Rise and Rise Again Until the Docile Lambs Become Conquering Lions

There is a line in the flick, "Robin Hood" (2010), starring Russell Crowe (as Robin Longstride a.one thousand.a. Robin Hood) and Cate Blanchett (as Lady Marion) that is etched in Robin's memory from babyhood. Thinking that his begetter had deserted him equally a very immature child, he learns as the flick unfolds that the line was said by his male parent, who also carved it into a stone. Eventually Robin learns from i of his father'south now elderly friends, Sir Walter Loxley (male parent-in-law to Lady Marion) that his father was actually beheaded when Robin was a kid of almost six years quondam. This scene is available on YouTube at the post-obit link. In the prune, Robin learns that his father was non only a stonemason, just a visionary, who believed that "kings have a demand of their subjects, no less than subjects accept a demand of kings" (quote from YouTube clip). He believed in the rights of all ranks from baron to serf, and thousands took up his cause. A charter was created by his father with the signatures of many barons who believed in his crusade; nevertheless, the king did non. When the king's men showed up to get the charter with the names of the barons from him, he refused to requite it to them, and he was beheaded. The post-obit line stated by his father became the rally cry of the movement and was carved in stone:

Rise and ascension over again until lambs get lions.

When later asked past his comrades what information technology meant, Robin said that it meant "Never give upwardly."

Every bit groundwork information, a plot of the movie follows (Source: Wikipedia):

In 1199 A.D., Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is a mutual archer in the regular army of Rex Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston). A veteran of Richard'south crusade, he now takes part in the siege of Chalus Castle. Disillusioned and war-weary, he believes the Male monarch when invited to requite an honest view of the war; after Robin gives a frank but unflattering appraisement of the King's comport, Robin and his comrades – archers Allan A'Dayle (Alan Doyle) and Volition Scarlett (Scott Grimes) and soldier Little John (Kevin Durand) – find themselves in the stocks.

When the Male monarch is slain during an attack on the castle, Robin and his men decide to free themselves and desert. They come across an ambush of the English language imperial guard by Godfrey (Marking Stiff), an English language knight who has conspired with King Philip of France to assassinate Richard. Later chasing off Godfrey, Robin decides to take advantage of the situation by having his men impersonate the expressionless English knights to return to England. As they depart, Robin promises one of the dying knights, Sir Robert Loxley (Douglas Hodge), to render his sword to his begetter (Sir Walter Loxley) in Nottingham.

Upon arriving in London, Robin assumes the identity of the slain Loxley to inform the royal family of the King's decease. He witnesses the coronation of King John (Oscar Isaac), who orders harsh new taxes to exist collected, dispatching Sir Godfrey to the Due north to do so – unaware that Godfrey will instead apply French troops to stir up unrest and create an opening for Philip to invade England.

Robin and his companions head to Nottingham, where Loxley's elderly and blind male parent, Sir Walter (Max von Sydow), asks him to continue impersonating his son, to prevent the family lands being taken past the Crown. Loxley'due south widow, Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett), is initially cold toward Robin, but warms to him, when he and his men merrily recover tithed grain for the townsfolk to plant.

Godfrey's actions accept incited the northern barons, who march to meet King John. Speaking now for Sir Walter, Robin proposes the Male monarch hold to a charter of rights to ensure the rights of every Englishman and unite his state. Having realized Godfrey's deception, and knowing he must see the French invasion with an army, the King agrees. Meanwhile, the French marauders plunder Nottingham. Robin and the northern barons go far and terminate Godfrey's men, merely not earlier Godfrey has slain the bullheaded Sir Walter.

As the French begin their invasion on the beach below the Cliffs of Dover, Robin leads the united English army against them. In the midst of the boxing, Robin duels with Godfrey, who attempts to kill Marion and flees earlier Robin finally pierces him with an pointer from afar. Philip realizes his plan to split England has failed and calls off his invasion. When King John sees the French surrender to Robin instead of himself, he senses a threat to his power. In London John reneges on his hope to sign the charter, instead declaring Robin an outlaw to exist hunted throughout the kingdom. The Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen) announces the decree every bit Robin and his men flee to Sherwood Forestwith the orphans of Nottingham. Marion narrates their new life in the greenwood, noting that they live in equality as they correct the many wrongs in the kingdom of Rex John. (Quote source here.)

