Sleight of hand versus discernment, deception versus truth, justice versus mercy.

Are you just watching episode 168?

Now you see me.

Now you don't.

Welcome to the podcast that shares critical thinking for the entertained Christian.

I'm Eve Franklin.

I'm Tim Martin.

And we're going to try a little something different.

In honor of Christmas and the busy schedule that we both have and the fact that both of us are kind of fighting down winter colds, we're going to try and have a short episode.

I don't know how well this will work out.

That's like starting a meeting and saying, hopefully this will be a short meeting and then it lasts three hours.

Yeah, we'll see how this works.

Well, when you finally listen to this episode, you'll have, you know, the time in front of you so you'll know how successful we were at having a shorter episode.

But the way we're going to do this is we're going to actually deal with the themes as we give our first impressions about the movie.

So we're just kind of like going to lump it all together.

And because of that, I'm going to go ahead and give a little bit of our promo stuff early so that we don't have to interrupt ourselves to do it later.

So.

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There, I got it all in super fast.

Now on to our discussion on now youw See Me three, which is not actually called that.

It's called now youw See Me, now youw Don't.

It's funny because I went back and looked at some of the videos that came out about the second movie because I couldn't remember much about it.

I have seen it, but.

But I couldn't find it anywhere easy to get a hold of and watch.

And I was watching some commentary on YouTube and there were some people that had commented in one of the videos that they really were bummed that they didn't call the second movie now you See Me, now you Don't.

So somebody must have seen that comment because they named the third movie that instead of three, they named it now.

You don't should have been the second Movie.

Hmm.

I'm wondering whether they regret the second movie because it seems like this movie kind of other than introducing a character that was introduced in the second movie, there really isn't much reference to it.

Very little.

Yeah.

So before we get into our initial impressions, I do want to call out the composer for all three movies, Brian Tyler.

He did a pretty interesting score that kind of plays off of the whole Magical Adventure kind of feel to all three movies.

And so I'll play a little bit of that here.

Now, I'm not going to say a ton about the music because while I think it is a very important part of all three movies, it's kind of the same, really.

I mean, he didn't, like, come out with anything new for the third movie.

And, you know, it is what it is.

It's a good score, and I'm glad they kept it up so that all the three movies kind of feel like they go together, which they are.

They're kind of developing a franchise in a way.

And that's actually one of the things that my initial impressions about this movie is that in the vein of developing a franchise, they're kind of handing this off to a new generation.

So the first movie came out in 2013, which means it's 12 years ago.

Right.

And all of the actors that were in the original one, they kind of started out young, except for a couple of them.

And now they're, you know, getting towards middle age.

And so it's time to hand off the sleight of hand because it's not really an old person's skill set.

I think a lot of older magicians tend to go into teaching magic rather than doing it so much.

You make it sound as if they are stuntmen.

You know, once they reach a certain lack of mobility.

Yeah, they start to teach.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, and.

And that's understandable because magic, at least what I call street magic, requires dexterity.

And as we get older, we tend to lose dexterity.

So it's completely understandable.

I mean, you could train yourself to keep some of it just through repetition and that kind of thing, but it does kind of fade.

You know, your joints don't work quite so well, and so it's understandable.

So I've been a fan.

I really enjoyed the first movie that came out.

Matter of fact, it's on my digital movie collection, so I tend to watch it a lot.

I rewatched the first one this week, so it's actually fresher in my mind than the third one, which we're reviewing.

I just appreciate movies that have clean gotchas at the end.

So all three of the movies have a gotcha at the end.

And I will warn you now, before we get into our discussion, we are not going to guard the gotcha in this movie.

So if you haven't seen it yet and you want to be surprised, I know we don't always tend nowadays to warn about spoilers, but I'm not going to promise you we won't spoil it.

So there you go.

Deal with that as you please.

Right now.

Go see the movie.

Oh, shoot.

They're not listening anymore.

They paused.

They went away.

Yeah.

But do come back.

So one of those spoilers is the much loved character that is played by Morgan Freeman, who was a very important character in the first movie, I think in the second movie, which I only have a vague recollection, I think he was actually a more important character.

And it turns out he's kind of like the mastermind of the eye.

He's even over Dylan.

So there was a kind of a rivalry between Dylan and the Morgan Freeman character in the first movie, and then that kind of reversed itself in the second movie.

And then we don't really see Dylan in this movie, but the character that Morgan Freeman plays ends up getting killed and he doesn't even get top billing.

So if you pull up the movie and IMDb he's like way down the list of the characters, which actors and characters.

It just blew my mind.

I'm like, this is Morgan Freeman, and you're not going to give him top billing.

But I actually looked up whether or not the Screen Actor Guild had any rules about billing, thinking, you know, maybe it's screen time or something like that, because Morgan Freeman, let's face it, the guy's an Oscar winner.

Yeah, he really should be higher on the list, but he didn't have that much screen time, so maybe it was that.

But billing is, I guess, a negotiated thing, part of bringing the actors on.

And honestly, I. I don't know Morgan Freeman from Adam, but I could see somebody at his age going, yeah, it doesn't matter anymore.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

It was more like he.

He came on to reprise a role that they.

They basically said, well, we'll need to bring you in here so that we can kill you off so that we don't have a reason to bring you in because you're probably going to die before we make a piece.

So, yeah, yeah, we're sort of grim.

I know, but, I mean, he is getting on in years, so I would assume they're probably going to put off making another movie for a while.

So, anyway, we had to say goodbye to him, and I kind of wondered when he was shot and they just had to leave him behind whether he was really dead or not, because, I mean, this is a movie about magicians and sleight of hand and everything.

So they could pull him out of a hat later.

I don't know.

And I meant that as a magic pun.

Yeah.

I just had this image of, do you remember the Rocky and Bullwinkle show?

Huh?

Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat and he pulls out Morgan Freeman.

Well, speaking of sleight of hand, and I kind of already said this, but I do really appreciate sleight of hand, the magic movies that do sleight of hand.

And so, you know, I actually don't mind the deception as much because I feel like it's more in good faith, like it's there to entertain.

All in good fun.

All in good fun.

Yeah.

And I have a problem with murder mysteries because I always feel like the whodunit is being withheld from you in a dishonest way where I feel like when it's magic, it's more of an honest deception.

I don't know whether that makes any sense, but I appreciate it.

And I really like movies that center around that.

I was thinking, wasn't Ocean's Eleven kind of that way, too, where it kind of had a gotcha at the end?

The heist movies like Ocean's Eleven and the Italian Job, they have that same.

It's part twist, but it's also part gotcha.

Right?

It's all surprise, which is what I like about it.

And then they go back and show you how they did it that I love.

Yeah, I like the way they do that.

And now you see me, you know, you're like, odd by, how did they do that?

And then they show you how they did it so that there's no question at the end.

And I really appreciate that as well.

So one of the things that that makes me think of from a thematic standpoint is that Christians need discernment in this world because there is a lot of both honest deception and dishonest deception in the world.

And so we have to be really savvy and pay attention to what's going on around us, because there's always a chance that something that we're taking at face value is actually a deception.

And we have to be wise.

We have to look for the lies.

We have to champion the truth.

And, you know, I was thinking as we were going into recording this, that there.

And if you're following, you know, conservative news right now, since the death of Charlie Kirk back in September, there's been a certain podcaster who's raised a bunch of conspiracies, and she's kind of, like, built up this massive following of her, like, daily murder mystery conspiracy podcast.

And it's concerning to me, because no matter where you go in the Republican or Christian sphere these days, you're bumping into people who are championing this particular podcaster and vilifying other podcasters who make public statements against her.

And there's a lot of infighting going on right now.

And.

And the thing that concerns me about that, I'm not necessarily bringing this up because I want to pick favorites, though I actually do feel like this podcaster is presenting a lot of untruth.

But that's kind of where I'm coming through with this, is that I feel like Christians should be foremost, the ones that are standing up for the truth and being able to see through deception and being able to have discernment when it comes to who they follow and who they listen to and who they champion.

And it's concerning to me because I feel like, you know, people are jumping on the bandwagon of one particular podcaster because there's so much distrust of the government and the establishments and all that stuff that they just immediately are turning to somebody who is questioning everything that's Always their response is, well, she's only asking questions, but she's asking questions in a certain way that insinuate you to believe things that are not true or that she doesn't have evidence for.

So there's one thing to ask questions, and there's another thing to insinuate culpability where you don't have evidence of such.

And so I think that as Christians, we need to look for the misdirection, which is one of the things that is kind of like the theme of now you see me is like, he's like, if you look close, then you're going to see the thing that we want you to see and miss the thing that we don't want you to see because you're following the distraction.

And so look for the misdirection, beware of the distractions.

And you need to be able to discern when half truths turn into lies and we are only being told part of the truth, and that part of the truth then insinuates something that isn't true.

And so just, oh, I'm just so concerned about our culture right now, the conservative Christian culture, because there's so many people that have been sucked in to this murder mystery gotcha thing that's going on that, you know, they're following somebody who's not presenting truth.

And so we both have some scripture that deals with this real quick.

Well, the first one that I wanted to bring up was Proverbs 14:15.

I think this is a very good proverb that has to do with this.

The inexperienced one believes anything, but.

But the sensible one watches his steps.

So just don't be the inexperienced one who's easily gullible to just trusting what somebody is telling you without, you know, doing your own research and finding out.

Yeah.

