Today, I'd like to begin with just some thoughts on Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, and I'd like to make a few introductory comments before we get into the main body of what I want to talk about today. And the first of those comments is that my thoughts about the movie are based on first-hand experience in seeing it and not merely on second-hand reports or reviews about it. I plopped down my seven dollars on Thursday night and went over to the Newton Theater and sat there and watched the movie. I went by myself. I sat right near a whole row of nuns. And I think that I was the only one in the movie that night that was taking notes as I watched the movie. So my comments are based on first-hand experience in seeing it and not merely on second-hand reports or reviews about it. Secondly, I've discussed the movie with many other pastors whose opinions I respect. As you know, a couple of weeks ago was our General Assembly of Churches in the Phoenix area, and one of the hot topics of informal discussion among the pastors and the delegates that were there was this movie. And I appreciated having the opportunity to speak to many other pastors whose opinions I respect about the movie. Thirdly, I've exposed myself to many reviews of the movie and many articles on issues raised by the movie. I think that you will see by the time we get to the end today that my reading on articles about this movie and on the subjects raised by the movie has been pretty extensive. So I'm not just speaking off the cuff this morning. I'm speaking having put in a lot of work in this presentation today. The fourth thing I'd like to say is I like Mel Gibson. I really like Mel Gibson. I've seen many of his movies. I have a good friend of mine, Pastor Steve Martin, down in Fayetteville, Georgia, that believes that every Reformed Baptist man ought to be required to see Braveheart. I'm not far behind that opinion. I, of course, loved The Patriot as any Reformed Baptist American would. because we have to remember historically that Reformed Baptists in America during the time of the American Revolution were almost 100% patriots and behind the war against the British. I also teach those that I'm trying to teach to shoot, to follow Mel Gibson's advice in that movie, aim small, miss small. As you don't shoot at the whole deer, you pick a spot. And that's where you put your arrow, or that's where you put your bullet. So The Patriot is a great movie, and Braveheart, a great movie. I even like Lethal Weapon. One and two. And I thought Inspector Riggs, I think, in that movie teamed up with Danny Glover was just a classic combination. So I like Mel Gibson. I also appreciate his refreshing manly courage in the production of this movie. the passion of the Christ. He did not succumb to the anti-Christian Hollywood establishment. Also, he did not succumb to Jewish opposition with regard to the production of this movie. In fact, Roger Ebert who is the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times and a name that many of you are familiar with, had this to say about Mr. Gibson in the production of the movie. He said the following. He said that It is a personal message, that is the movie, Mr. Gibson's movie is a personal message movie of the most radical kind, attempting to recreate events of personal urgency to Gibson. The filmmaker has put his artistry and fortune at the service of his conviction and belief, and that does not happen often. And so I think that every one of us who appreciate manly courage, wherever manly courage is displayed, ought to appreciate that Mr. Gibson is a man's man. not only in what he portrays, but also in what he does in real life. He did not succumb to the anti-Christian Hollywood establishment. He stuck a thumb in their eye. He went ahead with this movie when they didn't want him to go ahead with this movie, when they have threatened to boycott anything he does in the future. In fact, he told the leading actor in this movie that, be aware that if you take this role, you may never get another part again. Such was the hatred in Hollywood against what he was doing independently. Now this brings me to the main body of what I want to talk about today. And I want to make a number of assertions about the movie. And the first assertion that I want to make is this. That in the providence of God, and by the providence of God I mean what the Shorter Catechism means. And the Shorter Catechism means what the Bible means. that in the providence of God, that is his most holy, wise, powerful, preserving and governing of all his creatures and all their actions, God has allowed Mr. Gibson to live and fulfill his desire to produce this movie, which has the potential to result in much good and much harm. And therefore, we should avoid the extremes of blanket approval and endorsement or blanket disapproval. This movie has the potential to do a lot of good. This movie also has the potential to do a lot of harm. And it depends on who uses the movie and how the movie is used. In fact, I printed out an article that is in the Catholic Encyclopedia. And right at the head of this article that I'll be quoting a little bit later, The Catholic Encyclopedia staff says the