Narnia: Encounter the Power

Note: For those who have the capacity to show PowerPoint presentations, suggestions for picture slides are given in parenthesis inside the sermon’s text. Words in bold italics are suggestions of slides to be made of Scriptures and other quotes and shown while being quoted during the message. All Scripture quotes are from the NIV.

Good morning everybody!

If you have a Bible, turn in it to Isaiah 40:26.

One night the prophet Isaiah went outside and looked up at the sky. As he was looking at the stars, it occurred to him that the One who made that sky must be an amazingly powerful God. So he wrote,
Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:
-Who created all these?
-He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
-Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
(Isaiah 40:26)

This weekend, Disney Studios released a film that they believe will be their most widely-watched film in history.

The movie, “Narnia” is based on C.S. Lewis’ children’s tale, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (show picture of the book’s cover) While it’s based on a children’s book. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is all about power.

So we are going to talk about power this morning, power that can change your life.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was written in 1950. So far, 86 million copies have been sold, with more than 1 million being purchased every year from that day until this.

For those of you who haven’t read the book or seen the movie, I’m going to take a perverse pleasure in ruining it for you by telling you that the book is about four children who find their way into a fairy tale land called, “Narnia.” (show picture of Narnia,)

Narnia is a place where animals walk and talk, and the land is ruled by a wicked witch (show picture of witch – scanned from book cover) whose magic spell keeps the entire land always winter, but never Christmas. – Can you think of anything worse than that?

The four children who discover Narnia are Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy (show picture of them). This may sound a little strange to those of us who haven’t experienced the story yet, but the children discover Narnia by walking through an old English wardrobe (show wardrobe) that is a kind of secret passageway into this alternative world.

Lucy discovers Narnia first. And then Edmund. On Edmund’s first visit to Narnia, he stumbles into the White Witch, who pretends to be his friend and feeds him large doses of Turkish Delight and promises to make him a king.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the children, Edmund aligns himself with the witch and plots to bring his brother and sisters to her. Unbeknownst to Edmund, the witch intends to turn them all into stone.

The first animal the children meet in Narnia is Mr. Beaver. Mr. Beaver is an affable little character, who plays a heroic part in the movie. It’s Mr. Beaver who introduces them to the most important character in the movie, a lion named, “Aslan.” Aslan has an amazing effect on everyone.

Let me read you a portion of the story. Mr. Beaver says,
“They say Aslan is on the move – perhaps has already landed.”
And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps