by Michael Clark
There is a movie called "The Matrix" that came out a couple of
years ago. It has violent content and thus an "R" rating, but if you can get
past this it has much to teach us as Christians. We are called to be pilgrims
and sojourners in this world as we follow Jesus, who said that His kingdom was
not of this world system. The movie is filled with types and shadows of our
reality (or should I say "non-reality"?) in this current world as those who have
had the world pulled over our eyes, blinded to the depths of the mystery of
Christ and our privileges as His "joint heirs."
There are three types of "reality" portrayed here in the script. One is where most of mankind is found, bound up in an artificial world that dictates their lives to them. The second is the A I (artificial intelligence), a super computer that has taken power over mankind and made them slaves. The third type are those who have escaped the control of this evil, life-robbing system and have a permanent home in a place called Zion.
While the battle was going on between man and the super computer
that was trying to take over the world, the earth was turned into a waste place,
totally uninhabitable due to nuclear winter. Most of humanity is entombed
in this vast computer controlled machine, having their lives sucked out of them
as its energy source. The people who are free
are in Zion, where it is
still warm near the core of the earth. A few are on board vessels that travel
below the devastated cities in old sewer systems, seeking ways to rescue those
who are trapped in the AI. The vessel featured in this movie is called the
Nebuchadnezzar.
The writer of letter penned to the Hebrews wrote:
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,
We are the saints of God, called out of the mind numbing world that
has been plunged into spiritual darkness by Satan (the A I)
unto a new city called Mount
Zion or the New Jerusalem. We are called to His Godly perfection by the
resurrected power that works in us through Jesus Christ. Not everyone will obey
His upward call to leave this world and its delusions behind. We who have
broken out of that system of darkness by the power of God's Holy Spirit
have been called to help free those who are still captives in it. In this way we
are like the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar. As Jesus told His disciples:
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and
to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8, NKJV).
The Matrix has a high
tech motif, with a cast that includes a type of Christ, a prophetess, a
shepherding elder and even a Judas figure.
The plot centers around a plan to draw one man, Thomas A. Anderson, or
"Neo" as he is known in the world of computer hackers, out of this world system
into the REAL world. The crew of the Nebuchadnezzar
set Neo free of the A I and the delusion of the
Matrix so that he can take his place as an important part of delivering
the rest of the world from the clutches of this wicked system.
Some Christian writers cast Neo as a Messiah figure, but
I see him more as a fore-runner. He is a type of everyone who walks in
Christ and takes up his true inheritance as a fellow heir, accepting
all the privileges and responsibilities in this world and in the next.
There is a Christian underground that communicates over the Internet, sharing
with one another the truths that are setting them free of the systems of men, be
they of the world or the worldly church. These are "hacking" their way out of
the blindness and deception that has held so many captive for the last 1700
years.
The opening scene of the movie shows a green screen computer
monitor flowing with numbers. The Matrix agents are busily trying to trace a
phone call between a woman named Trinity and the traitorous Cypher, who has set
her up to be caught. Like the whole crew of the Nebuchadnezzar, she is an
experienced computer hacker, senses
that the call is being traced, and hangs up.
Trinity is in a dingy room in a hotel called The Heart of the City.
She has been using her computer to watch Neo in his fantasy world. The crew is
planning to extract him from his false life of lies. , This is a type of Satan's
control of the minds of the people of this world, blinding them to the truth.
Satan took the minds of man captive when he got man to eat of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
so that he would be like God. The
captive humans in the Matrix are all fed a programmed lifestyle
they really think they live. In reality, they
are laying in vats of liquid with cables and tubes plugged into their bodies,
being used as an energy source for A I, until they are used up and discarded
like so many old "copper top" batteries. With all this in mind, consider Paul's
words to the Corinthian Church:
Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy,
we do not lose heart.
Meanwhile back in The Heart of the City Hotel where rooms can be
rented by the hour, Trinity is about to arrested by the police who have been
sent out to take her back captive into the A I system or kill her in the
process. After a harrowing escape
she manages to get to another phone booth and is beamed through the phone lines
back to the Nebuchadnezzar just in time.
The Prince of this world
would rather take us back under his power so he can continue to use us,
but if he can't delude us with his lies,
he will try to kill us, just
as he has done with everyone who has
become a real treat to his kingdom. There are thousands of martyrs who
have given up their lives, refusing to go back under his control in his system
of lies.
The enemy has placed his agents, like the one here called Cypher,
in our fellowships. Jesus spoke of this in the parable of the wheat and the
tares and the separating of the sheep from the goats. Paul also spoke of these
when he wrote to the Galatians:
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with
Barnabas, and also took Titus with me.
The movie continues
with the next scene opening in
Neo's apartment, a bachelor pad strewn with computer cables and hardware. Neo is
short for neophyte or new believer. He is trying to hack into reality and find
the truth. He spend hours researching the captain of the crew of the
Nebuchadnezzar, a man named Morpheus. He wants to make contact but does not know
how. He has come to the attention of the rescue ship's crew and made Morpheus
believe that this one, Thomas Anderson, is "the one."