following, go see the Passion and buy this book, A Guide to the Passion. It's simply the best book about the Passion of Christ, offering a scene-by-scene analysis from a Catholic perspective. The 100 questions and answers provide a powerful supplement to the film. So what they want Catholics to do is to buy that book, to take Protestants to the movie, and to use the book in order to win Protestants. So this movie does have the potential to do a lot of good, but my assertion is it also has the potential to do a lot of harm, and therefore we should avoid the extremes of blanket approval and endorsement or blanket disapproval. Secondly, the movie opens with a verse that is its dominant theme, and which will, if reflected upon, challenge unbelieving Jews and Gentiles alike. The movie opens with this verse, but he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. And then, significantly, 700 BC. And so that verse comes up on the screen, and that's one of the things you're first confronted with. So, an unbelieving Jew sitting there would be confronted with this verse, confronted with the reality that it was written by Isaiah the prophet 700 years before Christ came, and he would be confronted with that, and that's a very powerful tool. So, that's a good thing. Thirdly, the movie contains a lot of dialogue that faithfully quotes the Scriptures. If you go and see the movie, you'll see a lot of dialogue that is a faithful quotation of what we have in the Gospels. The fourth thing that we need to understand about this is that the movie is a profoundly Roman Catholic movie. This is not an evangelical movie. This is not a movie like the Jesus film that the Church of Rome opposes. That is a film that is being used around the world, and that is a film that makes the gospel of Jesus Christ pretty plain. This is not an evangelical movie. This is not a movie whereby a person in watching the movie could come away saying that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. This movie is an evangelistic opportunity, but this movie is not an evangelistic tool. And I hope you will understand the difference, the profound difference between those two things. This movie is a profound evangelistic opportunity, but this movie is not an evangelistic tool. This movie needs an awful lot of supplementation in order for it to become an evangelistic tool. It is a profoundly Roman Catholic movie. First of all, the movie company Mr. Gibson established is called Icon Productions. And the first thing you're treated to when the movie opens is that icon productions and then an icon, an image of Christ appearing there on the screen. Secondly, it was time to open on Ash Wednesday. The third thing we need to understand is that Mr. Gibson is a member of Roman Catholicism's most conservative branch, the Tridentine Rite, which opposed the changes of Vatican II and holds all of its services in Latin and views the papal chair as vacant today. So Mr. Gibson is a profoundly conservative Roman Catholic. He does not believe in the changes that came into the church with Vatican II. He does not believe that there is salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church. Now, Vatican II allowed for that belief. Vatican II took the Mass from Latin and into English and made all kinds of changes. But Mr. Gibson is part of a group that does not accept those changes that came into Rome. Now, He said the following, and I'm sorry, he didn't say the following, but this is very important for us to understand. In an article in World Magazine from February 21st, 2004, Janie Cheney wrote an article entitled Passion's Pilgrim and this provides us with some just biographical background about Mr. Gibson that we need to understand as to what motivated him in the production of this movie. And she writes as follows, both parents, and she's writing about a woman's parents right now, listen to this. Both parents were committed traditional Catholics, devastated when Vatican II introduced the non-Latin mass. In their view, the Council showed an appalling lack of regard for loyal parishioners and for orthodoxy itself, caving in to a world that only sought its destruction, as Sophie put it. The decisions of a group of churchmen in Rome wrought mortifying changes in the life of this girl in Australia. First, the embarrassment of her father's arguments with the local clergy, which led to the nuns at her school branding her as the child of a heretic. That is, this girl's father didn't accept the changes of Vatican II. He became known as something of a rogue Catholic, and this girl and her Catholic school got branded in the same way. One Sunday, her parents took the family to a renegade church that met in the stark, unhallowed confines of a community hall many miles from home, where a defiant priest conducted mass in Latin. To Sophie, it was like being chained and dragged back to the Middle Ages. Rebellion was fine. This was the 70s after all, but not tagging unwillingly behind your parents' rebellion. Before long, they were committed to the Latin Mass Society, a collection of families bound by nothing but their devotion to the discarded heart of their beloved church. Her father even volunteered to be the treasurer. The