from http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2011/11/22

Last night we went to see Seven Days in Utopia.  My daughter heard about it on the radio--Focus on the Family was recommending it--so we watched the trailer and thought we would try it out.

Oh. My. Goodness.

The crux of the movie (or so I thought at the time) was the scene in which Robert Duvall (Johnny) teaches Lucas Black (Luke Chisholm) his final lesson.  He states: "God is in us all.  He's all around us."

This is not a Christian teaching.  This is a foundational teaching of eastern religions, namely pantheism.  The Bible teaches that The Holy Spirit indwells The Lord's own.  Not everyone.  And not things.

He (Robert Duvall) continues by saying, "See the face of God, Feel his presence, Trust his love." Nowhere in that list are we supposed to consider or actually think about anything; he's subtly teaching him that everything should be based on feelings. 

Soon after this scene Duvall asks Black if he is ready to leave Utopia.  Black states, "I think so,"and is immediately corrected by Duval: "Don't think!  See. Feel.  Trust."  There you go--from the horse's mouth.

This is NOT a Biblical concept at all.  Nowhere in Scripture are we to disengage our brains and just accept things with our hearts. In fact, it is a very unbiblical teaching. 

The Bible says that "the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked".  God also says,"Come now, let us reason together". That is, our reasoning should line up with God's as revealed in His Word not just something we figure out ourselves or with others.  Our reasoning will only arrive at a right place when we reason with The Lord. 

God is not ambiguous. He says clearly that we must indeed think as Christians.  How else would we know when the enemy is teaching us false doctrine?

There was a third thing in the movie that I only now realize I did not fully grasp at the time. Yep.  At 3:30 in the morning, I finally get it. 

There is a character who is introduced early in the movie and is a catalyst in the story line.  He is an Asian character and his name isTKO.  That is not how they spelled it; I do not know how they spelled his first name, but his last name is Oh.  They always called him TKO and never just Oh, however.  I thought at the time that was cheesy, especially when he pulls little boxing gloves off his golf clubs. 

It comes down to a tie between Black and the TKO characterso they have to replay the last hole. 

This is a golf movie, by the way.  Did I mention that? 

Anyway, prior to that Duvall had given Black a putter that more closely resembled a block of iron on a stick and taught him to use it more like a mallet.  He said at the time,"Could you, would you use this is tournament play?"  He was a professional golfer himself so he would have known that club was illegal, but he was telling Luke it was more accurate than the usual putters were.  Then he gives him the putter and tells him that if he would use it, he would just know when to do so.

WHOA!  I cannot believe I missed it at the time.

At the end of the movie, Black has to make the putt to beat TKO.  Duvall is in the crowd and his voice narrates this section telling us that Black knew it was time to put away meaningless traditions.  Black pulls out the illegal putter, which is more like a mallet, and uses it to make the shot.

Do you see what just happened?!

It ends by not telling you if he made the putt or not and asking, "Does it really matter?"

YES!

If it did not matter, why was he playing in a tournament anyway?  Overtly they kept saying that life was about more than a game, but throughout the movie, they kept using golf as a metaphor for life.  "You have to keep youremotions in check to win."  "Be prepared."  "See it first.  Then your body can do it."  (This visualization technique is also a part of the eastern religions.)

When it came right down to it, they said, "Change the game."  He started playing croquet at the end of the golf tournament with everything on the line.  If that "putter" was used because it was more accurate even if illegal, why did he not just pick up the ball and carry it to the hole and drop it in? This would have been even more accurate still. 

No.  They could not be that obvious in their message.

This is another reality-warping movie, but it is so subtly done that I am afraid many will miss it. 

I focused on the line in which Duvall said he [Black] knew it was time to put away meaningless traditions. It was, again, another reference to golf as life.  But NOTHING is meaningless.  Everything means something.  We should put away traditions that are wrong and ungodly, but to put away the basics of what you are doing and change the rules?!  Nope.  He should have entered a croquet tournament instead. 

Bottom line message:  it does not really matter what game you are playing.  The outcome (getting the ball in the hole) justifies whatever means you use.  Change the rules or even the game if you have to do that to win.  And definitely do not think about it or you might just realize it really does matter what putter you use.

But I am going to be portrayed as Mr. Oh, a legalist who technically knocks him out of the game. 

I just pray that people who see this movie will not wait until we all come before the judgment seat of God to realize that the Lord is a legalist too.  They are His laws and there are severe consequences for breaking them.  And it won't just be a game we are thrown out of on Judgment Day.  It will be the presence of God.

I remember quite a while ago being relatively shocked by a homeschool mom telling about letting her daughter go to the local public school for a week to help out the kindergarten teacher for a couple of hours a day.  This shocked me because I couldn't understand why, if she'd let her daughter go help teach there, she'd taken her children out of there in the first place.  Most parents homeschooled, or so I thought, primarily because the instruction received at the public school was contrary to God's Word and/or because they understood that God's Word required it of them.  I have a wondered why that family homeschooled at all for a very long time.

A couple of years later but still a while ago, I was again shocked.  This time by the announcement of a homeschooled young lady, whose parents I knew homeschooled for the reasons I thought one would, informing me that she was going to be a teacher.  In the public school system.  With the blessing of her parents.  Not quite as off guard as during the previous encounter with this mentality, I asked her why.  "Because the Lord is calling me to teach."  Ah.  And to her and her family this was the obvious application of that calling.

Two weeks ago a young man taught me again about waiting to do God's will in God's timing and in God's way.  I knew all about the waiting.  And I knew all about God's timing and God's ways being very different from our own.  But God used him to marry those concepts in a specific way for me.  And I understood. 

So many of our young homeschooled adults are beginning to make career choices and they rightly seek the Lord's calling in those things.  But our young ladies are at a more vulnerable place during this time than our young men.  Like that young lady long ago, they know that God has placed in them a strong desire to teach or the desire to take care of children, but instead of waiting for God to give them a husband and children of their own to teach, they believe God's call to be immediate [going against the clear examples of David being called as king, Moses being called to lead God's people, Joseph being called to save the world, Jesus being sent to redeem God's people, etc.] and to seek what outlets are available.  Thus they enter the public schools or day cares to do the Lord's work without ever realizing He did not call them there. 

A long time ago Papa taught me something very few people seem to understand. God's way is best.  And there's only one way to that best.  He doesn't give us options and they all work out.  He calls us to specific things and a single way.  This is true in salvation, choosing a spouse, and picking a career.  In any situation, in all we do and say, God only has one way.  That means all the others belong to Satan.  Even second best which is just slightly different from the best.  Only a discerning person who is close to the Lord will be able to distinguish them.  And Satan always seems to offer the second best before the best comes.  There may be other less best in between but the temptation is to take that second or third when they come instead of waiting patiently for God's best in all they do or desire.

God does use our sin for His glory.  So the wrong choices we make are not without some potentially redeeming quality, but that redemption will always be more expensive and much more difficult than obtaining the best.  If only those young ladies would realize that.