Neo has dozed off in front of his computer while researching
Morpheus and the screen goes blank. While his head is on the desk, the words
appear on the screen, "Wake up, Neo! Neo, the Matrix has you." It is the crew of
the Nebuchadnezzar trying to make contact with him.
As he awakens and wipes the sleep out of his eyes, the screen
reads, "Follow the white rabbit." Neo tries to clear the screen but his keyboard
has no effect. Then the screen reads, "Knock, knock!" just before there is a
knock at his door. He nearly jumps out of his skin in shock. At the door is a
group of people who have come to buy some of his boot legged software. They
invite him to unplug for a while and go party with them. At first he refuses,
but as one of the girls turns away
he sees a white rabbit tattooed on her shoulder. He decides to follow the
prompting that appeared on his computer and follows them.
In the next scene, Neo stands alone in a wild party, feeling out of
place, wondering what is going on. Trinity walks up to him and makes the first
personal contact. She says to him,
"Hello, Neo. I know a lot about you. I've been wanting to meet you for some
time." He is totally shocked when she tells him that her name is Trinity, the
same one the cracked the IRS D-base, another hacker like himself. She was
rescued out of the Matrix and is now about to be part of his rescue as well.
Their dialogue is as follows:
TRINITY: "Right now, all I can tell you, is that you are in danger.
I brought you here to warn you."
NEO: "Of what?"
TRINITY: "They're watching you, Neo."
NEO: "Who is?"
TRINITY: "Please.
Just listen. I know why you're here, Neo. I know why you left your family
and your friends why you left your home to come to this city. You're looking for
him. I know because I came looking for the same thing, but when he found me he
told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the
question that brought you here. You know the question just as I did.
It is a hacker's question."
NEO: "What is the Matrix?"
TRINITY: "When I asked him, he said that no one could ever be told
the answer to that question. They
have to see it to believe it. The answer is out there, Neo.
It's looking for you and it will find you, if you want it to."
Jesus told those who would be His disciples that they must leave
family, friends and home behind to follow Him.
Neo has left all to find the truth about the Matrix. Like Abraham, he has
gone to another land to find that city that has foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. He knows that the
natural is not the way it really is and has been trying to locate Morpheus in
hopes of finding out what the Matrix is. I see a similarity between the name
Mopheus and the Greek word metamorpho, which means
transformation. The Creator is seeking to extract each of us from the world
system level and transform us into sons of God. Jesus is the prototype. As
apostle Paul wrote,
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (metamorpho)
by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what
is that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God. (Romans 12:2, NKJV).
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined
to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the
firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29, NKJV).
The next day Neo is sitting at his desk at work, staring a at a
blank computer screen, still stunned by the exchange with Trinity the night
before. Just then a FedEx man comes to his cubicle and hands him a package. He
opens it and out falls a cell phone which rings at that moment.
Shocked, he answers and this is the exchange:
NEO: "Hello?"
MORPHEUS: "Hello, Neo. Do you know who this is?""
NEO: "Morpheus…"
MORPHEUS: "I've been looking for you, Neo. I don't know if you're
ready to see what I want to show you, but unfortunately, we have run out of
time. They're coming for you, Neo. And I'm not sure what they're going to do."
NEO: "Who's coming for me?"
MORPHEUS: "Stand up and see for yourself."
Here, Neo stands up and looks toward the elevator, only to find the
agents of the A I and the police heading his way. Morpheus tries to show him how
to escape by crawling along a ledge on the outside of the high rise building,
but Neo is afraid of heights, and so he gives up and is taken to be
interrogated. There the agents put a bug in him and turn him loose. They will
track him without him knowing it, hoping he will lead them to Morpheus.
During the interrogation, Agent Smith, the chief villain, says to
Neo, "We know that you have been contacted by a certain individual.
A man who calls himself Morpheus.
Whatever you think you know about this man is irrelevant to the fact that
he is wanted for acts of terrorism in more countries than any other man in the
world. He is considered by many
authorities to be the most dangerous man alive."
When a person allows himself be transformed by the Spirit of God,
he is no longer of this world. The world under Satan knows that and sees him as
an enemy. This is why true followers of Christ are targets in this world and the
worldly church system. Jesus put it this way,
For he who is not against us is on our side. (Mark 9:40, NKJV).
In Galatians, Paul wrote about the those under the law persecuting
those who follow the Spirit and the
war that goes on between them.
Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the
law?
The next morning after the agents turn Neo loose, he gets a phone
call from Morpheus, who says, "You're the One, Neo. You see, you may have spent
the last few years looking for me, but I've spent most of my life looking for
you." We often hear a Christian testify that they "found Jesus." In reality, God
chases us down and finds us. Isaiah wrote:
I was sought by those who
did not ask for Me; I was found by
those who did not seek Me. I said,
"Here I am, here I am," to a nation that
was not called by My name. (Isaiah 65:1, NKJV).