secretary of the organization was another stormy temperament, Hutton Gibson. That smells bad. a transplanted Irish-American. The two men argued violently with equal passion, sometimes on the same side of an issue, sometimes not. Religion was no trifling matter for either of them. And throughout a very public career, Mel Gibson has remained a private personality, but soon the world will know, at least in part, what he's thinking. The Jesus that moviegoers will soon observe on screen doubtless owes something to Hutton Gibson, that is his father, to the Latin Mass Society, and to the uncompromising saints of the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church. So we need to understand that that's his background, and this is a profoundly Roman Catholic movie. Very important for us to understand thirdly is this, that Mr. Gibson's primary source was not the Gospels. but rather a book by a Roman Catholic German nun named Sister Anne Emmerich. And her book was The Dolores Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ. To understand this movie, you have to understand that Mr. Gibson did not get his primary source from the Gospels, but his primary source was the book written by this nun. Now, I printed out, I didn't know anything about Sister Anne Emmerich. before I began this study, so what I did was go right to the source, the Catholic Encyclopedia, and here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia has to say about this woman whose book became the primary source for Mr. Gibson's movie. She was an Augustinian nun, stigmatic and ecstatic. I'll explain what that is. Born September 8, 1774, and died February 9, 1824. So when Lewis and Clark were exploring the American West, Anne Emmerich was recording her visions that became the book, the Dolores Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some things about her. Soon after she was confined to bed in 1813, the stigmata came externally, even to the marks of the thorns. All this she unsuccessfully tried to conceal as she had concealed the crosses impressed upon her breast. So she claims that in 1813 the stigmata, that is the marks of the cross, started to appear on her body. Wounds in her hand, wounds in her feet, and on her breast the impressions of the cross. About this time, Clemens Brentano, the famous poet, was induced to visit her to his great amazement. She recognized him and told him he had been pointed out to her as the man who was to enable her to fulfill God's command, namely to write down for the good of innumerable souls the revelations made to her. He took down briefly in writing the main points and as she spoke the Westphalian dialect, that is the Westphalian dialect in Germany, he immediately rewrote them in ordinary German He would read what he wrote to her and change and efface until she gave her complete approval. In 1833 appeared the first fruits of his toil, the dolerous passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich. And so she was an ecstatic, she had visions, she was a stigmatic Roman Catholic nun. And her book became the primary source for Mr. Gibson's movie. That is why somebody like me, who is a Protestant, going into the movie, watching the movie, says, where's that come from? And where'd they get that? And where'd they get that? And after about 20 times of saying, where'd they get that? You understand, it wasn't from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. It was from somebody else. And so Mr. Gibson's primary source was not the Gospels, but rather a book by a Roman Catholic German nun. Interestingly, Stephen Gray Danis, who is a Roman Catholic apologist, has written an article for Roman Catholics. He is a Roman Catholic, and he's written an article entitled, Will Mel evangelize evangelicals? And very interestingly, he says the following in this article, Protestants have attracted much attention in recent weeks by trumpeting their hopes that Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ will prove a great evangelistic tool. What relatively few have noticed is the extent to which these groups are themselves being evangelized. See his point? His point is that, listen, Catholics are using this movement to win Protestants. He says the film's structure, following the dolorous passion of our Lord Jesus Christ by Venerable Sister Anne Catherine Emerick, one of the screenplay's sources, combines two popular traditional Catholic devotions, the 14 Stations of the Cross and the 5 Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Every mystery in every station is there, in order, including one event drawn entirely from tradition, Saint Veronica wiping the Lord's face. The film highlights Catholic Eucharistic sensibilities by presenting the Last Supper, not chronologically, before the Garden of Gethsemane, but in flashbacks intercut with the crucifixion itself. This juxtaposition of the crucifixion and the Last Supper reflects the Catholic dogma that the Mass, along with the cross, is a true sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the altar and of the cross are one. And so, Great Dana says, Catholics are using it to win evangelicals to Catholicism. That's why I said at the beginning that this movie has the