a genetic combination of human DNA and Na’vi DNA to make an “vehicle” which allows him to be able to breathe the atmosphere of Pandora and to interface with the local native humanoid peoples – the Na’vi. This Avatar interface will help the Mining Company to continue to make its quota of procuring the mineral – Unobtanium. This is the premise of the movie “Avatar”.

As we have discussed over and over through the postings in this blog, it is remarkable how many religious symbols James Cameron has incorporated into the movie. The issue of a genetic amalgamation of Human and Na’vi is an interesting symbol. We have discussed how Avatar is a Hindu concept of a vehicle in which a god comes to the Earth and is able to interface with humanity. This concept is also present in Christianity and is the foundational point for Jesus to come and take on a human body. He is able to grow up as a child on Earth, interact with His disciples, do all of the tasks that His Father assigned for Him to accomplish, die for us, be resurrected for us, and then return to heaven. Christ claims that He did this to learn the issues of life from a Human Being’s perspective, to live out a life of total surrender on Earth, and to remain a Human Being forever to interface between the Infinite Father in Heaven, and Redeemed Humanity.

Satan has chosen this same concept for an attempt at deception on the Earth. Since Jesus came in human flesh to interact with Humanity, Satan also wants to come to Earth appearing as Jesus Christ. II Thessalonians 2:7-9 describes this event in the following terms:

“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.”

Satan will try any and all ways to deceive God’s people and the people of the world. God says that Satan has the power to appear as an Angel of light. Both Satan and his followers can appear to be something they are not. II Corinthians 11:13-15 says the following:

“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

Everything Satan does he does with the sole purpose to destroy, deceive, and confuse God’s people. Nothing is ever as it appears for Satan, his angels, and his people here on Earth. All is done with the single-minded purpose of deception. This also applies to the “Coming” of Satan.

In the book “The Great Controversy” Satan’s plan is revealed. Satan seeks to deceive God’s people by getting them to turn away from the Bible to a set of standards, which he controls. Satan knows that if he can deceive and discourage people they will make poor decisions and eventually end up dying in some manner that is not conducive to their walk with God. Satan loves to cause pain and anguish to Jesus. He can not harm Jesus directly now, but Satan still has access to God’s people. He wants them to lose out on salvation. If people lose their salvation then Satan feels vindicated, he feels that he finally could beat Jesus and cause Jesus anxiety, and he, Satan, will not suffer for their sins, the people will.

Satan seeks to deceive in a very specific manner. The Great Controversy reports the following:
“Fearful sights of a supernatural character will soon be revealed in the heavens, in token of the power of miracle-working demons. The spirits of devils will go forth to the kings of the earth and to the whole world, to fasten them in deception, and urge them on to unite with Satan in his last struggle against the government of heaven. By these agencies, rulers and subjects will be alike deceived. Persons will arise pretending to be Christ Himself, and claiming the title and worship, which belong to the world's Redeemer. They will perform wonderful miracles of healing and will profess to have revelations from heaven contradicting the testimony of the Scriptures.

As the crowning act in the great drama of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ. The church has long professed to look to the Saviour's advent as the consummation of her hopes. Now the great deceiver will make it appear that Christ has come. In different parts of the earth, Satan will manifest himself among men as a majestic being of dazzling brightness, resembling the description of the Son of God given by John in the Revelation. Revelation 1:13-15. The glory that surrounds him is unsurpassed by anything that mortal eyes have yet beheld. The shout of triumph rings out upon the air: "Christ has come! Christ has come!" The people prostrate themselves in adoration before him, while he lifts up his hands and pronounces a blessing upon them, as Christ blessed His disciples when He was upon the earth. His voice is soft and subdued, yet full of melody. In gentle, compassionate tones he presents some of the same gracious, heavenly truths which the Saviour uttered; he heals the diseases of the people, and then, in his assumed character of Christ, he claims to have changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and commands all to hallow the day which he has blessed. He declares that those who persist in keeping holy the seventh day are blaspheming his name by refusing to listen to his angels sent to them with light and truth. This is the strong, almost overmastering delusion. Like the Samaritans who were deceived by Simon Magus, the multitudes, from the least to the greatest, give heed to these sorceries, saying: This is "the great power of God." Acts 8:10.

But the people of God will not be misled. The teachings of this false christ are not in accordance with the Scriptures. His blessing is pronounced upon the worshipers of the beast and his image, the very class upon whom the Bible declares that God's unmingled wrath shall be poured out.

And, furthermore, Satan is not permitted to counterfeit the manner of Christ's advent. The Saviour has warned His people against deception upon this point, and has clearly foretold the manner of His second coming. "There shall arise false christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. . . . Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert; go not forth; behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matthew 24:24-27, 31; 25:31; Revelation 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. This coming there is no possibility of counterfeiting. It will be universally known--witnessed by the whole world.” The Great Controversy pages 624-625 http://www.whiteestate.org/books/gc/gc.asp

God has foreseen the above events and has warned us of these events. God has even used the movie Avatar to prepare us for this final deception. The good news is that since God is raising our awareness of such things that His second coming is soon. I pray that we may learn from these warnings, that we may study the Bible to see if these things are so, and that when the time comes we will take the side of Jesus and meet Him in the air. This is my prayer.

Avatar and the Battle of Armageddon

2010-02-23T19:10:00.000-08:00

We have discussed many issues regarding the movie Avatar and the symbols used in the movie to move the people to an emotional and spiritual experience. Perhaps one of the most powerful symbols in the movie is the final great battle between the Mining Company and the Na’vi and Eywa. This battle is of such a nature that Armageddon seems to be a title that people could use easily. Armageddon is a word and it is a symbol of something that God has predicted will come just before Jesus arrives. So lets explore the idea a bit more.

Armageddon is a term used only one time in the Bible and is also in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 16 we are informed about the 7 last plagues that will be imposed upon a rebellious Earth. Just as God warned the people in Noah’s day to get ready for the flood, so in these last days God is warning mankind that they need to get ready for these last plagues. One of these plagues, the sixth one, is referred to as the Battle of Armageddon. In Revelation 16:12-16 we have the following:

12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

God put this story in the Bible to be a warning to us to be on the right side of this battle at all costs. The only way to make it through is to have a relationship with Christ.

This story retells the story of the destruction of the city of Babylon in Daniel 5. The nation of Babylon had deteriorated morally, just as America is today, and the time came that the nations around Babylon concluded that another stronger nation could rise up and take over the city of Babylon and takes it’s lands. That nation was the peoples of the Medes and Persians. They surrounded Babylon but could not get through its great walls or through its soldiers. It seemed that Babylon could not be conquered. But God had told how the city would be taken in Isaiah 44:27-45:13. God even named the Persian general who would be the conqueror – his name was Cyrus. God informed Cyrus of His prophecy, most likely through Daniel. Central in the prophecy was the concept of drying up the river Euphrates, the life source, and protector of Babylon. When Cyrus and his soldiers diverted the waters of the Euphrates river they found that the Babylonian soldiers had left the brass gates under Babylon open and the Medo-Persian soldiers came through and took the city just as God had foretold.

God says that the conquest of modern spiritual Babylon (Revelation 17-18), that consortium of people united against God and all that He teaches and all that He loves (Genesis 11:1-9), will occur similarly to what happened way back in Daniel 5. God’s people have taught the truths of His Word, and have lived out these truths in their lives so that all can see. Satan, and his people, will gather together with the intent of killing off all of God’s people, to keep them from telling them about their rebellion and their need of surrender to Jesus. They will gather to confront God’s people as they did in the time of Elijah at Mount Carmel in I Kings 18 and when they gathered together against Jesus at Mount Calvary. All of the people had chosen whom they would serve, God to go to heaven, or Satan to stay on Earth. When this battle occurs God’s people will have no defense but God Himself. God will come to fight this battle (Revelation 19) just as He had come to the defense of helpless Israel in the Red Sea. Exodus 14-15. God will win this battle just as He had against Satan in heaven, at Egypt in the Red Sea, and every other time that God and Satan have fought over this world. God will win.

It is our privilege to be on the winning side, just as Jake Sulley was on the winning side in the physical and spiritual battle in the end of the movie Avatar. We can choose to be on God’s side and He will take care of us better than what happened on the imaginary planet of Pandora. Will you choose Him today?

Avatar and the Great Controversy Theme

2010-02-23T18:42:00.000-08:00

In the movie Avatar the theme of warfare begins to play out soon after the movie starts. The conflict is between the mining company and the Na’vi. The mining company sees the native Pandoran people, the Na’vi, as standing in the way of their access to the mineral Unobtanium. The Mining Company will do anything to get the money that will be paid to buy this mineral which helps to speed up the processing of electronic equipment back on Earth. The Na’vi, on the other hand, are appalled at the way the Company destroys the jungle in their goal to play with dirt. The Na’vi see no value in mining and only see it as an affront to their culture, their religion, and their planet.

Thus, from the beginning, we see the principles that will lead to the great conflict between these two groups of people. Again Mr. Cameron is using a spiritual issue to plumb the emotional and spiritual depths of the audience. He is successful in this because this Great Controversy Theme is present in life. This is one of the central themes of the Bible and God has implanted this idea into the souls of men. God has known from the beginning about this warfare between two peoples, and two sets of angels as was seen in the article about Satan. This Great Controversy Theme clarifies many of the issues in the Bible, as we will see.

We read in the Satan article that the Great Controversy started in heaven. Satan and his angels fought against Christ and His angels. Christ, or as He is referred to in Revelation 12:7 as Michael – One who is like God. This battle was fought and Michael and His angels won the battle, but the war has continued through out the last 6000 years. The war started in heaven and then moved to Earth. It was fought conceptually in Eden and Adam and Eve joined the wrong side for a period of time, just long enough to allow evil to enter into the world. As a result of this warfare Adam and Eve had to leave Eden and then the casualties of the war began to mount. First Abel, Adam and Eve’s second son, was killed by his older brother, and then more and more people were killed until God decided to bring the flood to cleanse the planet because man thought only evil continually.