You know, you had talked about this podcaster, and I had never heard of her before.

You brought her to my attention in preparation for this episode.

But, you know, we've seen this before.

What's his name?

Alex.

Somebody from the Sandy Hook thing.

Oh, ye.

Yeah.

Jones.

Alex Jones, I think.

Is it Jones?

I think people want to believe it.

But you were talking about.

Oh, she's not saying anything.

She's just asking questions.

Well, yeah, but questions are saying something.

Yeah.

The court system has for, you know, 200 years had a rule against leading witnesses with questions.

And the idea of.

Of hiding lies and question has been around for millennia.

You know, it happens in ancient texts, so we shouldn't be surprised.

But you're right.

As Christians, we should be practicing discernment yes.

And if we share what we have read online or heard, or, you know, even if you just say something like, I wonder if that is all made up, you risk unintentionally bearing false witness against somebody who might not deserve it.

And that goes back to Exodus, and obviously there's the commandment in there, but Exodus 23:1 says, you must not spread a false report.

Do not join the wicked to be a malicious witness.

Yeah.

So only say what you know.

And part of that discernment is, you know, learning to use primary sources.

If somebody asks a question on a podcast that you listen to, consider it.

You know, it's not a matter of being cynical of the podcaster.

It's a matter of being respectful to the people that are impacted by what the podcaster is saying.

Right.

Yeah.

And in Philippians, Paul directly connects discernment to moral clarity.

In Philippians 1:9, 10, he says, and I pray this, that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment so that you may approve of the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.

And of course, the unspoken part there is if you are not discerning, then you're not as likely to approve of the things that are superior and pure and blameless.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he doesn't pull his punches.

Yeah.

And, you know, and as Christians, we do have a source of wisdom.

So, like, when King Solomon was asked, you know, what gift he wanted from God, he asked for wisdom, and God gave it to him so that he became like the wisest king ever, you know, but we have the same source.

And in James 1:5, it says, now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to him.

So it's not like God might give it to you.

It's like, if you ask for wisdom, God is going to give you wisdom.

So no reason why we should be following after worldly wisdom when we can seek God's wisdom instead.

And that wisdom will bring us discernment when we're trying to discern whether there's truth to what people are saying or not.

And then the other thing we have to consider as Christians is that our understanding comes from the Spirit and that people who don't have the Spirit will lack understanding in certain ways.

And so in First Corinthians 2, 14, 16, it says, but the person with the Spirit does not receive what comes from God's Spirit because it is foolishness.

To him, he is not able to understand it, since it is evaluated spiritually.

The spiritual person, however, can evaluate everything, and yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone.

For who has known the Lord's mind that he may instruct him.

But we have the mind of Christ.

And the reason I bring this up is when it comes to listening to podcasters, I think one of the things that Christians especially need to discern and be aware of is whether or not somebody is claiming to be a Christian who isn't one.

And in the case of this particular podcaster, I think she claims to be Catholic, but if you evaluate her on a spiritual checklist, she falls way short.

And I found this new podcast.

It's on Spotify, but you can also find them on YouTube.

I stumbled across them because they made a episode like going through this particular podcaster based on whether or not she exhibits being saved, basically being a child of God.

And they did it biblically, and they did it in a very clean and good way, and I really appreciated it.

So I'm going to call them out so that if you want to go look them up, you can.

Their podcast is called Culture Proof, and it's a couple.

And I really appreciated the couple episodes that I watched from them.

And so I'm going to call them out now because I thought they did a really good job of just showing Christian discernment in talking about some of these people that people follow.

So that's one of the things I do want to remind people, is that ungodly people will not behave like godly people.

So you should be able to discern whether they are of God or not.

One thing that comes to mind, and we can actually rate our presence on this, is that during the Charlie Kirk memorial, Erica Kirk got up, and from what appeared to be a great deal of effort, she forgave the person publicly who shot and killed her husband.

And President Trump came up to speak after her and made the comment that he couldn't understand that kind of forgiveness.

And when I read this verse from First Corinthians, it made me think of is that, you know, people who are not of God can't understand how she has the strength to have the grace and mercy to forgive somebody who killed her husband in cold blood.

And those of us who are saved, who understand how God has forgiven us, we can understand that.

We can understand where that comes from.

But if you're not of God, if you don't have the spirit within you, and that is foolishness to you, it makes no sense.

And so that's one way that you can rate how people are, you know, interacting with lies and falsehood and truth and all that kind of stuff in our society today is do they understand things that come from the spirit?

Especially if they're claiming to have the spirit, they should understand the gifts of the spirit.

We've talked about that before in, you know, quite a few other episodes.

We have to remember that it doesn't do any good to get angry at people who don't have the spirit in them because they are literally blind to what we see.

They cannot see it without the spirit.

So that is why we need to be respectful of everyone.