potential to do great good, it also has the potential to do great harm. Now next, one of Mr. Gibson's goals in making the movie is to teach Roman Catholic doctrine about the mass. And as I've just quoted from Mr. Gray Danis in Will Mel Evangelize Evangelicals, he juxtaposes in the movie the images of the cross with flashbacks to the Lord's Supper and this is because Mel Gibson believes that quote the sacrifice of the cross and the sacrifice of the altar that is the mass is the same thing and so no Protestant should see this movie without understanding that it is a profoundly Roman Catholic movie And this is why our own confession of faith in chapter 30 has this to say about the Lord's Supper and how profoundly different is our view of the Lord's Supper from the view that Mr. Gibson has of that ordinance. On page 686 in your hymnal and our confession of faith says this. In paragraph 2, in this ordinance Christ is not offered up to His Father, nor any real sacrifice made at all for the remission of sin of the quick or dead, but only a memorial of that one offering up of Himself by Himself upon the cross, once for all, and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God for the same, so that the Popish sacrifice of the Mass, as they call it, is most abominable, injurious to Christ's own sacrifice, the alone propitiation of all the sins of the elect." And you and I better never move away from that biblical teaching about what the Lord's Supper is and how it's contrasted to the Mass. Next, the movie presents Mary in a way that is not faithful to the scriptures. First of all, she's presented as having superhuman senses. There's two scenes that really stood out for me when I watched the movie. There is the scene, and let me just ask, first of all, who has not seen the movie? Okay, that's most of you. Who has seen the movie? Okay, good number of you as well. And those of you who have seen it, And let me just back up a minute. These are just my thoughts on Mel Gibson's movie. I'm not standing before you this morning as Pope David telling you what you need to do or think about it. These are just my thoughts concerning this movie so that hopefully you can make informed decisions about whether you want to go see it or not. and also inform decisions on how best to use it, how it is a evangelistic opportunity, but also how it could do harm, depending on who's seeing it and who's using it. Let me get back to this then. The movie presents Mary in a way that's not faithful to the scriptures. The first, she has superhuman senses. There are at least two scenes in the movie where Mary is presented as being able to sense what is happening to Jesus, and also being able to sense where He is. In one scene, when Jesus is struck, even though Mary doesn't see Him being struck, she feels the blow. In another scene, she reminded me of a hound dog on a scent. And I don't mean to be irreverent here, but after the arrest of Jesus, you see her getting alert. You know, like a beagle who's picked up a whiff of rabbit. And she begins to be alert and she begins to just sense. And then she gets lower and lower and lower to the point where she puts her ear on one particular flagstone. And then what the camera does is go through the stone to where Jesus is chained underneath her. And he looks up and she's looking down. So the movie definitely presents her as having superhuman senses. Secondly, she is addressed as mother by not only Jesus, but by his disciples. All of his disciples address her as mother. Peter addresses her as as mother. Thirdly, there's no mention of her other children that the Gospels talk about. You don't see any other children, just Jesus in the household. Now, we know that the Gospels say that she was kept a virgin only until the Lord Jesus was born, and after the Lord Jesus was born, she had other sons and daughters by Joseph. Well, of course, Roman Catholics completely reject that, and Mel Gibson would completely reject that view, and so Mary is presented in the movie with no mention of her other children, thereby enforcing the error of her perpetual virginity. The next thing that demonstrates that the movie is a profoundly Roman Catholic movie is that icons abound in the movie. Not only is the movie company called Icon Productions, but we are presented with the legend of Saint Veronica providing Jesus with a towel into which he presses his image and it becomes an icon. You see Veronica presenting him with the linen, and him not wiping his face, as most of us would do if you wanted to wipe blood out of your eyes, but him instead pressing his face into the linen. And then there is a scene where you see Veronica, as it were, on the way to Calvary, and if you look carefully, it's just there for an instant, but if you look carefully at what she's holding, you see the image of the face of Jesus. And so icons abound in the movie. This goes right along the lines of the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, and its teaching about the legitimacy of icons and the legitimacy of relics. It is just straight, conservative, ancient Roman Catholicism. Also, the film zooms in on the crown of thorns and the three nails. In fact, that made those of you who get