After the flood occurred God started to repopulate the Earth again with the 8 people who were willing to go into God’s Tabernacle on Earth – the Ark that Noah had built. Soon after they left the Ark people again started to gather together, to build cities and kingdoms and the inevitable warfare continued again. God came down, saw the coalitions gathering and confused the languages so that people would have to spread about and have fewer opportunities to harm people in a collective manner.

God allowed things to develop for a while until He decided that the world needed a priestly nation (Exodus 19:3-6) to communicate the principles of God to the entire world. He raised up Israel to be this nation and to have this task. Satan had control over all of the rest of the world but he did not control Israel at this time. But as Israel stood out the warfare grew intense again and Satan tried over and over again to destroy Israel. The Bible is written to record these conflicts so that people can see the cause and effect issues that are involved in the war and so that they can decide what side they want to be on.

This battle has continued through the ages. It came to a major battle at the time of Christ and both of the generals came to meet in the wilderness and in Gethsemane and then again at Calvary. In each of these events Jesus won the battle and showed His children that they can win there battles as well if they will trust in Him. Soon after Jesus returned to heaven to take His position as Great High Priest Israel the literal nation, their capital city Jerusalem and their temple were all destroyed by Satan’s earthly representatives – Rome. Thus it looked again as though Satan had won but God’s plans know no hurrying and no defeat.

After literal Israel was destroyed those who followed Jesus continued. The Priestly nation concept continued in the Christian church. I Peter 2:1-10. These people who followed Jesus were referred to as sons of Abraham in Galatians 3 – thus the spiritual nation of children of Israel has continued through the ages. They have been persecuted by all sorts of nations yet they continue to exist and bear their testimony to all mankind. Even today the message God has given them is being carried forward even through avenues like Avatar and the commentaries being written about it on this blog.

This warfare between God’s people and Satan’s people will continue until the great war called Armageddon will occur, we will discuss this battle shortly, and Jesus will come to gather His people at the second coming of Christ. I pray that we will be ready for this Great War and the great deliverance of Christ.

Avatar and Satan

2010-02-23T11:49:00.001-08:00

As far as I can tell, from the reading of various articles about the movie Avatar, the concept of Satan – the ruler of evil, was not specifically addressed. The closest concept regarding Satan and demons was a statement by the young leader Tsu’Tey who stated “the sky people are demons”. So somewhere in the Na’vi theological mindset the idea of a set of supernaturally evil beings had been established.

The Na’vi had a belief in a benevolent goddess – Away – and they had some awareness of an evil but the concept of Satan as an individual did not seem to be expressed. At the same time the Na’vi had the perceptions that the strip mining practices of the corporation was disrespectful of all nature and the Na’vi wanted them to stop mining and stop destroying the planet. In addition the Na’vi had concerns about the attitude of the Earth leaders and their willingness to harm things to get more minerals off of the planet. The Na’vi would consider this to be evil. Since the Na’vi had a Satan concept, and James Cameron did not choose to add this symbol let us explore the concept of Satan from the perspective of the Bible.

In the Bible the concept of Satan, and demons, is very established. The history of this being is quite detailed and “starts” in Revelation 12:3-9:

3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
This Scripture makes a number of statements about Satan. First of all it equates the name Satan, which means adversary, to the great red dragon. This dragon – flying serpent – started out in heaven. In the Isaiah 14:12-20 account of Satan, his original name was Lucifer – Son of the Morning, or Light Bearer. Satan was in the beginning a Covering Cherub and was very close to God. After indulging in vanity, envy, and lust (Ezekiel 28:11-19) this Cherub/Angel got into such a problem that it created war in heaven itself. Through his deceptive reasoning (the prophet states that Lucifer lied, Isaiah 9:15) he enticed 1/3 of all the angels in heaven to join him in this war against God. Revelation 12:7-9 says that Satan lost this war in heaven and he, and his angels, were cast out of heaven. Then Lucifer’s name was changed to Satan, because he had become the adversary of God, and anyone whom God loved, including Mankind.

So Satan, one who was created by God for glorious purposes, became the enemy of God and is portrayed throughout the Scriptures as an evil, malicious, deceptive being seeking to harm anyone who loves God. It is Satan who caused sin in heaven, and it was Satan who enticed Adam and Eve to rebel against God. Satan is behind all activities that bring harm, deception, and evil of every kind. He is the enemy described by Jesus as the one sowing evil seed into God’s garden in Matthew 13:27-28. God did not plant any evil seed, or any evil sentiment – this all comes from Satan because he still hates God for casting him out of heaven.

In addition, when Lucifer fell from heaven, he took 1/3 of all of the angels in heaven with him. Revelation 12:4 These fallen angels had sinned in the presence of God and there was not any more that could be done to rescue them than had been done. II Peter 2:4 We use the concept of demon – possessed to describe the kind of spirit that wants to hold people in a distressed state of mind, and control their behavior. This is also called demon possession.

In the movie Avatar, the most evil people in the movie were the leader of the mining group Parker Selfridge, and the chief of security Miles Quaritch. Both of these people are evil because they show a total disregard for humanity, for the Na’vi, for nature, or the God of nature. Whatever makes them happy, and fulfills their selfishness, is “good”, and any thing that gets in their way is “bad”. They refuse to accept that there is a standard of morality higher than that which money and power can provide. This is Satanic thinking in its purest form – the desire to exalt one self at the expense of others. This is a display of demon possession.

I am not sure if James Cameron intended to go this deep into spiritual issues but once one opens Pandora’s Box then all of the issues in the Box will be examined and experienced by the reader. Avatar has exposed all of these issues, and it is my intent to share the truth about these issues so that people can make an informed decision about what they want to do with truth. I pray that God will bless each of you as you read and meditate upon these issues including that of Satan. God has instructed us about these creatures and we need to be aware of them and respect their power and to remember the power of God.

Avatar – Respect for Nature

2010-02-22T23:16:00.000-08:00

In the movie Avatar, there are many themes that are explored and expressed vigorously. One of these themes is that of respect for nature. In the movie the Na’vi are presented as highly in tune with and highly respectful of the animals, plants, people, and the planet itself. They even go to the point of identifying the planet as a living organism. Eywa is the goddess of Pandora and is highly focused on taking care of the environment.

The people are presented as just the opposite. The mining methods used in the movie are strictly strip-mining techniques with no known respect for anything about the planet. All references to nature are done in a sarcastic and disrespectful manner. All displays of the majority of the people from Earth shows a disregard for nature and a total disregard for any realistic attempts to care for the environment. This mind set is fully displayed in the bulldozing of the Tree of Souls, the blowing up of the Hometree, and the treatment displayed in the killing of the Na’vi.

Thus the two sides of the story are expressed and the viewer gets to apply the story to their own experience. Some people have felt that James Cameron is trying to express his own environmental beliefs through the vehicle of the movie Avatar. That would certainly be understandable if Mr. Cameron has those views. I do not know enough about Mr. Cameron to decide if that was his intent or not. But, as we have discussed before, Mr. Cameron has certainly presented many symbols and many theological ideas for us to evaluate and to decide upon.

In the issue about environmental issues God has much to say in His Word. So let us look at some of these ideas and see if we can decide if we want to listen to what God has to say about the subject. According to the Bible God created the whole world, and in fact created all of the worlds in the universe, including the sun, moon, and stars. Colossians 1:13-17; Genesis 1.

When God created the world He thought He had done a good job and He pronounced His work as very good. Genesis 1:31. As we have stated before it was God’s intent that nothing was to die in His Creation. All animals were to eat straw and were to lie down next to each other with no fear of harm. Isaiah 11:1-9; Isaiah 65:17-25. God wanted no death in His Creation. Death, in any shape or form is not a part of God’s makeup and He did not want it for His children. As long as man stayed surrendered to Him there would be no death. But God did say that if man did disobey Him, by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that death would happen. Genesis 2:15-17

We all know how the story turned out. Satan, a being we will discuss in the near future, tempted Adam and Eve and they did the very thing that God told them not to do – they ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a result of this rebellion, of man against God, sin entered the world, and with sin came death to mankind, animals, nature, and even the world.

The interesting thing about sin and death is that we, as human beings, have accepted that death is the normal process of life. We do not accept that death is an alien force and that it does not belong on Earth. We do not accept the Bible story of the original purity of how God made the Earth. We do not accept that God did not want death. We are so used to death that we have incorporated it into our thoughts. Many think that death is the natural balance to life, that both death and life are essential to life. This is not the case at all. Death was never to be a part of God’s gift of life to His children. Death is something that came in because of Satan and Satan only.

To give an example of how things have changed from the beginning I would like to quote a paragraph from a book called Patriarchs and Prophets page 63. It says:
“As they (Adam and Eve) witnessed in drooping flower and falling leave the first signs of decay, Adam and his companion mourned more deeply than men now mourn over their dead. The death of the frail, delicate flowers was indeed a cause of sorrow; but when the goodly trees cast off their leaves, the scene brought vividly to mind the stern fact that death is the portion of every living thing.” http://www.whiteestate.org/books/pp/pp.asp
Adam and Eve recognized that even nature was now affected by sin and that death would come to all things. They also had the added burden that they had been the ones to allow death to come into the perfect world that God had made. They were the originals, and true, Pandoras and they had opened the box of sin and only God Himself could come up with a solution.