The next night the crew of the Nebachudnezzar meets Neo inside the
Matrix on a rainy city street where they debug him and take him to Morpheus.
The dialogue which follows is very interesting.
MORPHEUS: "I imagine, right now, you must be feeling a bit like
Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole?"
NEO: "You could say that."
MORPHEUS: "I can see it in your eyes.
You have the look of a man who accepts what
NEO: "You're Morpheus, you're a legend. Most hackers would die to
meet you."
MORPHEUS: "Yes. Thank you. But I think we both know there's more to
it than that. Do you believe in
fate, Neo?"
NEO: "No."
MORPHEUS: "Why not?"
NEO: "Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my
life."
MORPHEUS: "I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you
are here. You have come because you know something.
What you know you can't explain but you feel it.
You've felt it your whole life, felt that something is wrong with the
world. You don't know what, but it's there like a splinter in your mind, driving
you mad. It is this feeling that brought you to me.
Do you know what I'm talking about?"
NEO: "The Matrix?"
MORPHEUS: "Do you want to know what it is?"
Neo swallows hard and nods.
MORPHEUS: "The Matrix is everywhere, it's all around us, here even
in this room. You can see it out your window or on your television.
You feel it when you go to work, or go to church or pay your taxes.
It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the
truth.
NEO: "What truth?"
MORPHEUS: "That you are a slave, Neo.
Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, kept inside a prison that
you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one
can be told what the Matrix is. You
have to see it for yourself."
Jesus said to the religious ones of Jerusalem,
Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If
you abide in My word, then you are
truly disciples of Mine;
They answered Him, "We are Abraham's offspring, and have never yet
been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You shall become free'?"
Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who
commits sin is the slave of sin. And the slave does not remain in the house
forever; the son does remain forever.
As the scene continue
Morpheus opens his hands.
In the right is a red pill.
In the left, a blue pill.
MORPHEUS: "This is your last chance.
After this, there is no going back.
You take the blue pill and the story ends.
You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You
take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit
hole goes."
Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, the moisture growing in
his palms.
MORPHEUS: "Remember that all I am offering is the truth. Nothing
more."
Neo opens his mouth and swallows the red pill.
MORPHEUS: "Follow me."
In this discourse there are a number of similarities with how we
come to Christ. First, we are introduced to the idea that there is another world
that we are not part of, the kingdom of God. Often we heard Him calling
us during our lives, but didn't recognize His voice. He saves some from death by
miraculous acts. Others have a
perception of a spiritual presence in their lives. Some have a great emptiness
in themselves that they try to fill with the things that the world has to offer,
but nothing satisfies.
When the spiritual world starts to open up,
most of us feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole into a new world
we have never experienced before. When we become aware that we must give up
control of our lives, we are not sure that is a step we want to take. To enter
fully into the kingdom of God it is necessary for us to give all control over to
Jesus, for He is the Head of His body, the
called out ones who believe.
It takes some of us years to understand just how thorough a
delusion the enemy has woven into our lives. As Morpheus puts it,
"The Matrix is everywhere, it's all around us, here even in this room. You
can see it out your window or on your television.
You feel it when you go to work, or go to church or pay your taxes.
It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the
truth."
It is easy to see the difference between the lusts of this world
system and those things that are spiritual. We can see it all around us in the
television, at work, and in the oppressive tax system of social government. But
it takes most of us many years to see the difference between the Matrix in the
church systems and the real kingdom of God. The church systems of today are not
the same as the infant church set in motion by the Spirit in the New Testament.
Anyone who abides in that system are soon taken captive to its desires for its
own purposes. It takes many years and much revelation from God before
captivity to this religious system is broken.
Morpheus here is a type of Christ. He is calling us to come out of
all forms of bondage and be free in Him. As Morpheus explains to Neo, "You are a
slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you
were born into bondage, kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or
touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix
is. You have to see it for
yourself."
Jesus came to set the captives free. Much to the chagrin of the
religious system of that time, Jesus was not interested in kicking the Romans
out of Israel, but setting the
people free of religious tyranny. Of Roman's heavy taxation Jesus said, "Render
therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are
God's." When speaking of the religious leaders he was more specific:
But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up
the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in
yourselves, nor do you allow those who
are entering to go in.
Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that
sanctifies the gold?
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of
mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier
matters of the law: justice and mercy
and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like
whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full
of dead men's bones and all
uncleanness.
Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of
those who murdered the prophets.
Yes, like Morpheus told Neo, we have to see it for ourselves. Many
of us have been beaten up for years by those in control of the church because we
have dared to let the Spirit of Christ become manifest in us.
Controllers are always threatened by the freedom of the Spirit as He
blows through their carefully orchestrated meetings. It is the grace of God that
keeps us at odds with this system, locked outside their inner circles, for He is
calling us outside the gates of Christendom unto Jesus who suffered outside the
religious camp of the Jews. It is there He has set His spiritual table for us to
feast from (See Hebrews 13:10-14).