World Magazine, and I want to say that every one of you ought to get World Magazine and read it every week. But there's one of the great articles that I forgot to bring with me today. You can see that I do have a lot, but one of the articles that I forgot to bring with me is just to hold up the picture of an article that was in World several weeks ago that contains this picture of what I'm talking about as to how the camera zooms in on the crown of thorns and zooms in on the three nails and zooms in on the hammer and zooms in on the tool that they use to extract the nails. from after Jesus died. And as I viewed that, I said, this is because Mel Gibson puts a great, great emphasis on relics. He puts a great emphasis on these kinds of things. In fact, the main actor informs us that he was given a piece of the true cross that he kept with him always during the shooting of the film. Here are his words. Ivan Dragicevich and his wife Lorraine gave me a piece of the true cross. I kept this on me all the time. They made a special pocket in my clothes for it. I also had relics of Padre Pio, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Maria Goretti and St. Dennison's, the patron saint of actors. In addition to this, the Mass was said every day. as the movie was being produced. On the set, the Mass was said. Jim Cavazel, the one who plays Jesus, said that there's no way that I can play this part without the Mass being said every day on the set. And so they brought in a priest every day to say the Mass on the set. And what are we to remember about all these things like relics? And here, if I can be a little irreverent, Not that I am ever irreverent, but I'm quoting now from Mark Twain in his Innocence Abroad, as he describes his arrival in Rome there in the 1800s. And here's what Mark Twain had to say, and I think this is a good corrective for us with his emphasis in the movie on icons and on relics. Listen to what Mark Twain said. The main point of interest about the cathedral is the little chapel of Saint John the Baptist. They only allow women to enter this chapel on one day in the year on account of the animosity they still cherish against the sex because of the murder of the saint to gratify a caprice of Herodias. In this chapel is a marble chest in which they told us where the ashes of Saint John and around it was wound a chain which they said had confined him when he was in prison. We did not desire to disbelieve these statements. And yet we could not feel certain that they were correct. Partly because we could have broken that chain. And so could St. John. And partly because we had seen St. John's ashes before in another church. We could not bring ourselves to think St. John had two sets of ashes. They also showed us a portrait of the Madonna, which was painted by Luke. and did not look half as old and smoky as some of the pictures by Rubens. We would not help admiring Luke's modesty and never once mentioning in his writings that he could paint. But isn't this relic matter a little overdone? We find a piece of the true cross in every old church we go into. And some of the nails that held it together. I would not like to be positive, but I think we have seen as much as a keg of these nails. And then there is the crown of thorns. They have part of one in St. Chapelle in Paris and part of one also in Notre Dame. And as for the bones of St. Dennis, I feel certain we've seen enough of them to duplicate him if necessary. So you see his point, and it's an excellent point. He also says this on, I think it's page 178. Yeah, page 178. When they were at a at another Roman Catholic Church, the priest showed us two of St. Paul's fingers and one of St. Peter's, a bone of Judas Iscariot. It was black. And also bones of all the other disciples, a handkerchief in which the Savior had left the impression of his face. And among the most precious of relics were a stone from the Holy Cephalco, part of the crown of thorns. They have a whole one at Notre Dame. A fragment of the purple robe worn by the Savior, a nail from the cross, and a picture of the Virgin and Child painted by the hand of Saint Luke. This is the second one of Saint Luke's virgins we have seen. Once a year all these holy relics are carried in procession through the streets of Milan. Well, you know, the point is that there's enough pieces of the true cross to build Noah's Ark. You know, and these are all over the place. And we need to understand that these relics and these icons have a very important place in the Catholicism of Mel Gibson and also of the actor who played Christ in the movie. Now, this is a very important observation and assertion. Number five, the movie is absolutely imbalanced in its presentation of the sufferings of Christ. You see, biblical truth ought to be presented in biblical proportion. And whenever biblical truth is presented out of proportion, then it can become an untruth. If you emphasize what the Bible emphasizes, but emphasize it in a proportion that the Bible doesn't emphasize it, then you're running the risk of doing harm. Now, this movie is imbalanced in its presentation of the sufferings of Christ. The Puritans were correct when they asserted that the sufferings of his