Aladdin   

  I am very glad to start Kid’s Corner. I have decided to give my views on some of the movies I have watched in my life time.

            I believe Walt Disney Pictures is one of the best movie producers. I watch their fun movies and shows on Disney Channel. My favorites have obviously been the princess movies because they have beautiful girls learning all sorts of life lessons. Aladdin has been one I have had challenges with. The atmosphere of this movie has taken place in the Middle East. There are many lively colors that make this picture so astonishing. Although this movie is very amazing looking and unique, it has many wrong views. The two I wanted to look at are the evolution thoughts and how the writers allowed the praising of Allah in a children’s movie.

            In the beginning of this movie, when Aladdin finds the lamp, the genie emerges from the item. He looks so large, great and powerful, and says ” Ten thousand years can give you such a crick in the neck.” Now the producers make this look like a funny scene about the introduction of the genie. This particular part in the story has been very popular for a long time. As a child, I still think this is funny, but as a Christian, I think I can use this as a tool to start a conversation and share the gospel with others.

            The second thing I would like to have others see in this movie is that the praising of Allah was encouraged.  Aladdin arrives at the palace of Jasmine the princess is trying to find a prince. Aladdin has used one of his three wishes to become a prince so he can marry her. Jasmine refuses to marry him until he takes her on a romantic magic carpet ride. She decides to marry Aladdin and the two tell Jasmines father. He was so happy that he proclaimed, “Praise Allah”. This is showing that the writers were showing him and his family as Muslims. I certainly do not agree with this view on a children’s movie, but it helps me to define my Christianity from Islamic views. We have strayed away from our Christian World that God wanted us to have.

            I wanted to share these points with you to say that us kids may be small but we are the next generation and we need to bring our nation back to its Christian foundation.  This can be a great way to also share the gospel with others. Even if you just talk to a person for a second or two about the views of this movie and your views. I hope I have given you some things to think about.

America reminds me of an event that is found in 2 Chronicles. It is the story of a young boy named Josiah, and he became King at the age of eight. He followed in the ways of the Lord and at age twelve he began to purge the evils of Judah and Jerusalem. The previous kings had followed in their own ways and put in place many evil practices that put the people under much bondage. However, King Josiah was reforming Judah for the good of the society and at the same time he had asked the temple to be restored. While the temple was being cleansed, Hilkiah the priest “found the book of Law in the House of the Lord” and sent it to Josiah. Shaphhan the secretary read it to Josiah. Upon hearing the words of the Lord, Josiah tore his clothes and was grieved that the people had abandoned the laws of God. The abandonment of God can produce a very bleak situation for a society.

It is interesting to note that the book of Law, was given by God for the people to understand how to live in community with one another. Yet, in the time previous to Josiah, the Kings had gone astray and the priests had forgotten the words of God that could instruct them for good. Ravi Zachariah describes it this way, “Imagine the scene, that which was the most sacred depository had been lost… lost in the very place that had been erected to guard that trust. The king was overcome with emotion at the find. He gathered an assembly of his people and read the book aloud to them. The long-lost treasure had been rediscovered, and there was a time of national repentance before God. It would have been one thing if they had lost the Book of the Law while traveling, or had hidden it someplace for “safekeeping” and the location of its hiding place had been forgotten over years. But to lose it in the temple itself?”[i]

Since America began, the Bible set the guidelines for ethics and morality. Dennis Prager, a columnist writer for Townhall, who is not a Christian recently wrote, “It was this book that guided every one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, including those described as “deists.” It is the book that formed the foundational values of every major American university. It is the book from which every morally great American from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln to the Rev. (yes, “the Reverend,” almost always omitted today in favor of his secular credential, “Dr.”) Martin Luther King, Jr., got his values.It is this book that gave humanity the Ten Commandments, the greatest moral code ever devised. It not only codified the essential moral rules for society, it announced that the Creator of the universe stands behind them, demands them and judges humans’ compliance with them.”[ii] When we lose the Bible, we lose the standard of ethics, morality and the value of life.

So, it is time that Christians return, repent and restore if we want to live in a society that values life, ethics and morality. It is time for the Bible to be rediscovered, read and lived out. It is time for us to examine the life of Josiah in 2 Kings 22 and in 2 Chronicles 34 and remember the ways of the Lord are for the good of all. For the Christian, may we remember that we are called to be “the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14).

[i] Zacharias, Ravi, Why Jesus? Fatih Words 2012

http://www.chbchurch.org/sermonmanager.php?sermonID=49089&

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So, what is this Good News? In order to get to the good news, we must first start with the bad news. The bad news is that you and I have sinned against God. How do I know this? God granted us the Ten Commandments as a mirror to reveal our true nature, and show us our sin. Take the test yourself and see if you pass.

1. Have you ever had any other gods before God?
2. Have you ever had any idols that hinder your full devotion to God?
3. Have you ever taken the Lord’s name in vain?
4. Have you always kept the Sabbath day holy?
5. Have you always honored your mother and father?
6. Have you ever killed anyone?
7. Have you ever committed adultery?
8. Have you ever stolen anything?
9. Have you ever born false witness against your neighbor?
10. Have you ever coveted what your neighbor has?

You may be tempted to justify, the one time you lied, or the one time you were not honoring to your parents or even the one time you may have coveted what someone else had. You may even consider yourself to be a good person in spite of the fact that in your conscience you know that you have broken at least one of these commands. Well, here is the bad news. The Bible says if you have broken one of them, then you have broken them all, because it just takes one to break your relationship with God. And since we have sinned against God, the punishment for sin is death. But, here is the GOOD NEWS!

Jesus, came to earth over two-thousand years ago and walked a sinless life. He did not break one of the Ten Commandments. He died on the cross for the punishment of sin and rose on the third day that we might receive life everlasting. “For God, so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10). “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8:1). “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Now that is Good News and it is the very news that Christians celebrate on Easter Sunday, also known as Resurrection Sunday. We celebrate Christ who was raised from the dead, who is able to forgive our sins and is returning to take us to live with Him in Heaven forever. Those who believe in Christ, have the opportunity to celebrate the hope of the resurrection everday.

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So, when we stand for truth, for example, that marriage is reserved for one man and one woman for life, we are told to keep our value judgments in the church compartment and out of the public square compartment. Because many of us lack the training or confidence to stand on the authority of God’s Word, we are silenced; even believing that our opponent has raised a reasonable objection, i.e. tolerance. In our silence, our opponents gain confidence and become more vocal. Their movement gains ground while Christians submit to what Chuck Colson described as the spiral of silence.[1]

As much as opponents of Biblical Christianity want to remove the value discussion from the public square, the reality is, none of us can live this way.  One set of values will simply be replaced by another.  In our example above, the values of a biblical marriage are replaced by values of tolerance and equality, even though the latter values are fluid and difficult to define.  We replace values rooted in the truth of God’s Word and His natural law, with the relativistic changing whims of man’s ideas.

Many times our opponents want us to make our arguments on neutral ground.  In other words, make a case for your arguments without the exclusive truth claims of the Bible and natural law.  But as Ken Ham argues[2] in his book The Lie, there is no neutral ground.  Once a Christian steps onto the “so called” neutral ground of human reasoning, he has lost the argument; he has been silenced.  Michael Miller argues that we have only two choices: either questions about the nature of humanity and the common good are settled on the basis of truth (God’s Word), or they are settled on the basis of power.[3]

Christians cannot allow values to be separated from what we observe or experience.  Doing so enslaves us to “the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind” Ephesians 2:3. We must stand upon the truth of God’s word “…and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear…” 1 Peter 3:15.