The pill that Neo took that led him to freedom was red.
Jesus purchased our freedom by the shedding of His blood, and
we must follow Jesus if we are to find our total freedom. Jesus said,,
"Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can not be my disciples."
After Neo swallows the red pill, Morpheus goes on to tell Neo.
"The pill you took is part of a trace program.
It's designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signal so we can
pinpoint your location."
NEO: "What does that
mean?"
CYPHER: "It means buckle up, Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going
bye-bye."
Once we have truly been born again, we are no longer of this world
or its sin nature. We become aliens and pilgrims in a strange land. We have
rejected the control of this world, and it rejects us.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may
abound?
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place
which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he
was going.
In the next scene we see the Matrix rejecting Neo's body and
flushing him down the sewer. The crew of the Nebuchadnezzar rescues him, just
like Jesus the good Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine in search of the one.
Where did the church get the idea that people should come into one of their
buildings to get saved?
On that day Jesus went out of the house, and was sitting by the
sea.
We also need to follow His example and go out of the house to where
the starving people are found.
Next we see Neo waking up in the Nebuchadnezzar with body and soul
together for the first time,, asking Morpheus, "Am I dead?"
MORPHEUS: "Far from it."
NEO: "Why do my eyes hurt?
MORPHEUS: "It is the first time you have used them."
How true! While in the world and its worldly churches we are every
bit as blind as the Jews who rejected Jesus as their Messiah.
When He rescues us from all that,
we start to see things in the light of the Spirit. Because we had never
before used our spiritual eyes,
some of the things He wants to show us hurt.
Next Morpheus tells Neo, "Rest Neo, the answers are coming." In
entering into the Father's rest we find all the answers we need to walk out the kingdom in
this world. It is not by our might or power that we must walk, but by His
Spirit. To walk in His seventh day rest is to walk in the Spirit just as Jesus
did (see Hebrews chapters three and four).
The next day Neo wakes up in his own room on the ship and is taken
on a tour. As he is introduced to
the crew by Morpheus, they walk by the ship's plaque. It reads "Nebuchadnezzar -
Mark 3 No. 11"
Mark 3:11 reads:
And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before
Him and cried out, saying, "You are the Son of God." (Mark 3:11, NKJV).
With the help of the port on the back of Neo's head left over form
his captivity in the Matrix, Neo is plugged into a computer program. This
program is used by Morpheus to give
him a tour of the Matrix. Neo sees the vast fields of fetuses
grown to give the machine
the power it needs to survive. Finally it ends in this discourse:
MORPHEUS: "What is the Matrix? Control."
He opens the back of the television remote control.
MORPHEUS: "The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to
keep us under
He holds up a coppertop battery.
NEO: "No! I don't
believe it! It's not possible!"
MORPHEUS: "I didn't say that it would be easy, Neo.
I just said that it would be the truth."
Control is the issue between REAL life and death. Everything about
this world system seeks to control its occupants. Control is everywhere,
draining us of our lives. But there is one great difference between this world
system and God. God does not control His people. He leads them like a good
Shepherd. He goes before them, calling them by name and they know His voice and
follow Him. This is NOT control, but willing submission
out of hearts of love for Him. John chapter ten teaches us about His ways
as our Shepherd.
So many are still living in a Satanic controlled dream world that
holds them captive and sucks the life out of them. The greatest
delusion is the religions of
men, for they give the perception of spirituality without giving their adherents
spiritual freedom to follow the Spirit.
Not many people can stand to see the whole truth, because in
accepting the truth we must make some changes. The moment we refuse to be
changed by the truth is the moment we
are back under the control of the lie
and once again under the control of The Matrix.
The coming of the
lawless one is according to the
working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,
Next we see Neo back on the ship, unplugged from the construct
program, struggling with the truth.
NEO: "I can't go back, can
I?"
MORPHEUS: "No. But if you could, would you really want to?"
Deep down, Neo knows that answer.
MORPHEUS: "I feel that I
owe you an apology. There is a rule that we do not free a mind once it reaches a
certain age. It is dangerous. They have trouble letting go. Their mind turns against them. I've seen
it happen. I broke the rule because
I had to."
This is so true. The older we get and the longer we are in the
world systems, the harder it is for
us to get free. All the ones Jesus called as His disciples were young men in
their twenties. When old Nicodemus came to Jesus one night, he was unable to
understand the simplest of spiritual terms. The wineskin had already started to
harden.
Morpheus continues: "When the Matrix was first built there was a
man born inside that had the ability to change what he wanted, to remake the
Matrix as he saw fit. It was this man that freed the first of us and taught us
the secret of the war; control the Matrix and you control the future, When he
died, the Oracle prophesied his return and envisioned an end to the war and
freedom for our people. That is why there are those of us
that have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix, looking for him. I
did what I did because I believe the search is over."
Paul wrote of this:
And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being."
The last Adam became a life-giving
spirit.