God recognized the problem that Adam and Eve had initiated. He knew the amount of death that would come and how it would effect the environment. God reports the following about the effect of sin on the Earth. He said:
“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Romans 8:22
“The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languisheth. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:4-5 God saw the needs of man, of nature, and of the earth and He decided to die for all of them and to restore them to their original purity. God also says that He will make new heavens and a new earth and remove all tears from our eyes. Revelation 21:1,3. God plans to get every thing corrected that sin interfered with. He wants His planet to return to His plan. He “formed the earth and made it, He hath established it. He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited.” Isaiah 45:18 “The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever.” Psalms 37:29. God will take care of every thing and when He is done we will see His glory and we will love Him and the gifts of nature that He wants us to have. All of this awaits for those who are willing to cooperate with His plans. This is the promise of Eden restored. That which comes to the heart of man when watching Avatar will be fulfilled for those who watch the movements of God.

Avatar - The Foreknowledge of God

2010-02-21T21:07:00.001-08:00

In the movie Avatar Jake Sulley is a former Marine who was received a spinal injury in combat on Earth and lost the use of his legs. It just so happened that Jake’s twin brother was a scientist and was involved in the Avatar program on the planet Pandora. In the process of time Jake’s brother dies and the representatives of the mining company contact Jake to see if he would be willing to go to Pandora to take his brother’s place. This would work out, at least to the companies thought for a great deal of money had been spent in developing an Avatar with Jake’s brother’s DNA. Since Jake would match the DNA then the company could recoup their monies, get some more Unobtanium, and progress with the acquisition of money. It appears that Jake was exceedingly lucky and was in the right place at the right time for a variety of wonderful experiences.

One of the things of life is how in various life events, and certainly in Bible stories, truth is stranger than fiction. It is amazing how many things are determined by what appears to be chance events. People like the concept of “luck”(random chance) as the deciding factor. But in the Bible luck does not have a role at all. In the Bible all events are accomplished by hard work, and the guiding hand of God. The prophet Daniel gives us some insight into this concept in Daniel 2:19-22:

“Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are His: and He changeth the ties and the seasons: He removeth kings, and setteth up kings: He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: He revealeth the deep and secret things: He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him.”

In Daniel 2 a Babylonian king has a dream and he can not remember what it was. The king recognizes that it is a very important dream so he commands his counselors to tell him what the dream was. The wise men protest because they know that they can not find out this information. The king eventually gives a death decree for all of the wise men in the kingdom. Daniel, one of the wise men hears of this decree and asks the king for a night’s time and he will tell him the dream. The king halts the death decree to see if Daniel can get the job done. Daniel recognizes that he can not solve the question for he knows that he does not know the answer. Daniel appeals to God for the answer because Daniel believed that God did know the answer and could give it and would give the answer to him. Daniel was rewarded for his faith and God gave Daniel the answers he was looking for, for God knows all things.

God claims to be the Alpha – the starting of all things, and the Omega – the ending of all things. God further claims the following:

“Remember the former things of old: for I am God and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure…” Isaiah 46:9-10

This claim no one else on this planet can make. Only God knows all of the future and He knows all of the past. He can give us answers to all our questions and be absolutely correct. God has the ability to see all of time in a glance and to have made plans for every decision we can make.

So in God’s foreknowledge God placed Daniel in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar, one of the richest and wisest kings in history. Yet Nebuchadnezzar might have died long before his time if God, and Daniel, did not watch over him. God knew what would happen to Nebuchadnezzar and had a detailed plan of how He would handle this situation with Nebuchadnezzar and the wise men. God used it to accomplish a great victory for His names sake and for the protection of the people of Israel.

Going back to Jake. Many people wonder if their lives are just random circumstances or if there is a design and purpose to their lives. Life indicates that events are by random circumstance, or luck. The Bible states that God has a plan and that He is monitoring the plan so that it comes out the way it needs to come to be a blessing on the person and on those people who love him/her.

Jake Sulley seemed to have been extremely lucky. Avatar, the movie, seems to approve of the luck concept. But we are seeking to understand how the Bible sees these things. If Jake Sulley were real we could say that in the foreknowledge of God Jake Sulley was sent to the right place in the universe to accomplish his character change and his ability to be healed both physically and spiritually. Jake eventually comes to the place that he is willing to relinquish his spot on earth to take his spot on Pandora and he thought it was a most worthwhile ex-change.

Each of us, who come into contact with Avatar, and similar movies and concepts, must decide for ourselves like Jake did for himself. Avatar has stirred up all kinds of thoughts and feelings about spiritual issues. We can either treat them as casual events or we can treat them as serious gifts from God. God wants to give us all of the gifts that He has planned for this time through out all history. God wants to do for us what was done for Jake Sulley. In the providence of God He has brought us to the time to confront this concepts and to begin to participate in the things of God – preferably to day.

May God help us to recognize our need and to ask Him to come into our hearts the plan of how to take advantage of His providential movings. Praise His Holy Name.

Avatar and the Tall Na'vi

2010-02-19T00:08:00.001-08:00

In the movie Avatar the Na’vi, the indigenous extraterrestrial humanoids are big. The Na’vi are about ten feet tall and in perfect symmetry for their size. They are strong physically and very much in tune with the planet in which they live. The movie conveys the idea that the Na’vi have a primitive culture in the sense of no interstellar travel, no equipment, etc. However, the Na’vi seem to be totally content with their lifestyle and have no desire to be different than what they are.

In contrast the movie has a couple of scenes where the Na’vi and the humans are near enough together to compare and contrast the size differential, and human look very small and puny compared to a ten foot tall athletic humanoid. The human leader of security also conveys that along with their height the Na’vi are very difficult to kill.

Many viewers of the movie seem to wish that they to could be ten foot tall. The interesting part of this story is that it appears that in the beginning, in the Bible’s Eden, that mankind was created to be somewhere about twelve to sixteen feet tall. I would like to share with you some of the Biblical evidence for this idea and then would like to give you a little snapshot from the writings of Ellen White, the one whom the Seventh-Day Adventist Church believes is a prophetess.

In the beginning when Jesus finished creating he claimed that His work was very good. Genesis 1:31. As I have mentioned before it was God’s plan for no killing to be in all of His holy mountain but everything was to be in harmony with each other and death was not a factor of the original creation. Isaiah 11:1-9. This is repeated and God states that in the new heaven and earth again this concept of no death would be present. Isaiah 65:17-25. It was God’s plan to have a happy and healthy nature and that the food granted to the world would be sufficient to maintain all of God’s creatures, including man, without endangering any plants, animals, or people.

Mankind was to have access to the Tree of Life and as long as they ate of this tree they would never die. In the same garden was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and Jesus has proclaimed that if they ate of that fruit they would eventually die. As we all know Adam and Eve broke the law of God, ate of the Tree of Knowledge, and started the death process by exclusion from the Tree of Life. Adam lived to be 930 years of age. This is almost 14 times longer than what we live. So it would appear that in the beginning God created man with the ability to live 14 times longer than what we can live now. In the writings of Ellen White the Seventh Day Adventist prophetess she claims that Adam had 20 times the vitality than what we have today.

“God endowed man with so great vital force that he has withstood the accumulation of disease brought upon the race in consequence of perverted habits, and has continued for six thousand years. This fact of itself is enough to evidence to us the strength and electrical energy that God gave to man at his creation. It took more than two thousand years of crime and indulgence of base passions to bring bodily disease upon the race to any great extent. If Adam, at his creation, had not been endowed with twenty times as much vital force as men now have, the race, with their present habits of living in violation of natural law, would have become extinct. At the time of Christ's first advent the race had degenerated so rapidly that an accumulation of disease pressed upon that generation, bringing in a tide of woe and a weight of misery inexpressible.

The wretched condition of the world at the present time has been presented before me. Since Adam's fall the race has been degenerating. Some of the reasons for the present deplorable condition of men and women, formed in the image of God, were shown me. And a sense of how much must be done to arrest, even in a degree, the physical, mental, and moral decay, caused my heart to be sick and faint. God did not create the race in its present feeble condition. This state of things is not the work of Providence, but the work of man; it has been brought about by wrong habits and abuses, by violating the laws that God has made to govern man's existence. Through the temptation to indulge appetite, Adam and Eve first fell from their high, holy, and happy estate. And it is through the same temptation that the race has become enfeebled. They have permitted appetite and passion to take the throne, and to bring into subjection reason and intellect.” Volume 3 of the Testimonies to the Church pages 138-139
http://egwdatabase.whiteestate.org/nxt/gateway.dll?f=templates$fn=default.htm$vid=default

So mankind had twenty times the vitality of men today and lived until they were 900+ years old. So the next question is whether mankind had size to match the vitality of human beings before the flood? We have two examples of size in the Bible. We have Goliath, and his brothers, which were around 9 feet tall. I Samuel 17:4 states that Goliath was about six cubits and a span. A cubit was about 18 inches long. So six times 18 inches = 108 inches and divided by 12 = 9 feet.

In Numbers 13:26-33 we find the story of the Children of Israel sending 12 spies into Canaan to assess it for conquest. The spies return and tell of the sons of Anak who were giants. The Israelites felt that they were like grasshoppers compared to these giants. In Deuteronomy 3:1-11 we have the example of Og of Bashan the king, who also happened to be one of the giants of the land of Canaan. Og of Bashan was last king of the giants and his bed was 9 cubits long and 4 cubits wide. That would make Og about 13 feet tall.

The interesting thing about Og of Bashan is that he lived almost three thousand years after sin was introduced to the world. He also lived about 1000 years after the flood and the deterioration of mans lifespan from the introduction of eating flesh as described in Genesis 11. Before the flood, and before flesh consumption occurred on a regular basis, mankind lived on average 900+ years. After 10 generations after the flood, mankind was down to 120 years and soon after that 70 years was the average age of man when they died. So if the Israelites were the norm, and Og the unusual would that indicate that there had been a shift in size as well as vitality, and perhaps intelligence as well.