soul were the soul of his sufferings. And this movie does not focus on the sufferings of his soul. This movie doesn't spend the time that should have been spent in Gethsemane. The first shedding of blood that Jesus had occurred before any soldier ever got near him. And this is not emphasized in the movie. The movie focuses our attention in a disproportionate way on the physical sufferings of Christ. In an absolutely disproportionate way on the physical sufferings of Christ. And this account in World Magazine by Andrew Coffin, I think is right on in his observation. Mr. Gibson's depiction of Christ's suffering certainly diverges from biblical accounts in this regard. All four Gospels pass quickly over the particulars of Christ's suffering and execution, more urgently focusing on the meaning of these events. to focus so heavily on Christ's physical suffering, verges on a distortion of what was really happening in these events. For instance, in the Bible, you'll say, and he was crucified, but there's no elaboration. In the Bible, it'll say, and Pilate delivered him over to be scourged. And we're left with no detail about what happened when he was scourged. In fact, William F. Buckley, who wrote on this, and he had an interesting article entitled, Bloody Passion, about a movie, and this was in, of course, National Review. And even William F. Buckley, who is a Roman Catholic, said the following, but even then, the story it tells is a gross elaboration of what the Bible yields. Consider Matthew. And when Pilate had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Then they spat on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. Luke, I will therefore chastise him and release him. Luke records that the soldiers mocked him. And John, so then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. And they, the soldiers, struck him with their hands. But you see, what he is saying, what Buckley is saying, is that the Bible deals very conservatively with these things. It mentions them, but it doesn't focus on them. You know that these things happen, but it moves beyond these things very quickly to explain primarily the meaning of it. In fact, Roger Ebert said the following in this regard. The movie is 126 minutes long. And I would guess that at least 100 of those minutes, maybe more, are concerned specifically and graphically with the details of the torture and death of Jesus. This is the most violent movie I've ever seen, writes Roger Ebert. Well, he's right. And the movie focuses in a disproportionate way on the physical sufferings of Christ. Now, the reason for this emphasis is once again rooted in medieval Roman Catholicism. In medieval Roman Catholicism there developed a whole school of thought. I believe it was through Avalard. This whole school of emphasis that we need to focus and meditate on the sufferings of Christ. And out of this grew this whole thing that resulted in the stigmata and resulted in these ecstatic nuns, etc. etc. focusing on meditating on the death of Christ. In fact, Andrew Webb, in an article, Five Reasons Not to Go See the Passion of Christ, had this to say on page two. In Roman Catholic theology, the intense physical suffering of Christ's crucifixion is the focus along with the emphasis on physical sacrifice. This is one of the reasons why in Roman Catholic iconography, we have so much imagery related to Christ's physical pain, and that crucifixes show him still suffering on the cross. This emphasis on Christ's physical agony is repeated in Roman Catholic devotional materials, prayers, and of course, in the movie, The Passion of Christ. Now, I'd like to give just a couple of concluding cautions, and I'm ahead of time, so this is good today. Maybe we can entertain a couple of questions about it, but the concluding caution, number one, is this. Reflect on the fact that already this film is contributing to a reordering of Christian priorities. Already this movie is contributing to a reordering of Christian priorities. And the reordering that is taking place is not is not healthy at all. Andrew Webb said the following. Many evangelical pastors are hailing movies like The Passion of Christ as part of a new and better way of spreading the gospel. One of them, Pastor Corey Angle of Harvest Springs Community Church in Great Falls, Montana, said this. This is a window of opportunity we have. Here's a guy who's putting his money into a movie that has everything to do with what we do. He said the following churches used to communicate by having a little lecture time on Sunday morning. People don't interact that way anymore. Here's a chance for us to use a modern day technique to communicate the truth of the Bible. There's a guy that's basically going in print and saying, you know, preaching's passé. And we need to get beyond preaching. We need to get beyond Sunday lectures. And what we need to do is to take advantage of this new medium because people don't listen anymore. We're dealing with a visual culture. We're not dealing with a culture that's trained to listen, an auditory culture. We're dealing with a visual culture. So let's just admit it. We need to change our ways. We need to reorder our priorities. We need to come away from