At that place is also one other character not noted in the plot higher up by the name of William Marshall (William Hurt). "When King Richard died childless in 1189, William (function of the regency appointed by King Richard to govern in his absenteeism) supported the succession of John, and once again was welcomed to the courtroom of a one-fourth dimension adversary and new rex. William soon had a falling out with the new male monarch, but in spite of this he would advocate on the side of John confronting the other barons in the issuance of Magna Carta in 1215." (Quote source here.) He was also a friend of Robin's father and was witness to his begetter'south beheading.

When Robin told his comrades that the saying, "Ascension and rise over again until lambs become lions," meant that they should "never give up," it immediately brought to mind what Jesus told his disciples in the Parable of the Persistent Widow in Luke 18:1-8, specifically in poetry ane which is a lead-in to the parable:

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to prove them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town in that location was a gauge who neither feared God nor cared what people idea. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fright God or care what people call up, even so because this widow keeps bothering me, I will come across that she gets justice, and then that she won't eventually come up and set on me!'"

And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust guess says. And will not God bring virtually justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he go along putting them off? I tell you, he will run across that they get justice, and rapidly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he discover faith on the earth?"

I found the following comment that was posted on "Bibleornot.org," from a guy ("stevec828") who watched the movie and stated the following:

I just saw the Russell Crowe, Ridley Scott movie Robin Hood, and this quote was a transforming saying that Robin Longstride, a.thousand.a. Robin of the Hood, learned equally a boy and remembered as a man.

"Rise and rise over again until lambs go lions." – Robin Hood the Motion picture, 2010

When asked by Little John and Will Carmine what this saying meant, Robin Hood explained something akin to Winston Churchhill, and to our American founding fathers. Information technology means never give up for the crusade of freedom, never, ever give up. Rise, and ascension again, until the docile lambs become conquering lions.

While this is not a quote from the Bible, there are some spiritual overtones about perseverance, and fighting the good fight. Get a little deeper and you could recollect about the cause of freedom and how it is worthy for one to lay downwards his life for it. In the film, Robin Hood'southward father died in defense of it. In the Bible, Jesus Christ lays down his life so that all mankind could be gear up gratuitous, i.e., set at freedom (Isaiah 61:one).

Go even deeper, and we can connect this to the salvation process of being born once more, and how God remolds us and reshapes united states over and over again until we become what he has intended us to be. This is especially truthful for those He has called into the ministry and positions of leadership within the Church. Consider the Apostles, starting out every bit fishermen, tax collectors, etc., little lambs following Christ for 3 years but afterward the infusion of the Holy Ghost, they become lions for the Gospel.

Go even deeper, yeah we could go on and on, and consider Jesus Christ Himself. He was a Lamb led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7), who laid down His life, but to rise on the 3rd twenty-four hours. I twenty-four hour period he volition come again, in essence, rise once again out of Heaven to bring judgment upon the earth. And in this second coming He is coming every bit the Panthera leo of Judah. Rise, and ascent again until the Lamb becomes the King of beasts (Revelation 5:5, Revelation xix:eleven-16).

OK. Reality bank check. Information technology's just a quote from a movie. So what's the bespeak? The signal is that within many inspirational quotes we can detect, or be inspired to observe, truth from the Word of God. Even in the simplest of things, similar a blade of grass, or pismire walking beyond a sidewalk, or a line from a moving-picture show, we can detect lessons out of the Word of God.

The Give-and-take of God is all effectually usa, if nosotros simply open our eyes to see it. (Quote source here.)

This statement is something that I, too, have discovered especially in these past six and a half years since I lost my job in Houston. We frequently tend to put what we retrieve of God inside a box of our own making. We have a groovy tendency to separate the "sacred" from the "secular" and while at that place is definitely a sacred sphere to our worship of God, He is, indeed, not limited past our own thinking and can be constitute, as the author of the comment above stated, "fifty-fifty in the simplest of things." And in the most profound of things, too.