Going back to the writings of Ellen White, we find that in her book Patriarchs and Prophets page 45 we have the following statement:
“Man was to bear God's image, both in outward resemblance and in character. Christ alone is "the express image" (Hebrews 1:3) of the Father; but man was formed in the likeness of God. His nature was in harmony with the will of God. His mind was capable of comprehending divine things. His affections were pure; his appetites and passions were under the control of reason. He was holy and happy in bearing the image of God and in perfect obedience to His will.

As man came forth from the hand of his Creator, he was of lofty stature and perfect symmetry. His countenance bore the ruddy tint of health and glowed with the light of life and joy. Adam's height was much greater than that of men who now inhabit the earth. Eve was somewhat less in stature; yet her form was noble, and full of beauty. The sinless pair wore no artificial garments; they were clothed with a covering of light and glory, such as the angel’s wear. So long as they lived in obedience to God, this robe of light continued to enshroud them.”
http://egwdatabase.whiteestate.org/nxt/gateway.dll?f=templates$fn=default.htm$vid=default

It is my personal fantasy perspective that Adam was about 16 feet tall and had an IQ of about 2000 and thus had intellectual qualities like total recall. I also believe that Adam and Eve could communicate with the animals and plants that God had made. Thus they were not intimidated by the size of dinosaurs for Adam to dinosaurs would be like humans today to horses and cows. I believe that with the introduction of sin, and the number of curses upon the land, and especially that of the flood, that mankind grew smaller as a result of the impact of sin on the genotype.

One final thought on the size issue. God has promised to restore all things to the state of Eden before the fall for God will make a new heavens and a new earth. Isaiah 65:17. I believe that in this new heaven and new earth, God will also restore the original height for mankind. This is mentioned in Malachi 4:2 where we will grow up as calves in a stall. God remembers how He had made mankind and how He had made earth. He will restore us to a size greater that that of the Na’vi. God will bring us back to the true Eden in all facets and forms. That which we have longed for in the movie of Avatar, God promises to give us in the real time issues of life. Our job is to trust God and cooperate with Him.

Avatar and the Spirit of Prophecy

2010-02-18T23:02:00.000-08:00

In the movie Avatar the Spirit of Prophecy is first manifested when a seed from the Tree of Souls settles on the arrow of Neytiri as she is preparing to shoot Jake Sulley. Later she is prepared to leave him to his own ways and the seeds of the Tree of Souls settle en mass on Jake Sulley communicating to Neytiri that Eywa, the Goddess of Pandora, has some business to conduct with Jake. Neytiri decides that she needs more guidance and decides that she needs to take Jake to her mother - Mo’at, the spiritual guide for the Na’vi tribe -the Omaticaya. Mo’at functions as the interpreter between the Na’vi and Eywa and functions also as a prophet – the mouthpiece for Eywa to the Na’vi.

The role of Mo’at is in many ways similar to that of a prophet of God in the Bible. A prophet, or a prophetess – a female prophet – is to speak to the people the messages that God has chosen to pass on. In fact the Bible says that God would do nothing except that He revealed His secret plans through the prophets. Amos 3:7. God was not trying to take His people by surprise. He knew their limitations and He knew, and accepted, their need for guidance. So God sent prophets to express His will to the people, and to use the prophets to guide and keep and instruct His people through the many trials that they had to experience in their relationship with Him.

The role of prophet was also expressed by the term “seer” and was the term used before that of prophet. I Samuel 9:9 This term is used primarily by the Roman Catholic Church to communicate the role of the Pope. He is referred to by the term “the Holy See”. Interestingly enough the place where the Pope “sees” is the Vatican. To Vaticinate is to prophesy. So the “see” or to communicate the counsel of God is an important part to the churches that claim to be Christian.

The spiritual gift of a prophet is important in the New Testament writings and expounded upon in I Corinthians 12-14. The gift of prophecy was to be a central testimony for the edification of the church, just as it had been in the Old Testament community of believers. God even went so far as to identify the Spirit of Prophecy as an identifying feature of the final church of God. This is stated in Revelation 12:17 and 19:10. The gifts of prophecy, along with the keeping of the entire Ten Commandments were two of the identifying signs of the Remnant church.

It is interesting that God gives us many signs by which to test anyone claiming to be a prophet so that we can determine the difference between a true and false prophet. Several of these signs will be listed here. They are:
1. Any prophet, or writings of a prophet, will be in harmony with the law and the testimony – the Scriptures. Isaiah 8:20
2. The prophet will proclaim that Jesus came in the flesh of Abraham and David. I John 4:1-3; Romans 1:3; Hebrews 2:14-18
3. The prophet will proclaim that Jesus is the Christ. I John 2:22
4. The prophet will manifest the fruit of a Christian lifestyle. Matthew 7:15-20
5. The prophecies of a prophet must come true, unless altered by repentance and change. Deuteronomy 18:18-22
A true prophet will meet the criteria above and if not God’s people must turn away from the prophet and look to God for continued guidance.

In the world today there are not that many churches claiming the gift of prophecy. There are a few contenders for the gift of prophecy under the heading that the church that has the true gift of prophecy can proclaim that they are the ones in harmony with the True God and they should be listened to. The Roman Catholic Church claims that the Pope is the true and accurate, and living prophet of God. The Mormon Church also claims the living, active prophetic ministry of it’s current leader. The Mormon prophet is always the leader of the church. Islam claims that Muhammad was the prophet that started the Islamic movement and that his ministry and his writings are the standard for all religious activities today. The only other major church claiming the prophetic ministry of a prophet is that of the Seventh-Day Adventist church who claims that God sent a prophetess – Ellen White, who wrote prolifically about spiritual matters. Each group claims that their prophet/prophetess was/is the true communication link for God the people of today. Each person has to test these claims by at least the five tests given above. As a Seventh-Day Adventist myself I will take the liberty of sharing some occasional comments by Ellen White on some of the issues of this Avatar blog and give each of you the opportunity of deciding for yourselves whether she is or she is not a prophet of God.

In the movie Avatar Mo’at is the prophet and she guides the developmental opportunities for Jake Sulley. Mo’at turns the training of Jake Sulley over to her daughter Neytiri, very similar to Nephertiri, and in the end the prophecy of the Tree of Souls is born out that Jake becomes the Messiah and Saviour of the Na’vi.

This is also the role of the prophet in Christianity, to proclaim the future, to give instruction in righteousness to help the people hear, know, and obey the words and commandments of God. James Cameron did a very nice job of presenting the prophetic gift in Avatar, and the true God of heaven did a very nice job of presenting the gift of prophecy in the Bible. Each of us must make a decision as well, as to whether we will choose to listen to this gift and obey it.

Avatar and the Blue Na'vi

2010-02-18T22:07:00.000-08:00

We will continue our processing of the movie Avatar in the light of Christian symbolism and today we will study out the issue of why blue people? In the movie the Na’vi men are about ten feet tall. This would be very tall to humanoids on earth for we average between six feet and seven feet tall. In addition the Na’vi were slender and perfectly proportioned. Apparently, according to the movie, the Na’vi had carbon reinforced bone structure, and they were fast strong, and apparently very intelligent. The Na’vi also had cat like eyes, a tail, and had bioluminescent qualities. They also had a Queue, like a ponytail, through which they could bond and communicate with the various animals that the Na’vi used in order to function on the planet Pandora. All of these things are worthy of discussion but in this presentation we are going to stay focused on the issue of Blue.

Now obviously James Cameron could have selected any color from ruddy pink, to black, to white, to various shades of color as in humanity. Yet Mr. Cameron chose to use the color blue and interestingly enough the Bible speaks quite eloquently, and quite simply, to the issue of Blue. In Exodus 24:10 and Ezekiel 1:26 the throne of God appeared to be like a Sapphire and under God’s feet was the appearance of Sapphire. And of course Sapphire is a blue stone. So the foundational color for God’s throne is blue.

In Numbers 15:37-40 we have the following testimony:
“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the border of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue: and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after our own heart and our own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring: that ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God.”

This text clearly states that in order to help Israel to remember to keep all of God’s commandments that they are to put a ribbon of blue on the hem of all their garments. So when someone looked at an Israelite they would notice the blue on the fringe of their garments and then hopefully ask them about the blue ribbon. And if anyone asked an Israelite about the blue ribbon then they would have an opportunity to tell of how Jesus was so kind to them and how that He had these wonderful commandments to share with humanity, via the Israelites. It also indicates that anything to do with the law of God was connected to Israel through His commandments the connection in blue.

A third major blue connection is that that Ark of the Covenant, containing the Law of God, was to be covered in blue. Any of the articles of furniture that were within the Holy Place – seven branched candlestick, the tables of shewbread, the altar of incense would need a covering of blue when the tabernacle was to be moved. The Ark of the Covenant was to be covered as well with a covering of blue. This is discussed in detail in Numbers 4:1-15

The fourth issue with blue was that of the High Priest’s garments. The High Priest was to wear a garment called an Ephod. This garment was to be made totally of blue and was to cover the undergarments of white. Then there were various other things like the Breastplate with the 12 precious stones symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel was to be made of a background of blue. The Miter of linen was to have a plate of gold attached to the front of it with a lace of blue to show the law of God written in the forehead saying “Holiness to the Lord”. In addition the pomegranates at the bottom of the Ephod were to be made of gold, scarlet, and blue. All of these articles of clothing were to be attached to the Ephod by ribbons of blue. All of these things are described in Exodus 28.

The final blue connection is that the entrance way into the Tabernacle of the Congregation, and the doorway into the Holy Place and the curtain into the Most Holy Place were made of white linen, red, and purple and blue. This indicates that blue was always attached to the law and any thing connecting us to the law was to be symbolized by the color blue.