preaching. And we need to show more movies. I'm here to tell you that more movies is not what we need at all. Webb goes to say this. We need to remember that the last time dramatic presentations replaced preaching as the main vehicle by which the truth of the Bible was communicated was during the Middle Ages. when the church refused to allow the translation of the Bible into common languages. And when in place of the preaching and teaching of God's word, the common people were given visual presentations such as passion plays, statues, relics and icons. These things were designed like most visual imagery to play upon the emotions and stimulate a response. But the ability to evoke an emotional response via imagery or drama is not the same as successfully transmitting the gospel. The means that God has ordained for the transmission of the gospel was neither drama, imagery, nor even lectures. It is preaching. Preaching involves the communication of the gospel in a way that patiently convinces, rebukes, exhorts, and teaches. The Bible teaches us the awesome importance of preaching and why it cannot be replaced by another medium. God does not command us to produce dramatic presentations of gospel themes. He commands us to preach. Though this option was freely available to the apostles as they brought the gospel to cities with amphitheaters, and a long tradition of using the dramatic arts to convey religious and moral themes to the populace, they did not do so. The wisdom of apostolic methodology has been borne out by the fact that it was when the gospel was being transmitted primarily by plays and symbolism that true Christianity began to sink under the weight of superstition. We are in danger of returning to precisely that state of affairs by reviving the teaching methodology of the medieval church. Even though it was produced in the 21st century, the passion of Christ is identical in all critical aspects to the passion plays of the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. And he's right on target with that. So we need to reflect on the fact that already this film is contributing to a reordering of Christian priorities. Already men are beginning to say, let's admit that preaching is passe. Well, brethren, that is so dangerous. You see, those of us who believe that preaching is to be central in the worship services of the church by this mentality are just being further marginalized. We're one of, I think, only three churches in this whole county that even has an evening service today. Most of the churches in our county, even the so-called evangelical ones, are getting away from preaching. The sermons are all getting shorter and shorter. Evening services being done away with. This is not a healthy trend. For the Church of Jesus Christ. There are too many nice guys who can't preach. In the Church of Jesus Christ today. There are too many nice guys in the ministry who can't preach at all. And all they are is nice administrators. In their churches. And this whole tendency today is just going to further erode things that the Bible holds to be central. And then secondly, reflect on the question as to whether anyone is warranted to depict the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to at least ask that question as to whether anybody is warranted to hire an actor to play the Lord Jesus Christ or whether any actor is warranted to ever dare to play the Lord Jesus Christ. You better ask that question. Now, I'm not telling you what your answer ought to be. I'm not Pope David standing here this morning. But I'm telling you that you better ask that question. Today, and you better come up with some good answers on that whole subject today. This is something that that is very important. And unfortunately, I don't have the copy of world that I wanted to quote at this present time. But at least these these questions ought to be asked in this day and age. I found it very, very interesting. And if we can go to number three now, I want to just make this this assertion that our antinomian age in which we live, an antinomian for you young people who may not understand what that word means, means anti-law. And we must admit that we're in an anti-law age. Everybody wants the Ten Commandments being taken down. Nobody wants a monument to the Ten Commandments. We live in an antinomian age. We live in an age where even in evangelical churches, most people can't quote the Ten Commandments. They can't tell you what they even are. Let alone know that the Second Commandment forbids the making of any images to be used to help you in worship. And in the antinomian age in which we live, our age is largely unconcerned even with the question as to whether the making of such a film is a violation of the second commandment. We ought to ask that question. And we ought to answer that question. Andrew Webb had this, and I certainly agree with everything about this. Listen to this. Every visual representation of Jesus is inevitably a lie. That's quite a bold statement. Every visual representation of Jesus is inevitably a lie. And there are two main reasons for this. The first reason why all visual representations of Jesus are lies is because the only wise God went to great lengths