Jesus is that Life-giving Spirit. He is the one that has come to
end the war.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken
down the middle wall of separation,
The dialogue continues:
NEO: "I know what you're trying to do --"
MORPHEUS: "I'm trying to free your mind, Neo, but all I can do is
show you the door. You're the one
that has to step through."
Once we are saved, the problem is in our minds. Our minds have to
become totally free. We must see ourselves as IN CHRIST beyond any doubt in
order to walk in His power and authority. The door is there for us to step
through just as it was for John in the Revelation.
After these things I looked, and behold, a door
standing open in heaven. And the first
voice which I heard was like a trumpet
speaking with me, saying, "Come up here,
and I will show you things which must take place after this."
For a long time we Christians have left Jesus standing outside the
door of our Laodicean churches
while we were all snug inside. We thought that we were spiritually rich and
needed nothing, selling short the kingdom of God, but all the time God saw us as
mere babes needing milk. Sunday after Sunday we hear basic rudiments of faith
preached again and again and we never go on to anything more. (see Hebrews 4:12
to 5:2)
He is calling us higher than the rudimentary levels of this world
and sacramental religion. We are called to NOW dwell in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus (see Ephesians 1:3, 1:20, 2:6, 3:10, and 6:12). From here in
heavenly places the bride is seen coming down, the New Jerusalem from above.
Morpheus continues: "Let it all go, Neo. Fear. Doubt. Disbelief.
Free your mind."
We, too, can miss it. Yes, WE who have been baptized in Christ!
How? By refusing to walk in faith and follow Him into an ever increasing level
of obedience. We must enter into
His rest and there find the faith we need to walk after Him in our daily lives.
In a later training program, Neo is taken into a downtown Chicago
scene bustling with people. Here Morpheus explains to Neo, "It is important to
understand that if you are not one of us, you are one of them." Jesus put it
this way: "No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and
love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You
cannot serve God and mammon." Mammon is all the enticements of this world with
which it seeks to control you through your carnal nature and lust for gain.
There is no middle ground. The carnal nature is at war against God.
Because the carnal mind is
enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
Here in this program Neo encounters an agent of the A I that morphs
from the form of a beautiful woman into his real self. Morpheus explains the
threat to Neo. "The agents are sentient programs. They can enter any software
that is hardwired to the system. They can become anyone who is still a captive
of the Matrix. It the Matrix is a prison, then the agents are its wardens and if
humankind is to survive they first must be stopped."
Morpheus: "I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall.
Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit noting but air.
Yet as powerful as they are, their speed and strength are but tethers to
the rules of an unreal world.
Because of this, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.
Neo scratches his head.
NEO: " What?
Are you trying to tell me that I can dodge bullets?"
MORPHEUS: "No, Neo.
I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to."
As powerful as Satan and his minions might be, God has placed a
greater power in those who are His --a power over demons, sickness and death,
the power to reverse the entropy brought into this world through sin.
Later, not knowing it, Neo catches Cypher at the computer controls
of the ship making a deal with Agent Smith. Cypher is willing to sell his body
back into the Matrix if he can become a movie star and live the rest of his life
in the delusion of success, living high on the hog, with the reality outside the
Matrix erased from his mind. For this bit of delusion, he agrees to turn over
Morpheus, the only one with the password to access the mainframe computer in
Zion. Here the plot starts to thicken. Judas is about to sell out the crew of
the Nebuchadnezzar and turn Morpheus over to the agents.
Finally, the day comes when Morpheus takes Neo to see the Oracle
and here is Cypher's chance to betray Morpheus. Inside the Matrix and in the
city once again, Cypher turns on his cell phone and drops it in a nearby garbage
can so the agents can follow its
signal.
In the car a dialogue goes on between Trinity and Neo,
who recognizes some of the city where his mind was once a captive in
non-existence:
NEO: "I have these memories, from my entire life but... none of
them really happened."
He turns to her.
NEO: "What does that
mean?"
TRINITY: "That the
Matrix cannot tell you who you are."
NEO: "But an Oracle can."
So many people in this world are seeking an identity from the
system that sucks the life out of them. They spend all their lives trying to
build a legacy and a name for themselves or serving some insidious sin that
controls them through the lusts of their body. They look to the Matrix to tell
them who they are.
Finally in his meeting with the Oracle she tells him, "Sorry, kid.
You got the gift, but it looks like you are waiting for something… your next
life, maybe. Who knows. That's how these things go… "
How many of the promises of the Bible for its kingdom people do we
delegate to the next life? The older I get and the more God opens my eyes, the
less I apply the words of the scriptures to the next life, but see it as all ONE
life and see that "ALL scripture is
given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness…" The dispensational teachings of men have made too much of the
Bible of no effect in the lives of God's saints today.
The Oracle continues, "Morpheus believes in you, Neo and no one,
not you or even me can convince him otherwise. He believe it so blindly that
he's going to sacrifice his life to save yours."
Jesus believes in us, and He believes in the power of His Father to
bring us forth into the fellowship of the Son. He believed this so much that He
gave His life so we could be joint heirs of that inheritance with Him. Paul
wrote to the Romans,
Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit
is, because He makes intercession for
the saints according to the will of
God.