With the above in mind, it would appear that James Cameron took the symbolism very seriously and made the Na’vi literally blue. This would convey that they were a law-abiding people in a serious relationship with their God Eywa – an alteration of the Hebrew name Yhwh – or Yahweh. The Hebrew God Yahweh was a God that had a deep appreciation of the need for His law. This same God Yahweh was claimed by Jesus to be Himself. He claimed to be the I Am of Exodus 3:1-14 by using the name “I Am” in John 8:58. So as the Israelites would have been the people of the I Am, or the Blue People – the people of the law of God, so the Na’vi were the people of Eywa – the people of the law of God.

Avatar and Eywa

2010-02-12T10:33:00.001-08:00

In the movie Avatar James Cameron presents an extensive spiritual community in the Na’vi. The Na’vi worship the goddess Eywa. Eywa is in many ways similar to the worship of Gaia on earth. Eywa promotes ecological balance and initiates many protective measures to keep the planet in a balanced state. The Na’vi worship Eywa and communicate with her through the tree of souls and the tree of voices. These two trees provide a neural link with the planet Pandora, the dwelling place of Eywa.

In the movie Jake Sulley, in his Avatar state, is located and saved by Neytiri. When she is trying to decide whether to leave him in the forest Eywa speaks to her through the seeds of the Tree of Souls settling upon Jake, testifying that Eywa has special plans for Jake. Neytiri takes Jake to the Hometree where she is examined by the priestess and Jake is allowed to stay and learn the ways of the Na’vi.

Jake is taken through an intensive learning experience and is introduced to the spiritual world of the Na’vi. Jake is happy to learn these things as a way of getting his legs back in his human currently crippled body. Jake is touched by the respect for life, the humility required in the taking of an animal’s life to support the people. His heart is moved as he recognizes the positive qualities of the daily life of the Na’vi and he begins to wish he could be a part of this people.

As Jake continues to develop in his understanding of the Na’vi culture, including their devotion to Eywa, he draws closer to Neytiri and his heart starts to bond with the people. As he begins to understand what the corporation intends to do, at all costs, he casts his lot with the Na’vi and seeks to deliver them from the plans of the earthlings. After leading the Na’vi to victory he is granted the gift of his consciousness, his soul, being transferred fully into his Avatar body and physically and spiritually joins the people, as Savior, husband, and leader of the people, through the gift of grace from Ewya.

One of the interesting events that have come from watching the movie Avatar, is the desire to be a part of a spiritual experience like Jake had on Pandora. People are looking for a way to have this experience in real time. Since it is clear that there is not a literal place like Pandora is there a way to literally have a spiritual experience like that of Jake? The answer is that the true spiritual experience, symbolized by the fictional experience of Jake Sulley, is literally available to each and every person on Earth, and more. All of the symbols used in the movie Avatar, are symbols of the real. Ewya is a fictional Goddess, but there is a real God, who made a real Garden of Eden, and who wants us to return to Him so that He can return us to that real Garden of Eden.

Eywa, is similar to the name Yahweh, one of the names of the God of the Bible. Yahweh was the Creator of all life on earth, and in Colossians 3:13-18, is the Creator of the entire universe, and put everything into the universe. This Creator is also identified as Jesus Christ in His New Testament name. Jesus Himself claims the title of the “I Am” in John 8:58 to be the same God as Yahweh/Jehovah.

In the beginning of Earth God had designed the Earth to function as a totally safe environment for Mankind. He wanted nature to be able to communicate with and be subordinate to Man. God’s original intent was for Man to live forever by being able to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life. Nothing was to hurt one another and the very animals, including Lions, and beasts of prey, were to eat straw like the bullock. Isaiah 65:17-25. God did not want death of any kind to be present on the earth.

It was through sin that death came to Earth, not through the plans of God. Once sin entered into Earth, it has been God’s plan to return each and every person to the position where they could return to the Garden of Eden and be satisfied with God’s plans. He does not want to recreate Eden and populate it with people who want to harm and kill God’s people or God’s animals. All of the original promises to Man God wants to fulfill for His people. In order for this to happen Man must be changed to meet God’s promises. This plan is called the gospel – or the good news.

The gospel was originally initiated with Adam and Eve in the exchange of garments. This symbolism – garment exchange/life change – runs all through the Bible. All of the Bible stories retell this gospel story in enough ways that any person, in any culture, in any time, would be able to see and understand what God wants to do for us and in us. Every person has this faith built into him or her, it is our form of instinct. We all hear the call to come back home to Eden and God will use any form of communication available to complete this call. Avatar was done in the spirit of commercialism, but God has used it to call His children. For those who go to movies Avatar has had a profound effect on them. They have heard the call, and many want to go to Pandora, or some facsimile of it. Many want to go literally to Pandora, many want to have an experience with God like Jake’s. God will make this experience available to anyone because that is what God is like. What Eywa was to Pandora God is to the universe, including Earth. God has promised to return all that want to go to the Eden state. To get there one will have to have an experience with God that is symbolized by the experiences of Jake. Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus is more merciful, more powerful, and more creative than Eywa. But only a faith experience with Him will bring that experience to pass.

The story of redemption, the ability and desire of God to return His people to His original plan, is the focus of this blog site. God is calling all to come back to Him. He has used the movie Avatar to stir up the old memories. He wants us to think of Him and to return to Him. Respond to the call while it is fresh in your minds. Ask Him today to start the process of bringing you back to Him, and then ask Him to finish this call as well. Thank you God for your great and tender mercies.

“Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6

“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:13

“Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith…” Hebrews 12:2

Avatar and the Sabbath

2010-02-10T23:30:00.001-08:00

In the movie “Avatar” there is no particular mention of the Ten Commandments. It is clear that the Na’vi respect certain of the commandments. They certainly honored their parents and maintained strong family bonds. They appear to bond for life and adultery is not an acceptable form of behavior. The Na’vi appeared to be honest and were not into telling lies or bearing false witness against anyone. There was not indication that the Na’vi stole from one another and did not kill frivolously but only in the context of the safety of the tribe. The Na’vi did not steal from one another and apparently did not covet one another’s possessions. So it would appear that they kept the last 6 commandments focused on family relationships.

Regarding the first four commandments it would appear that they knew only of the One God in their belief system, and they were faithful in worshipping Eywa. From the movie it did not look as though they practiced any kind of idolatry nor did they take the name of Eywa in vain. As for the fourth commandment it did not appear as though they had a Sabbath day or any specific time set aside or the worship of their God.

In the Judeo/Christian community the Sabbath day is an important time. God declared over and over again that the 7th day was a special set aside day to be used to focus on worshipping God. This day was to be honored as the memorial of the week that God took to create the world. Thus the Sabbath is a memorial of the Creator creating the Earth and all of the things that were placed therein. This time was to be used to turn away from the normal 6 days worth of activities focused on survival and on Sabbath was to be used for special communion with God or with one another.

In the Bible the Sabbath is unique as a timekeeper. All other sections of time are dependent on an astronomical event. The day is one rotation of the earth on it’s access. A month is dictated by the rotation of the moon around the earth and, the year is dictated by the rotation of the Earth one time around the sun. But the Sabbath was entirely dictated by the Creator. He set aside the day, sanctified it, set aside for religious purposes, and blessed and hallowed it.

God commanded that we keep the Sabbath because it would help us to stay focused upon spiritual issues. We are to keep from doing our daily work activities on the Sabbath day and keep the focus on God and His relationship with us. In addition the Sabbath was to be a blessing and not a curse upon man. We are to follow the example of Jesus and look for ways to bring the healing message to people on the Sabbath. We are to teach people about Jesus on the Sabbath and be genuinely interested in their spiritual life and well being.

Whenever Israel turned away from the Sabbath their awareness of God began to deteriorate and their focus on each other began to dissipate. They eventually got to the point that healing on the Sabbath day was against the Pharisee’s human laws and they went so far as to criticize Jesus for His desire to heal and to teach people about God and His Creative powers. As they continued in rebellion they began to pick up thoughts and behaviors that were like the heathen tribes around them that did not profess the worship of the Creator God. Eventually, Israel began to practice sun worship with their neighbors and to turn away from all that was of God. See Ezekiel chapter 8.

Whenever Israel turned away from the Sabbath God sent His prophets to instruct them to come back to a relationship of faith with God and to re-establish the law of God as the sign of their surrender to Him as their God. See Jeremiah 17, Nehemiah 13, Exodus 5:5 and Exodus 16. When Israel rebelled against God’s prophets He allowed Israel to be taken into captivity and their city and temple were destroyed.

When the people suffered sufficiently that they were ready to listen to God again He would send a deliverer to restore them to the old ways of truth. God sent Moses, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Nehemiah, Ezra, Jesus and Paul to help turn back to God and get these things straightened out. Jesus has many conflicts with the Pharisees and Sadducees over the Sabbath. Jesus made it a significant part of His ministry to connect worship to God, healing of the people, and overcoming sin as essential components of the true gospel of God. John 5, 9, Matthew 12. Paul came along and assisted with these activities as well. Acts 13

In the end it appears that the worship of God will be the final test. When God’s people are surrendered to Him they will worship Him on the Sabbath in compliance to the commandments of God. See Revelation 14:6-12. In Revelation 13 God says that the image to the beast will pass a law that unless one worships the beast, God’s enemy, they will be killed. This will create a final test environment as to whether we will worship God in His way, or whether we will worship God’s enemy. Faith and obedience will dictate how we resolve this.

On Pandora the Na’vi did not appear to have the Sabbath, and apparently Eywa did not have this requirement for the people. On Earth Yahweh require Sabbath of Israel. Jesus, who was the Yahweh of the Old Testament, see Exodus 3:1-14 and John 8:58, requires us to worship Him who created the heavens and the earth, and any real time Pandoras that are our their in the universe. Let us ponder these issues and surrender to His will.