One of the areas that seems to rankle a number of Christians is when supposedly "secular" things are equated, or brought alongside, with things that they consider to be "sacred." The "secular" things just don't seem to fit in with their globe of "sacred." In other words, they split their lives into "sacred" and "secular," and "never the twain shall meet."  A.W. Tozer(1897-1963) wrote most this very dilemma in his classic book, "The Pursuit of God," Chapter ten:

One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into 2 areas, the sacred and the secular. As these areas are conceived to be apart from each other and to exist morally and spiritually incompatible, and as we are compelled past the necessities of living to be always crossing back and forth from the ane to the other, our inner lives tend to break upward so that we live a divided instead of a unified life.

Our problem springs from the fact that we who follow Christ inhabit at once two worlds, the spiritual and the natural. As children of Adam nosotros alive our lives on earth subject to the limitations of the mankind and the weaknesses and ills to which human nature is heir.

Merely to live amid men requires of us years of difficult toil and much intendance and attention to the things of this world. In sharp contrast to this is our life in the Spirit. There we savor another and higher kind of life; we are children of God; we possess heavenly status and enjoy intimate fellowship with Christ.

This tends to divide our total life into ii departments. We come unconsciously to recognize ii sets of deportment. The kickoff are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and a house assurance that they are pleasing to God. These are the sacred acts and they are usually thought to exist prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, church attendance and such other acts as spring directly from organized religion. They may be known by the fact that they accept no directly relation to this world, and would have no meaning whatsoever except equally faith shows us another world, "a firm non made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Over confronting these sacred acts are the secular ones. They include all of the ordinary activities of life which nosotros share with the sons and daughters of Adam: eating, sleeping, working, looking after the needs of the body and performing our dull and prosaic duties hither on earth. These we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings, often apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and forcefulness. The consequence of this is that nosotros are uneasy most of the time. We get nigh our mutual tasks with a feeling of deep frustration, telling ourselves pensively that in that location'southward a better solar day coming when nosotros shall slough off this earthly beat out and be bothered no more with the diplomacy of this world.

This is the sometime sacred-secular antithesis. Well-nigh Christians are caught in its trap. They cannot become a satisfactory adjustment betwixt the claims of the two worlds. They endeavor to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms and they find no peace in either. Their strength is reduced, their outlook confused and their joy taken from them.

I believe this situation to be wholly unnecessary. Nosotros have gotten ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, truthful plenty, but the dilemma is not real. It is a creature of misunderstanding. The sacred-secular antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament. Without doubt a more perfect understanding of Christian truth will deliver u.s. from it.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no divided life. In the Presence of His Father He lived on earth without strain from babyhood to His decease on the cross. God accepted the offering of His total life, and made no distinction between one act and another human action. "I practice always the things that please him," was His brief summary of His own life as it related to the Father. As He moved amongst men He was poised and restful. What force per unit area and suffering He endured grew out of His position as the world's sin bearer; they were never the issue of moral uncertainty or spiritual maladjustment.

Paul's exhortation to "exercise all to the celebrity of God" (I Cor. x:31) is more than than pious idealism. It is an integral part of the sacred revelation and is to exist accepted as the very Discussion of Truth. It opens earlier usa the possibility of making every deed of our lives contribute to the glory of God. Lest nosotros should be too timid to include everything, Paul mentions specifically eating and drinking. This humble privilege we share with the beasts that perish. If these lowly animal acts tin can exist then performed as to honor God, then it becomes difficult to excogitate of one that cannot. . . . (Quote source and complete chapter are bachelor at this link.)