Later in a hotel they are climbing the stairs on their way back to
the Nebuchadnezzar. Trinity has this dialogue with Neo:
TRINITY: "What did you just say?"
NEO: "Nothing. Just
had a little deja vu."
TRINITY: "What happened?
What did you see?"
NEO: "A black cat went past us and then I saw another that looked
just like it."
TRINITY: "How much like it?
Was it the same cat?"
NEO: "It might have been.
I'm not sure."
Trinity looks at Morpheus who listens quietly to the rasping breath
of the old building.
NEO: "What is it?"
TRINITY: "A deja vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix.
It happens when they change
The more things in Satan's evil kingdom change, the more they
remain the same. He is not original except in his own rebellion and passing that
rebellion on to men. He has succeeded in deluding man over and over with the
same root of temptation generated in his own heart. Of him Isaiah prophesied,
For you have said in your heart: "I will ascend into heaven, I will
exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the
congregation On the farthest sides of the north;
Oh to be like God. On the surface this seems to be a godly goal,
but is really rebellion. Man is not called to imitate God, but to yield to Him
and let His Spirit manifest His will in us.
It is not "What would Jesus do?" as if we could imagine what God would do
in any situation, much less have the power to do it. No, it is rather, "what is
Jesus doing in us at this moment as His saints?" This is the difference between
rebellion and yielding. The spiritual man knows
there is no good thing in his old nature.
Finally, they all escape the agents and police of the Matrix except
Morpheus, who lays down his life for Neo and the others. He is not killed, but
taken to be interrogated in a very secure police building. Cypher gets back to
the ship before the others and continues his betrayal by unplugging the rest of
the crew while they are still in the Matrix, killing them. He comes to Neo and
just as he is about to unplug his body, Tank revives from the wound inflicted by
Cypher and kills the traitor. Once back on the ship, Neo hatches a plan to save
Morpheus and is determined to go it alone. Trinity convinces him that she must
go with him for him to succeed. God calls us to function and minister as a body,
not a bunch of one-man bands.
In the mean time in the government building where Morpheus is being
hel
Agent Smith stands, staring out the windows at the city below
shimmering with brilliant sunlight.
AGENT SMITH: "Have you ever stood and stared at it, Morpheus?
Marveled at its beauty.
Its genius. Billions of
people just living out their lives... oblivious."
Morpheus is handcuffed to a chair, stripped to the waist. He is
alternately shivering and sweating, wired to various monitors with white disk
electrodes. Beside him, Agent Brown
sucks a serum from a glass vial, filling a hypodermic needle.
AGENT SMITH: "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be
a perfect human
Agent Brown jams the needle into Morpheus' neck and plunges down.
AGENT SMITH: "Some believed we lacked the programming language to
describe your perfect world.
But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality
through suffering and misery."
Agent Brown studies the screens as the life signs react violently
to the injection.
AGENT SMITH: "The perfect world was a dream that your primitive
cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of
your civilization."
He turns from the window.
AGENT SMITH: "I say 'your civilization' because as soon as we
started thinking for you, it really became our civilization, which is, of
course, what this is all about."
When Satan and his minions found themselves cast out of heaven and
without bodies , they set out to take this world captive for their own use. They
still seek our bodies to manifest themselves. They use delusion and lies to
control us so that they can manifest the real evil that drives them. This is
where all the pain and suffering of this world comes from.
Agent Smith sits down directly in front of Morpheus.
AGENT SMITH: "Evolution, Morpheus. Evolution."
He lifts Morpheus' head.
AGENT SMITH: "Like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You had your
time."
Morpheus stares hard at him, trying not to show the pain racking
his mind.
AGENT SMITH: "The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our
time."
Here we see the insidious plan of Satan at work. The first world
was perfect, and God considered everything He created was good. Satan set out to
be the god of this perfect world. By deceiving man and getting him to join the
rebellion against God, Satan became
its ruler. Man fell for the same lie that was in Satan's heart, "If you eat of
this tree you shall be like God, knowing both good and evil." Upon man's fall,
entire crops were lost. Man was doomed to die in his sin. God then enacted the
rest of His plan by putting in motion a sequence of events among men that would
make way for the advent of His Son who would suffer and die for mankind that
they might be saved and conformed into His own image.
In a sense Agent Smith is right, "human beings define their reality
through suffering and misery." As Paul put it:
. . .that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the
fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
Without suffering and tribulation there is no entering the kingdom
of heaven (see Acts 14:22).
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
This quote from Agent Smith is interesting, "I say 'your
civilization' because as
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which
the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You
shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"
Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.
So when the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make
one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her
husband with her, and he ate.
God nowhere said that touching the tree in the midst of the garden
would cause them to die. She was now thinking for herself, or was she? Her
thoughts were really put in her mind by the enemy. Satan accused God of lying to
man to protect His own self interest and tells Eve,
"You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it
your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Here
is the folly of religious man. He still eats of this tree today. He is
constantly deciding for himself what is good and what is evil. "We don't smoke
and we don't chew and we don't go with the girls that do!"