Avatar's Pandoran Prophecy

2010-02-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

By definition a prophecy is a statement by someone who predicts the future. When this prediction comes to pass then faith in the predictor, or prophet, is established. Then the next question would be where did the prediction come from since most people do not know the future on their own. In the Bible the only One who knows the future is God, for He claims to know the end from the beginning and that there is no one else who knows. Isaiah 46:9-10

In the movie Avatar, there is no specific prophecy mentioned but since James Cameron appears to be using a Judeo/Christian system of symbols we can draw some interesting insights from the materials that were presented. We know that the people from Earth had found large deposits of Unobtanium on Pandora. We know that this mineral is selling for 20+ Million dollars a kilo. We know that the Na’vi were able to drive off the corporate miners for a period of time. We also know that the needs of Earth have not changed and we know that the mind set of the people who need Unobtanium have not changed so we should be able to predict that the people from Earth will come back for another try at getting their “drug” of choice.

We can also predict certain behaviors off their behaviors in the past, for Ecclesiastes 1:9 says that “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” In an old movie by Robert Deniro called “The Mission” there is a message sent to the Roman Catholic Church about certain events in the new world of South America. After pondering the ramifications of all involved the decision is made that the people involved in the international event in South America should be killed so that political issues in Europe would not blow out of proportion. This concept is repeated in John 11:47-53. In this story Caiaphas the leader of the Jewish religious counsel called the Sanhedrin, prophesied that Jesus needed to die – one mans death for the sake of the nation – was approved of by God. So the prophecy was fulfilled, Jesus did die for the nation. So we should predict that Earth will try again to get the mineral of their desire and the sacrifice of a small set of tribes, that no one is sympathetic to on Earth is a small price to pay for the safety and functionality of Earth.

In the Pandoran prophecy Jake Sulley died for the nation of the Na’vi was resurrected and went on to lead the people to victory over the invaders. In order to do that he had to bond with the Great Leonopteryx and by this bonding he reveals to the Na’vi that he is in harmony with Ewya and is approved to lead them into battle. Thus he becomes the 6th Toruk Makto. Since we are using Judeo/Christian symbolism this would indicate that a 7th and final Toruk Makto will come. The number 7 is a major symbol in the Bible and 6 is an unfulfilled symbol – a symbol for fallen mankind.

With these thoughts in mind let us prophesy about the coming events for Pandora. James Cameron has indicated that Avatar will be a 2-3 film series. In at least one of the coming movies should be another attempt by Earth to overthrow the Na’vi to get to the Unobtanium. By this time we should have a son of Jake Sulley and Neytiri that should be coming of age by that time. He will undoubtedly have heard of his father’s and mother’s exploits and he will have to decide if he will follow in their footsteps to deliver the people. This will create the setting for the developmental struggles on both sides to enhance the next movie(s). For this to become complete, within the settings of the spiritual symbolism, Jake’s son will have to decide to be the 7th Toruk Makto – the final Deliverer. This of course will require and Armageddon (Revelation 16) to match the symbolism.

This same issue will also have to be addressed in real life as well. In the Bible Jesus is the Real Deliverer. He has come to earth and He will come again to deliver His people in the “time of the end”. One of the names given to Jesus is that He was the Creator God of the Eden story (Colossians 1:12-18). The sign, or symbol, of His Creatorship is that of the 7th day. He came to earth to die for man, He was resurrected, and He will return to rescue the people from the forces of the greedy, sinful people of the earth. He will come riding on a symbolic beast (Revelation 19), He will be recognized by the true people and He will have victory in the battle of Armageddon. He will make all things right, He will pass judgment on the evil, destroy them once and for all, and will create a peaceful Eden once more on Earth. His people will have peace everlasting and they will participate in all of the wonderful things God has planned for His people to keep them ever growing, developing, and to be of service.

I hope that all will learn the truth from the Pandoran prophecy and find the True Deliverer – Jesus Christ.

Avatar's God-Man

2010-02-09T23:08:00.001-08:00

In the movie Avatar one of the central themes is that of the Avatar. An Avatar is the following by definition in the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary:
Main Entry: av·a·tar
Pronunciation: \ˈa-və-ˌtär\
Function: noun
Etymology: Sanskrit avatāraḥ descent, from avatarati he descends, from ava- away + tarati he crosses over — more at ukase, through
Date: 1784
1 : the incarnation of a Hindu deity (as Vishnu)
2 a : an incarnation in human form b : an embodiment (as of a concept or philosophy) often in a person
3 : a variant phase or version of a continuing basic entity
4 : an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a user (as in a computer game)

For the movie the hero – Jake Sulley – a former marine with two damaged legs, is given the opportunity to go to the Planet Pandora and take over the task of “driving” his twin brothers Avatar – a body combining the DNA of a Na’vi and a human, in this case Jake’s dead brother. Since the DNA is the same, identical twins share identical DNA, then the corporation who spent the money creating the Avatar could still use it if Jake would be willing to come to Pandora and utilize the body for the corporation and the mining on the planet Pandora.

The problem that the Avatar was to solve was that the atmosphere of Pandora was toxic to human beings. However, a program had been established whereby a the body created in a vat could be psionically driven by the person from whom the DNA had been taken and could place their mind and personality into the blank Avatar and “drive” it. This would allow the Avatar to function on the planet as though the body and the mind of the DNA provider were one and he same. The body could function in the poisonous atmosphere and to utilize all the powers and skills of the ten foot tall body. The Avatar would also allow who ever was driving the body to communicate with all beings around it including using the Queue. A secondary function of Jake’s Avatar would be to allow him to communicate with the Na’vi with the goal of encouraging the Na’vi the allow the corporation to mine Unobtanium without any bloodshed.

When Jake enters the Avatar’s body he is thrilled for he can walk on his own again. He is able to run, leap, experience movement, and all the wonders of his new body. After he stabilizes a bit then he goes out into the woods to explore. Through contact with the Thanator, a large and deadly carnivore, he gets separated from the rest of the people and he gets exposed to the Na’vi personally, especially through the princess Neytiri. He is going toward the Na’vi hometree when he is blessed/anointed by the Tree of Souls. Neytiri recognizes the anointing and that Eywa has chosen Jake. Neytiri brings Jake to her clan and after being assessed by the spiritual leaders Jake is accepted as a candidate for clan membership.

Moat, the matriarch of the clan assigns Neytiri to train Jake to be able to pass the various rites of passage into clan membership. After acceptance into the tribe Jake is accused by the Earth group of abandoning them to join the Na’vi. During an intercession with the clan leadership, Jake’s’ psionic connection is broken and Jake appears to have fallen dead in front of the people. After reconnection Jake is “resurrected” and seeks to reestablish his connection to the Na’vi. So Jake is fulfilling all of the rudimentary principles of the Messiah to the Na’vi. Jake eventually leads clan people to victory over the perceived forces of evil. The final issue is that Jake, with the help of Eywa, is able to leaves his human body and join the Princess as a Na’vi forever.

All of these factors lead us to the conclusion that Jake is a Messianic character. Jake participates in the Avatar program and is technically an Avatar. When He joins the Na’vi he is moving in the direction of fully spiritually joining the people. Through a variety of experiences He joins the people by defending them and understanding their ways. Then Jake does a variety of heroic deeds testifying that he will join the Na’vi officially and Eywa helps Jake leave his earthly body and forever join his Avatar body and to be literally joined to the Na’vi forever. He is the God man for Pandora.

All of the above is similar to what Jesus did for us. Jesus was God, and He took on himself a human form to get as close to His children, the human beings, as He possibly could, without harming them. Jesus was the Creator of the entire universe and yet He chose to become a human being in a human body. Jesus was the Real Avatar.

Jesus went through a growth process and learned the human experience first hand. Jesus was not like Jake in that He had no defects, diseases, nor physical or mental problems. Jesus was perfect body, form, mind, and spirit. The Bible says that Jesus was not unusually handsome, tall, or physically imposing. Isaiah 53:2. Jesus was not unusually physically attractive but he was healthy, spiritually awake, and spiritually aware. He learned the human experience and learned it through suffering. Hebrews 5:8-9 Jesus took the human experience to a level of love, and sacrifice, that no One could have done on their own.

After a life full of wonderful things Jesus recognized that He had come to the point that prophecy required that He die for mankind. Jesus took the entire history of mankind’s sins upon Him in Gethsemane. He chose to take all of these sins upon His pure and spotless character. He was then taken before the Jewish leadership and declared to be a sinner and must die. He was then taken before the Roman leadership and although Rome pronounced Him innocent of any wrong thing, yet Jesus was chosen to die to settle a political debt between Pilate and Israel. On the road to Calvary and on the cross itself Jesus suffered and bled and died to fulfill the substitutionary death for all of mankind. Then after 3 days in the tomb, Jesus was resurrected to return to heaven to continue to intercede for mankind. When all of the rest of the prophecies of God are fulfilled He will return to earth and resurrect all of his children who have believed on Him by faith. Then He will take them to heaven where they will dwell in special mansions for a thousand years. After that Millennium, He will return to earth again and this time to resurrect the wicked that they may stand before the judgment seat. After pronouncing the final verdict of death, all of the wicked will be burned up in the lake of fire. When the fire has finished consuming the wicked, and then the earth itself, Jesus will recreate the Earth as He had done in the beginning. Then He will give Earth to the redeemed and they will live in Eden restored, that which Pandora dimly portrays, and they will explore the universe in service to God forever.

Pandora, and Avatar have many of the symbols regarding the things of God. But the reality will be more glorious than anything James Cameron could symbolize. All of these wonderful things God holds out to us to entice us to choose His service and to receive the rewards of intimate fellowship with God, and man forever. The suffering of salvation by God has been completed. The door to God has been opened. Jake Sulley, in the fictional story of Avatar, took the step and joined Himself to Eywa and Eywa’s people, we now have that same opportunity to join ourselves to God. I for one will take the step and hope that you will also.

Avatar and Pandora's Box

2010-02-09T11:34:00.000-08:00

In the movie Avatar, Pandora is the name of the planet on which the main characters play out their drama. The choice of the name of Pandora is interesting because it’s Greek connections and the Greek connections to the Bible as well.