not to leave us with any description of the physical appearance of his son. lest we fall into the sin of image-making. Therefore, all of our representations of Jesus are inevitably speculations, usually based upon our own desires. We create an image of Jesus that says more about the Jesus we want than the Jesus whom God sent. For instance, isn't it remarkable that the Jesus of the Passion of Christ, as in almost all physical representations of Christ, is tall, slim, and handsome? And if you have doubts about that, I urge you to just rent the movie The Count of Monte Cristo. It's the same actor, Jim Cabezel. Rent The Count of Monte Cristo. And when they produced The Count of Monte Cristo, that excellent book by Alexander Dumas, that chief book about the theme of revenge. When they wanted an actor to play The Count of Monte Cristo, they needed some guy. And they chose this guy. that Mel Gibson also chose the place to play Jesus. Listen to this. Why should not the son of David have been a relatively small man like his great ancestor? In other words, King David was not a big guy. He didn't impress Samuel at all when Samuel saw him. Well, I have impressed him. Surely the Lord's anointed is before me. No, no, no. It's not him. God doesn't see the way man sees. So Webb asked this question. Why couldn't he have been a relatively small man like his great ancestor? It never seems to have occurred to most image makers that Jesus could have been relatively short or stout or even have had a receding hairline. I like that one. This is in spite of the fact that one of the few details the Bible does give us about Christ's appearance is that, quote, he has no form or comeliness, and when we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire him. In other words, the one thing that the Bible says about Jesus is that no woman would have looked at him twice. That's the one thing the Bible does say about him. This is an excellent point. The fact that we have any concept of what Jesus looked like and that Gibson's Jesus looks like to traditional Jesus is a testament to the abiding impact of past iconography. While the Gospels purposely leave out any description of Jesus that we might use to construct an idol, people have created an image of Jesus that's become almost an industry standard. and it is solely for that reason rather than any basis in fact that audiences would have been outraged had Gibson cast Danny DeVito and not James Cavazio in the leading role well that's an excellent point we all laugh who in the world would ever cast Danny DeVito but the answer to that question is why not Danny DeVito you see he wanted a certain image And he wanted the image of a tall, dark, handsome guy with very impressive blue eyes. And he wanted that image of Christ. Webb says the second reason why all visual representations of Jesus are lies is that they can never hope to represent the glory of Christ in his true nature. The best an image of Jesus can do is to represent him as a man. And while Jesus was truly a man, he was not merely a man. Jesus was also God and no artist or filmmaker who has ever lived could ever hope to create an image that captures the true glory of Jesus as God. Now brethren, you and I, we better be asking and answering this question. Now I'm not going to pronounce, you know, as absolutely wrong anybody who in a Sunday school material ever drew a picture of Jesus. But the only ones that would in any way be acceptable are ones that don't have any detail. Once they have no detail. And the great thing that I'm worried about as a result of this movie, and this better not happen with any of you. And here I'm not going to be Pope David, but I'm going to be Pastor Dykstra. Many of you start buying the Tyndale House book. About the passion of the Christ and you keep it on your coffee table. And you look at the pictures in that book to prepare yourself for the Lord's Supper, you're an idolater. And you're breaking the second commandment. And these things ought never to be the emphasis of the people of God. So this movie, let me end with this, has the potential to do an awful lot of good. It's an evangelistic opportunity. I'm glad to hear our people giving away the book by John Piper, The Passion of Christ. I'm glad to hear that many of you are already using the bulletin insert that we provided last week and sending them to friends and relatives. It's a wonderful evangelistic opportunity we need to take advantage of. Is it an evangelistic tool? No, it is absolutely not. And I hope that this at least will inform you guide your thoughts as to whether or not you choose to go see it or how you use it. Let's close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity that this incident in your providence has opened to us today. How we pray that you would find us to be faithful with the many, many people that are asking us about this movie. We pray that we would be faithful in taking them to the Lord Jesus Christ and we pray that your evangelical churches throughout the United States would be very quick to take up the opportunity that this film affords us without being sucked into the danger that it also presents. Bless now the fellowship we enjoy In Christ's name, Amen.