Jesus must have used a different measuring stick, because
the religious leaders of Israel were constantly offended by His actions.
He ate with sinners and harlots. His disciples did not observe the ceremonial
washing of hands before they ate. They were constantly breaking the Sabbath, at
least according to these self-righteous ones who ruled by the law over the
people of Israel.
Jesus did not walk by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
He walked by the Tree of Life. When the Pharisees came at Him with a good and
evil question, He gave an answer that rendered life. We would do well to learn
form Him and listen to the Father of all life as He did. Here is an example:
Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in
adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,
This they said, testing Him, that they might have
something of which to accuse Him. But
Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with
His finger, as though He did not hear.
Then those who heard it,
being convicted by their conscience,
went out one by one, beginning with the oldest
even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing
in the midst.
When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He
said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned
you?"
She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I
condemn you; go and sin no more." (John 8:3-11, NKJV).
Jesus did not answer
according to a law, but gave the poor woman life and freed her of condemnation
and sin. Jesus did not come to fortify their religion, nor did He come to
establish a new one that was better. He came that all men might have life and
that more abundantly. He came to reverse the curse that came upon man when he
listened to the serpent. He came to give man another chance to learn to hear the
voice of the Father speaking to him in love. Isaiah prophesied of this when he
said,
And though the Lord gives
you The bread of adversity and the water of affliction, Yet your teachers will
not be moved into a corner anymore, But your eyes shall see your teachers.
John put it this way,
But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you,
and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you
concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught
you, you will abide in Him.
In the following dialogue Neo, and Trinity argue over whether it is
Neo--who will save the world--or Morpheus who really counts:
TRINITY: "Neo, Morpheus sacrificed himself so he could get you
out."
NEO: "Morpheus did what he did because he believed that I'm
something I'm not."
TRINITY: "What?"
NEO: "I'm not the One, Trinity. The Oracle hit me with that too."
Trinity is stunned.
TRINITY: "No, you... have to be."
NEO: "I'm sorry, I'm not.
I'm just another guy. Morpheus is the one that matters."
TRINITY: "No, Neo. That's not true It can't be true."
NEO: "Why?"
TRINITY: "Because..."
Uncertainty swallows her words and she is unable to tell him what
she wants to.
Christ came to not only die for our sins so we would not have to,
but to prepare the way so that we could walk before the Father like He does. For
many people, this causes the same confusion we see here in this dialogue between Neo and Trinity.
Morpheus, a type of Christ, IS the one that counts, but at the same time
we count, too, because we are becoming one with him As Jesus prayed in
that last hour before He was to go to the cross:
They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known
You; and these have known that You sent Me.
All the way through this prayer of His, "I" and "them" are
mentioned together. This is the goal of the gospel and the Christian
life--Christ in us the hope of glory (Colossians
1:27).
The dialogue back onboard the Nebuchadnezzar continues:
TANK: "Neo, this is loco. They've got Morpheus in a
military-controlled building. Even if you somehow got inside, those are agents
holding him. Three of them!
I want Morpheus back, too, but what you are talking about is suicide."
NEO: "I know that's what it looks like, but it's not.
I can't logically explain to you why it's not. Morpheus believed
something and he was ready to give his life for what he believed.
I understand that now. That's why I have to go.
TANK: "Why?"
NEO: "Because I believe in something."
For the first three hundred years of the church, the people of God
laid down their lives for Christ and millions of them died at the hands of the
Jewish leaders and Roman despots. They believed in something because Jesus led
the way and first laid down His life for that same goal. They considered it an
honor to die for their faith in Christ. Like Moses, the momentary comforts of
this world could not hold them back from going the distance.
By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son
of Pharaoh’s daughter,
Neo and Trinity arm themselves in the construct and Tank transports
them into the Matrix where they manage to rescue Morpheus from the agents in
spite of the seemingly insurmountable odds. Afterwards we hear this exchange
between Neo and Morpheus before they are able to exit the Matrix:
NEO: "Morpheus, the Oracle... she told me --"
MORPHEUS: "She told you exactly what you needed to hear.
That's all. Sooner or
Here is the crux of our dilemma as faithful saints in Christ. Are
we going to just give lip service to the promises of Christ or are we going to
start living them out by the power of His Spirit? Someone once said, "You are
what you believe." The longer you live, the more you will see this is true.
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Finally, Morpheus and Trinity manage to escape back to their ship,
but before Neo can get out an agent materializes and thwarts his exit on a
subway platform below the city. Morpheus, Trinity and Tank watch the
confrontation between the two foes. Neo looks toward the stairs as if to make a
run for it, but turns back to face Agent Smith.
TRINITY: "What is he doing?"
MORPHEUS: "He's beginning to believe."