Wikipedia states the following brief summary of Pandora and the box which she opened.
“After Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create the first woman, Pandora, as part of the punishment of mankind. Pandora was given many seductive gifts from Aphrodite, Hermes, Hera, Charites, and Horae (according to Works and Days). For fear of additional reprisals, Prometheus warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus, but Epimetheus did not listen, and married Pandora. Pandora had been given a large jar and instruction by Zeus to keep it closed, but she had also been given the gift of curiosity, and ultimately opened it. When she did so, all of the evils, ills, diseases, and burdensome labor that mankind had not known previously, escaped from the jar, but it is said, that at the very bottom of her jar, there lay hope.”

This concept of the evils which a woman allowed to loose is one of the major stories in the Bible. God tells Adam and Eve that they have free access to all of the trees in the Garden, including the Tree of Life, but of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they are not allowed to eat of it lest it cause them to die. Genesis 2. In Genesis 3 we have the story of the temptation of Eve, the mother of us all. After she eats of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, at the enticement of a speaking flying serpent, she then in turn tempts Adam, the Father of us all, to eat of the fruit as well.

In the story in Genesis 3 Adam does not choose to speak to his Father – God – about this choice. He chooses to eat of the fruit out of love for Eve, rather than love for God. After eating of the fruit, the spiritual luminescence leaves Adam and Eve and they recognize that they are naked, a statement of loss of relationship with God and their loss of innocence. They also attempt to fashion clothes for themselves to cover their nakedness.

When God comes to speak with them that evening Adam and Eve choose to flee from Him and hide in the garden. When God asks them why they are hidden from Him and He asks them if they have “sinned” against Him. In stead of answering Him they choose to blame other things – Adam chooses to blame Eve, and Eve blames the serpent. God then tells them that as a result of their choices they have initiated a series of events that will cause them to die – as a result of no longer having access to the Tree of Life. In addition they will have to work for their daily bread, and they will have to struggle with life. God says that Eve, and her daughter’s, will experience pain in childbirth and will be abused by the men in their lives.

Then God tells them that there will be a great warfare between the descendents of the woman and the descendents of those who follow the teachings of the serpent. Then God informs Adam and Eve that He Himself will come to the world and be born of the woman – the Descendent of the church. He would be the Great Avatar – the God man, born of a virgin. As a result of His birth He would defend the church and eventually destroy the great serpent/dragon Satan.

After completing His presentation God offers to exchange clothing that He makes for the clothing that Adam and Eve had made. To get the skins for the clothing, Adam is required to offer an animal sacrifice to show that to deliver them a precious and innocent life must be sacrificed for them. Now Adam and Eve have the personal experience of bringing the first death to any animal on Earth. This death is a type, or symbol, of the death of Jesus when He would come to earth. From the skins of this sacrifice God creates clothing suitable for Adam and Eve and is again a symbol for the righteousness of Christ that God offers to sinful Adam and Eve to cover them and their sinful experience.

So Avatar, by bringing in the story of Pandora, reinforces the story of Divine intervention by connecting it to the real story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Each of us, as reminded by the symbols of Avatar, gets to choose again whether we will accept the righteousness of Christ or to offer Him our own wisdom and actions in place of His.

Avatar and Grace Augustine

2010-02-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

In the movie Avatar the head scientist/Xenobiologist is a doctor by the name of Grace Augustine. She has spearheaded the Avatar program and has her own Avatar through whom she has had contact with the Na’vi. She at first resists Jake Sully because of his lack of training but soon finds out that he is able to contact and interact with the Na’vi like no other of Grace’s staff. She begins to like Jake and extends “grace” to Jake and is willing to support, train, and eventually die for him and the Na’vi.

In our study of the symbolism used in the movie Avatar, it is ironic that the name for this lead scientist is Grace Augustine. The symbolic connection seems to be direct to the issue of Grace through the theologian Augustine. Grace is the concept that on our own we can not and will not choose to follow God. When Adam and Eve sinned against God their natures had become so deprived that without God’s help they would not even want to participate in the change process of life. In Genesis 3:15 God said that He would put enmity into the woman regarding sin and Satan. If He did not put this desire to turn away from the old ways we would be so stubborn we would not turn back to God even though dying from lack of His presence.

To further discuss the issue of grace it is interesting to note that grace is often interpreted to be unmerited favor – God granting special blessings to us who do not deserve to be saved. I believe that this interpretation is basically correct. An additional interpretation of grace is that grace can also grant us power to obey Him. II Corinthians 12:9; II Timothy 2:1; Romans 1:5 Thus when Grace Augustine helps the hero – Jake Sulley, she is indeed extending grace – unmerited favor, and unmerited power to accomplish the will of God.

Grace is an essential component in Christian theology. Before the fall Adam was naturally inclined to obey God’s thought and will. After his fall, Adam needed special help from God to obey. With out God’s help, or grace, mankind might want to do right but would be unable to do so. Grace, from God, is the power to do what the Spirit wants to do.

One final aspect of grace, in the movie the spirit of Eywa extends her hand to Jake and identifies him as a special person in the mind of Eywa, and in the end it is Eywa’s grace that helps the Na’vi to win the war and to change Jake into a real Na’vi. Jake could want and desire to change but on his own power he would not be able to accomplish this spiritual task. Grace makes the impossible happen. Grace is one of the essential issues of spiritual growth and change.

Thus grace is a component of the story of Avatar and it is certainly a massive truth in the Bible. Today we can have this grace from God by asking Him and believing that He has extended this component to us by faith.

Avatar and Xenobiology

2010-02-07T00:24:00.001-08:00

Xenobiology is the study of extraterrestrial life beyond earth. One of the central themes of the movie Avatar is that on the fictional planet of Pandora lives a race of extraterrestrials called the Na’vi. This race is humanoid, tall – about 10 feet tall, about 350 pounds, strong and equipped to communicate with the animal life and plant life of the planet through a communication link called a Queue. The atmosphere of the planet Pandora was harmful to humans but not to the Na’vi who functioned well in the atmosphere of the planet with no harmful side effects.

The Na’vi had it’s own language, a developed artistic system, and had weapons suitable for hunting the animal life that they interacted with. The Na’vi also had a developed animist religious system and believed in their goddess Ewya – who helped keep the Na’vi from over populating as well as the animal life. So the Na’vi culture was very into maintaining harmony with the ecology. The social life was very similar to that of Native American cultures or certain African cultures with an appearance similar to that of the Masai tribe.

In the movie a Xenobiologist – Grace Augustine – is appointed to study the Na’vi to learn how to get them to move off their traditional home so that the humans can strip mine that section of the planet and remove all of the Unobtanium from the planet. It is this cultural clash that provides the tension for the movie and allows everyone watching it to choose which side they would like to be on and the inevitable crisis that will result from the decisions made.

From the Christian perspective Xenobiology is an interesting issue. One of the central features of Christianity is the existence of, and participation with, Extraterrestrials called Angels. We are told in the Bible of their existence, and the fact that there was a war in heaven and that one third of all of the Angels were kicked out of heaven. Revelation 12:3-11. The leader of the rebellious contingency; of Angels was an Angel by the name of Lucifer (Morning Star, or Son of the Morning), who grew prideful of his beauty and decided to seek a higher position and to attempt to take control of the universe from God. Isaiah 14:12-17 and Ezekiel 28:11-19. After his rebellion Lucifer’s name was changed to Satan which means Adversary. Angels, both fallen and unfallen, are involved with human beings and all through the Bible are stories of the interaction of human beings with Angels, which result in bad results or good results. Angels can be helpful to people under the direction of God, or they can be very destructive – one angel recorded as killing 185,000 men in the Assyrian army in one night in defense of Israel. II Kings 19:35

In Ezekiel 1:4-14 and 10:1-22 we have a description of Angels indicating that Angels have 4 different faces, four wings. They have an ability to fly from place to place, and even to take people from one place to another. Matthew 4:4:1-11. Angels can minister to people, comfort, encourage, communicate, and instruct human beings. Angels do not mate nor are they given in marriage. Matthew 22:30 We are not informed of any ability of Angels to procreate and there appears to have been a set number of Angels.

The Bible gives a couple of hints that there are other beings in the universe in addition to God, the Angels, and mankind. In I Corinthians 4:9 we are told that the Apostles were concerned that they were being made a spectacle, or theatre, unto the world, to angels and to men. This phrase “to men” could be just another way of restating the world, or it could mean other planetary peoples. In Ephesians 3:9-10 “the principalities and powers in heavenly places”. The principalities and powers could be other groups of people that are on other worlds. Then we have situation in the book of Job 1:6-8; 2:1-3 where Satan is participating in a meeting of “the sons of God” where he claims to be a visitor from Earth. These Sons of God could be angels, as in Job 38:7 or it could be representatives from other plants.

There is one other piece of data and that is from the fact of God being a Creative God. The Bible states that before anything else was created, God was already there. He then decided to create angels, and thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. Colossians 1:13-17. We do know that God spoke the universe into existence. To limit His creative powers to simply that of creating heaven, angels, and earth, is display of restraint. On the other hand the potential of an unlimited creative God creating other beings on other planets is quite possible. When we get to heaven we will have the opportunity to explore more of the universe and see for ourselves what wonders God has placed in the universe for our understanding and blessing. For those who want to find out about these things, all we have to do is make it to heaven and we will see. But in order to get there we will have to discuss these details more thoroughly with God and inquire as to what needs to be done to us in order to explore the universe. We will have to decide whether we are willing to go through the process in order to have this opportunity. God is waiting to review this with you in detail.