Tozer, of course, died before Postmodernism (see web log mail titled, "Say What? As in Postmodernism") when it'south "truth is relative" bulletin came into total swing, but his words nevertheless ring true. In an article titled, "'Sacred-Secular Split up' Hinders Christians From Impacting Culture, Says Lecrae" (2012), published in CP Church building and Ministry, Christian hip-hop singer Lecrae (Lecrae Moore) talks "about the subject of engaging American civilisation in a non-typical, yet Christian fashion in order to further the Gospel." Here is what he had to say:

"I think we don't appoint civilization because we're scared. We don't desire it corrupting our kids. I retrieve we're scared because ultimately nosotros're nevertheless defenseless upward in a sacred-secular divide," said Lecrae, who is too a ministry leader, to a crowd of more than 2,000 church leaders Thursday at the Resurgence Conference (in 2012) at Mariners Church in Irvine, Calif.

"We are still caught up in the reality that everything is cleaved up in ii and if you go too far here y'all are going to get messed up," he said. "There is a sacred-secular divide that hinders us from impacting civilization.". . . .

"We (Christians) are great at talking virtually conservancy and sanctification. We are clueless when information technology comes to art, ethics, science, and civilisation. Christianity is the whole truth about everything. It'south how we deal with politics. It'south how we deal with science. It's how we deal with TV and fine art. We can't get out people to their own devices," Lecrae said during his talk at the conference.

"Nosotros just demonize everything. If it doesn't fit in the category of sanctification or conservancy it'due south merely evil."

Lecrae said that society in the U.South. is moving away from "this traditional, evangelical, conservative America."

"Relativism and secular humanism permeates the world that we live in." He asked, "How do we engage this civilization? How do we raise upwards people to engage this culture?"

Lecrae said that in the area he lives in there are a lot of people, who because of the activity they are engaged in, many Christians would avert altogether.

"There's homosexuality rampant. There'due south crime and all kinds of things going on effectually me. I take my kids to the park and there's 2 men kissing, people selling drugs, and I'm grateful," he said. "I'one thousand non trying to escape. I want to be in the midst of that because I need to exist. That's where I need to exist."

He added, "I believe that the reason why the church typically doesn't engage civilisation is because we are scared of it. We're scared it's going to somehow jump on united states of america and corrupt u.s.. We're scared it's going to somehow mess up our good affair. So we consistently move further and farther abroad from the corruption, farther and further away from the criminal offense, further and further away from the postal service-modernity, further and further away from the relativism and secular humanism and we want to go to a safe identify with people only like you lot. We want to be comfy."

Lecrae emphasized that God created many things in this world that were intended for good, simply take been misused.

"I'm talking most using things that are typically used for evil and showing how they can be used for God'due south glory," he explained. "Things are non of themselves evil. It's [about] structure and direction. God has structured things for His celebrity and His goodness and humanity is directing it in evil or good ways.

"If you are going to engage civilization it's virtually taking the things, and the things yous are skilled at, and asking 'How tin can I direct them in a good way?'

"I'm not saying allow's redeem the globe and create this utopian planet," Lecrae continued. "I'chiliad saying allow's demonstrate what Jesus had done in us so the globe may run across a new way, God'south way, Jesus' way–the movie of redemption that Jesus has done in united states. And so Jesus redeems usa and we desire to go to the world and demonstrate that so that others can run across what redemption looks like." (Quote source here).

The indicate, of class, is that we need to look beyond our own tendencies to be short-sighted when it comes to what God is doing in our world and how He is going almost accomplishing it. Equally stated in Isaiah 55:8-9:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your means my ways,"
declares the Lord.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my means higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."

And Proverbs 16:iv reminds us that:

The Lord works out everything to its proper end—
even the wicked for a twenty-four hours of disaster.

And since God can fifty-fifty keep rails of the wicked, He tin can certainly keep track of what we equally Christians practise in accomplishing His will in this globe of ours (if we will follow His lead and non our own). In that location actually is no dividing the sacred from the secular. It all belongs to Him.

Getting back to the original message of this mail service, I'll end information technology with these words from Jesus that should always be embedded in our minds and hearts no affair what state of affairs or circumstances we find ourselves in, which are found in Luke 18:1:

E'er pray . . .

And . . .

Never surrender . . . .

YouTube Video: "Tell the World" by Lecrae:

Photo #1 credit here
Photograph #2 credit here
Photograph #3 credit here

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Source: https://sarasmusings.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/until-lambs-become-lions/

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