Sermon Central
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Narnia: Discover The Wonder Series
Contributed by Harley Jay Nickless on Dec 4, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: What if there were a Wardrobe that could usher us into an Unseen World? What would we see and experience. The Bible is very clear that an Unseen World does exist.
The Wardrobe:
“Discover The Wonder”
I must admit that there are times when I am convinced that we have made Christianity far more complicated than what it was ever intended to be. Luke the physician recorded many of Jesus’ profound statements, but none is more profound than the one found in Luke 18:17. Listen to the Message version:
“Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom
in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in."
Luke 18:17 (The Message)
On another occasion, the disciples were arguing over who had the best seminary education or something of that nature, and so Jesus had a little child stand among them and then said:
"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3 (NIV)
I don’t know about you but I find it a little more than ironic that while so many in today’s “Christian Culture” are terribly preoccupied with becoming “mature” believers and “growing up” in the faith, Jesus tells us the way is to, “become like little children”.
Clive Staples Lewis
No one exemplifies this principle better than Clive Staples Lewis. Better known to you and I as C.S. Lewis, one of the foremost scholars and keen intellects of the 20th Century.
By his own admission, Lewis was deeply affected by his mother’s death at the tender of age of ten and felt completely abandoned by his father. These dire circumstances led to his rejection of Christianity and subsequent gravitation toward atheism. An avid reader and lover of books, Lewis began to read Christian authors such as George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton. One of MacDonald’s volumes, Phantastes,
powerfully challenged his atheism. "What it actually did to me," wrote Lewis, "was to convert, even to baptize … my imagination."
G. K. Chesterton’s books worked much the same way, especially The Everlasting Man, which raised serious questions about the young intellectual’s materialism. Says Lewis, "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading," Lewis later wrote in the autobiographical Surprised by Joy. "God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."
In 1929, C.S. Lewis surrendered his life to Jesus Christ and became a born-again Christian. Almost immediately he began to focus the direction of his scholarship in defending his newfound faith. As a result, you and I are the beneficiaries of such great literary works as …
“The Great Divorce”
“The Problem of Pain”
“Abolition of Man”
“Surprised By Joy”
“The Screwtape Letters”
“Mere Christianity”
Just to name a few …
That’s why I find it so fascinating that among this great scholar and apologist’s greatest works, the one with the most far reaching and greatest impact has been and continues to be a children’s series entitled “The Chronicles of Narnia”.
It is just like God to reveal himself in this way.
25 “. . . you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ”
Matthew 11:25 (NIV)
For our time together this morning, I would like to invite you to come back with me to that innate sense of wonder and child-like faith. I invite you to step away from all that you consider sophisticated and complicated and join me (if for just one hour) to the simple childlike faith of which Jesus said is necessary for kingdom entrance.
It’s this simple child-like faith that prompted C.S. Lewis to pen his classic “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”.
And in this classic, four children have become victims of war and sent to stay with Professor Digory. During a harmless time of “hide and seek”, the youngest, Lucy opens up a wardrobe seeking a place to hide. But instead of finding a place to hide, the wardrobe opens up to her something totally unexpected . . .
*PLAY CLIP* (Lucy Opening the Wardrobe)
Instead of finding a place to hide, the wardrobe opens up to Lucy something totally unexpected; an alternate world that co-exists alongside her own, yet totally unseen and unknown by the masses. As she steps into the Wardrobe, she actually steps into the unseen and unknown world of “Narnia”.
What if a Wardrobe really existed? What if there actually were a portal through which we could step into an unseen world that exists simultaneous with ours? I know what some of you are thinking right now, “I think the Pastor’s been watching the Sci-Fi Channel a little bit too much”. But before you dismiss the idea of the existence of an actual Wardrobe, (The Big Idea) I would like to suggest to you that there is more to this world than what meets the eye. While Narnia is certainly fictional, the Bible implicitly and unashamedly tells us that there is such a thing as an Unseen World.