Avatar and Unobtanium

2010-02-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

In the movie Avatar people were looking for resources in the universe for the earth had become depleted of all valuable resources. There had been a discovery of a mineral that had the property of superconductivity – it enhanced the movement of electrical impulse, as well as magnetism, through wires, computers, and other devices. So people were looking all over the universe to find this mineral. It was discovered that the planet Pandora had an abundance of this mineral, so much that whole mountains floated because of the presence of this mineral and the unique properties it held.

Now all of us know that no such mineral exists today, at least to our knowledge of chemicals and minerals, but the movie has to rest on some sort of logical premise to get people to respond in a manner that the mind can comprehend. Remember also that the purpose of my writings is to show that this movie is loaded with symbolism with the intent of moving an audience to go to a movie. It is my premise that these symbols are often borrowed from the Bible. The purposes of the Bible are significantly different from that of getting people to a movie. But the principles are able to move the mind and hearts of people, the direction of the movement is the significant point.

Back to our story line. With this mineral out there in the universe and it sells for many millions of dollars per kilo, then we have a motive for going to a dangerous place to make a fortune. This concept is what drove the gold rush in the Americas, and it is the principle from which many people indulge in illegal drug sales, because it is dangerous and because there is much money involved. Entrepreneurs, adventurers, criminals, and some industrious people are attracted to the danger, the potentiality, and the financial rewards of this kind of work. Whereever there is money, then all of the support systems tend to come with them providing a basis for the “community” of Hells Gate – the compound from which all of the activities of the mining industry of Pandora are conducted.
Thus we have the framework for the symbolism of all of the old movies – the Dodge City, the West, the purpose of going to America; the hope of all people to have a better life, the thrill of exploration, the willingness of mankind to brave danger for some kind of reward.

On the symbolic side the great issue is what does Unobtanium mean for the spiritual components of the movie. In the Bible the whole framework of humanity comes from the issue of Eden lost. God escorted Adam and Eve from the Garden because they had sinned against Him and as the result of sin God removed them so that they could not get to the Tree of Life and perpetuate their lives while in a sin state of being. God’s original intent was for mankind to live forever by being able to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life. When Adam and Eve chose to eat of the fruit of the opposing tree – the Tree of Knowledge of God and Evil, they incurred the penalty of death – as God had warned them of.

When God removed them from Eden He left the gate to the Garden open but watched over by angels. The open gate was the promise that there was a way back to Edenic purity and eternal life. But to get through that gate a change must be made and that change must be made in mankind. Thus the interactions around the issue of the gate – not Hell’s Gate, but the gate to the restoration of mankind to a right relationship with God was the promise that God left with us. In the hearts and minds of all people the desire to return home is constantly calling. It is this call that the movie Avatar taps into, and that God uses to continue the call to His people.

The problem area usually resides in the fact that in order to get through the gate man must consult with God. In the Bible the consultation with God forms a process of judgment. In Genesis 3 God discusses the fall, the judgment, and the presentation of the plan to ultimately return to Eden. But when God approached Adam, Adam fled because of the sin components in his heart. When God talked to Adam, Adam tried to blame Eve for his fall, and when Eve was confronted she blamed the serpent (the flying serpent/dragon) of that time.

After the confrontation God offered mankind the opportunity and the direction of what must be done to be restored to a right relationship with God and to have the opportunity of returning to Eden. This offer was presented in Genesis 3:15-21. To get there God Himself would have to die for each person and then each person would have to personally accept this offer in the depths of their soul. This exchange – very similar in principle and symbolism – to the psychic exchange in the Avatar machine – was symbolized by the exchange of garments. Adam, after he fell, recognized that he had lost something that helped him communicate with the world of Eden, and he had lost his ability to communicate with God. This again is very similar to the antennae of the Pandorans. Adam attempted to cover himself by making garments out of the best materials at hand – fig leaves. When God came to Adam, Adam still felt naked and spiritually bare. God offered to give him an alternative if he would but take it. This offer extends to us today. We can accept God’s way or we can try to obtain that which we can not do on our own. This process of gaining salvation in our own ways is what the “Unobtanium” of the movie Avatar symbolizes. We will discuss this in much more detail in further posts.

Avatar and Depression and Suicidal Thoughts

2010-02-05T00:17:00.000-08:00

As Avatar has been playing in the theatres there have been some reports of people feeling depressed and experiencing suicidal thoughts as a result of watching this movie.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/Avatar-driving-us-to-suicide-say-fans/articleshow/5436823.cms
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/Avatar-driving-us-to-suicide-say-fans/articleshow/5436823.cms

Apparently this feeling of depression, and of suicidal thoughts, is brought about because people can not get to Pandora. The mere fact that Pandora is fictional does not seem to impact these people and their thoughts. The reason for this is that there appears to be archetypal thought of wanting to return to the Garden of Eden from which mankind was cast out in Genesis 3:22-24. To see some aspects of the Garden of Eden, in the movies, appears to elicit these longings that only God can solve.

In the Bible God declares that:

Isaiah 65:17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
18 But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.
24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpents meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.

The Tree of Life, which had been in the center of the Garden of Eden, will one day be accessible to God’s people again. The hope for Christians is that by walking with Jesus one day we will be able to return to this wonderful place and pick up where Adam and Eve left off.

God has promised to grant to us special blessings in our fellowship with Him. In I Corinthians 2:9 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of men, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” This assurance is available for people who want what the Garden of Pandora has offered. God wants us to long after that beautiful place that was the perfection of all, which God created in the beginning. That place where sin drove us out of is waiting for us to return. In order to get there we will have to study the things of God and accept His gift of returning to Eden, by faith. That which fantasy movies speaks to can happen in the reality of life. This is God’ promise, that Avatar only suggests. God’s reality is better than Avatar’s suggests.

So to those who feel frustrated, depressed, or suicidal, don’t get stuck in the mud of old thinking. If you really want to go to someplace like Pandora, or better, then the best way to get there is to talk to God about it and be willing to go with Him to the place that He has created for you.

Avatar the Psychology of the Movie.

2010-02-03T22:44:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in the last post that Avatar has sold over 2 billion dollars worth of tickets. To sell this many tickets indicates that the minds of the people of the world have resonated with the movie. This indicates that the movie has tickled, and then satisfied, many of the reasons that people go to movies. Avatar has allowed people the experience of seeing and hearing one man’s vision of an Edenic planet and all of the beauties and wonders of this fictional planet. People have been allowed the experience of adventure, exploration, to learn, to see good conquer evil, to see a new people, to see the weak defeat the strong. Avatar has been able to incorporate all of the standard symbols that move human beings and to satisfy many of the longings of the human heart.

One of the interesting issues of the movie Avatar is that there are several internet reports of people being depressed and sometimes having suicidal thoughts after seeing Avatar. The general thought is that people respond so intensely to the movie, that they long to be able to see a planet like this in reality and to have the kinds of experiences presented in the movie. To have that depth of experience indicates clearly that Avatar has hit into the psychology of mankind.

Another facet of the psychology of Avatar is that of the general archetypal symbols that Avatar has incorporated into the themes of the movie. Each archetypal symbol touches the psyche of humanity and elicits a positive response, especially that of watching the movie, often multiple times, and encourages them to want to share with their family and friends so that they to can have the kind of fulfilling imagery that Avatar has so clearly provided.

Some of the archetypal symbols are the following:
1. The Garden of Eden.
2. The thrill of learning.
3. The thrill of adventure and exploration.
4. The experience of being chased by large creatures that look like dinosaurs.
5. The conflict of good versus evil.
6. The conflict of life and death.
7. The experience of the need for family and sociability.
8. The learning of the elders.
9. The experience of survival against overwhelming odds.
10. Space travel to a new and wonderful world.
11. The ability to create coherence out of chaos.
12. The love between a man and a woman – very much like that in Eden.
13. The experience of interconnection with God.
14. The experience of interconnection with the life of the planet and all of its creatures.
15. Spirituality and life and death.
16. To be able to live happily ever after.
17. The resurrection.
18. The presence of a God/man – an Avatar.
19. Total immersion and accomplishment of entering into a new culture.
20. Overcoming handicaps and fears.
21. Imperialism.
22. The experience of church and fellowship.

All of these experiences resonate with audiences all throughout the world. These experiences resonate so well that people have set new records of spending to go and see this movie. The interesting part is that all of these symbols and experiences are integral parts of the Bible. All of these things God created for mankind to help him grow, mature, and accomplish things, all for the glory of God. God offered the reality of Pandora for His people in the beginning and He plans to offer these things again after sin has been taken care of.

Avatar: The Movie

2010-02-03T22:16:00.000-08:00

In December of 2009 the Movie Avatar was released after a 5year developmental period. In less then two months it has become the most commercially successful movie of all time. To have this kind of financial success it appears that the movie has touched enough emotional, psychological, and spiritual buttons to get people to pay out over 2 Billion dollars worth of tickets.

It will be the purpose of this blog to share some insights of what it is that people come to look for in the movie, and what it is that they experience, and then to share some insights into this process from a Christian Biblical perspective.

Some of the blog posts will be long and some of them short but all of them will be attempting to discuss an issue in the movie and then give a Bible response to that subject. Hopefully people will be able to assess some of these issues and to get answers to some questions that they might have had.

I pray that these ideas will be used to give people security and to fulfill their hopes of being able to see something like Pandora or even better. God tells us in the Bible that when He created the earth, and the Garden of Eden, that it was very good. Genesis 1:31. It is this writers opinion that the Garden of Eden was the prototype of the movie Avatar and that all of the major themes in the movie were derived, in some way or another, from the Bible stories which came out of the Garden of Eden. What people enjoyed about the beauties of Pandora were the things that God put into the Garden of Eden.

God has indicated that we will see the Garden of Eden again for this Garden is described in Revelation 22:1-2. In addition God has said that He will create a new heavens and a new earth and it will be like the original earth created for His people in the beginning. Revelation 21:1. God has also promised us that He will create a setting for His people that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the minds of men. All that Pandora has offered, God will show us something better.