When we really begin to believe, we start walking that way. We
become what we believe in Christ. The theme of this whole movie focuses on
getting Neo to believe that he is "the one." Morpheus believes he is; Trinity
wants to, and that belief grows with each leap of maturity Neo takes.
At what point are we saved? Some say you are saved when you "accept
Christ as your personal Savior." Yet, the Bible says that we were in Christ from
the foundations of the world. Paul wrote, "Do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what
is that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God." (Romans 12:1,2, NKJV). True salvation is a process that is
ongoing. The process is not complete until we come into the fullness of Christ
and walk out our faith like the Master did on this earth, "that where I am, they
might be also." As Paul wrote:
. . .that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the
fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
Neo battles against Agent Smith and finally wins--for a moment.
Agent Smith gets run over by a subway train as they struggle, but then pops out
of the interior of the train car as it stops and the doors open. At this Neo
takes off up the stairs on a dead run. The chase is on through the bustling
streets of Chicago with all three agents after him. Finally, Neo climbs the fire
escape on the back of the Heart of the City Hotel and dives into room 303 where
a phone is ringing, his method of exit from the Matrix. But
Agent Smith is there with gun drawn, waiting for him. Neo sees the barrel
of the gun pointing at him and then "BOOM!" Neo is shot in the chest. He
staggers back, "Boom" again and again. Neo staggers out into the hall and slumps
down against the opposite wall leaving a streak of blood on the wall as he hits
the floor, dead.
AGENT SMITH: "Check him."
Kneeling beside him, Agent Brown checks his vital signs.
AGENT BROWN: "He's gone."
Agent Smith smiles, standing over him.
AGENT SMITH: "Good-bye, Mr. Anderson."
Meanwhile, back on the Nebachudnezzar, they have been fighting
their own battle against the Sentinels, octopus like robots armed with lasers
that can cut into the ship. The
sentinels have been sent out by the A I to destroy them. They have a dilemma.
The crew's only defense is to fire their electro-magnetic pulse weapon that
disables the sentinels but also
breaks the electronic tie to Neo
and kills him.
Neo appears dead in the hallway of the cheap hotel, surrounded by
the three agents, but Trinity believes that he will raise from the dead. This
reminds me of the scene of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, speaking to Martha
Lazarus' sister.
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who
believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
She said to Him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the
Son of God, who is to come into the world." (John 11:23-27, NKJV).
Back on the ship, Trinity speaks into the lifeless body of Neo in
the chair where it is plugged into the Matrix.
TRINITY: "Neo, please, listen to me. I promised to tell you the
rest. The Oracle, she told me that I'd fall in love and that man, the man I
loved would be the One. You see?
You can't be dead, Neo, you can't be because I love you.
You hear me? I love you!"
Her eyes close and she kisses him, believing in all her heart that
he will feel her lips and know that they speak the truth.
He does. And they do.
His eyes snap open.
Back on the main deck of the ship, Trinity screams as the MONITORS
JUMP back to LIFE. Tank and
Morpheus look at each other. It is a miracle.
TRINITY: "Now get up!"
In the hall of the hotel. Holding his chest, Neo struggles to get
up. At the end of the hall, the Agents wait for the elevator when Agent Smith
glances back. He rips off his
sunglasses looking at Neo as if he were looking at a ghost.
Neo gets to his feet, all three Agents grabbing for their GUNS.
As one, they FIRE.
NEO: "No!"
Neo raises his hands and the bullets, like a cloud of obedient
bees, slow and come to a stop. They
hang frozen in space, fixed like stainless steel stars.
The Agents are unable to absorb what they are seeing.
Neo plucks one of the bullets from the air.
He drops the bullet and the others fall to the floor.
Neo looks out, now able to see through the curtain of the Matrix.
For a moment, the walls, the floor, even the Agents become a rushing
stream of computer code.
Back on the main deck of the ship. all three stare transfixed with
awe as the scrolling code accelerates, faster and faster, as if the machine
language was unable to keep up or describe what is happening.
They begin to blur with brilliant saturated color images of Neo
standing in the hall.
TANK: "How...?!"
MORPHEUS: "He is the One.
He is the One!"
An explosion shakes the entire ship.
Back in the hotel hall, Agent Smith screams, his calm machine-like
expression shredding with pure rage.
He rushes Neo. His
attack is ferocious but Neo blocks each blow easily.
Then with one quick strike to the chest he sends Agent Smith flying
backwards.
For the first time since their inception, the Agents know fear.
Agent Smith gets up and attacks again but as he lunges, Neo
disappears.
Spinning around he looks to the others and feels something, like a
tremor before a quake, something deep, something that is going to change
everything.
Suddenly a SEARING sound stabs through his earpiece as his chest
begins to swell, then balloon as --
Neo bursts up out of him.
Agent Smith screams, fighting what seems inevitable as Neo absorbs and
envelops him, overtaking Smith as if he were now an Agent, until --
Only Neo is left.
Neo faces the remaining Agents.
They look at each other, the same idea striking simultaneously --
They run.
In Christ we who are his saints, win over the wicked one.