I mean, we don't begrudge the blind man crossing the street because he can't see.

Right?

Yeah.

We also don't ask what his parents did to make him be born blind either.

But that's another story.

The couple more verses that I want to deal with before moving on.

This is from Matthew 24, 4, 5.

Jesus replied to them, watch out that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name saying, I am the Messiah, and they will deceive many.

And this speaks to, you know, just the ongoing issue that we have in the Western church of people who claim to be apostles, like Apostolic Reformation.

And then the last passage I wanted before I move on to my impressions of the movie is, dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

This is how you know the spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming even now.

It is already in the world.

And that's First John 4:1:3.

So, yeah, always be quick to compare worldly teaching and even some teaching that's in the church with the actual gospel that we have in Scripture and be able to discern that.

So that is one quick little theme dealt with.

And now I'm going to move on to talk about a couple other reasons why I like now youw See Me.

I don't know.

Have you seen the Illusionist and the Prestige?

Have you seen either of those movies?

I loved them both.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I sort of thought of them, or at least I think of them now as deep impact.

And what is that Bruce Willis one where they're miners and they get sent to the asteroid?

You know, it seems like every year they release two Movies that are very similar.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

The Prestige I liked a lot better than the Illusionist, but I love both of them.

Yes, they were both good.

I saw them well after the time.

I'd actually missed them when they came out, which, you know, 2006 was before I started doing movie reviews, which I started with Daniel Lewis in 2009.

So it kind of makes sense that I may have missed them when they hit the theaters the first time.

But I think they were brought to my attention about the same time that the original now you see me movie came out, which was in 2013.

And I just really liked them, Though one of them was a little bit more mystical than I care think.

The Prestige.

The Prestige was borderline fantasy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It implied some things that were more of, like, real world magic or science.

It might as well be magic.

Yeah.

Science.

What's that?

That quote.

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

Yeah, something like that.

Yeah.

So it did have.

What's the name of Tesla?

Yeah, Nikolai Tesla.

Nikolai Tesla in the movie, which I thought was kind of interesting because he's a scientist that was really discarded as a weirdo.

And he was way ahead of his time.

A lot of his inventions were just.

He was so far ahead of his time, nobody believed him.

For the record, he was a weirdo.

Yeah.

He claimed to have married his pigeon.

Yeah.

He actually tops my list of most overrated historical figures.

But at the same time, he worked closely with Thomas Edison for a while, who was one of my heroes growing up.

He's one of those guys that taught me that you should never investigate your heroes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some of the final things that I liked about now youw See Me was.

And I think this is one of your points as well, is that I appreciate that it's unapologetically smoke and mirrors.

So it's like they are using real magic at least as the basis for what they're doing.

So they're implying that it's all real sleight of hand, real trickery.

There's no occult.

Yeah.

It's all stage magic, street magic.

It's not anything that has, like any smack of any real occult.

It's all, you know, trickery, and it's all for a reason.

So that there's, you know, it's either for your entertainment or in the case of these movies, there's a little bit of a Robin Hood justice going on.

Well, I shouldn't say a little bit.

It's a lot Robin Hood justice going on in all three movies.

And this movie, the Gotcha is really surprising because you think these young kids have actually been roped into something and it turns out they were the masterminds behind the whole thing.

So I thought that was a super interesting twist on it that I was not expecting.

I did leave one gotcha out of that explanation.

That one caught me off guard too.

Yeah.

And because of that, one of the main themes of the movie is that whole kind of Robin Hood theme, which I don't think we've ever reviewed any of the Robin Hood style stories.

Let's do Men in Tights.

Yeah.

Prince of Thieves was my favorite movie in the 90s, even though Kevin Costner really was bad in that movie.

Like super, super bad.

But the rest of the movie was so good.

Morgan Freeman was in that one.

Yes, he was.

Nice tie in there.

The Robin Hood justice is something that I've kind of appreciated.

I've liked it in stories, I've liked it in movies.

And it comes with a certain set of assumptions that you make about the government and about justice that Christians should be a little bit more careful about making because it's something that we've kind of dealt with a little bit when we talk about superhero movies.

And I think we dealt with it actually a lot when we were talking about the Daredevils series.

You have the common man who is trying to usurp the authority of the government and the proper justice keepers doing the justice instead of letting the government do its job.

In some instances, maybe it's because the government isn't doing its job.

And so people feel like they have to rise up and do it themselves.

It doesn't necessarily make it right.

And so while I enjoy movies like that and stories like that, it does require a little bit of discernment on the part of the Christian to understand that our view of justice is different than what the world's view of justice is.

And number one, probably like the highest aspect of that is that a lot of the world believes that justice isn't just punishment for wrongdoing, it's retribution.

And when we think of retribution, it's like in the Old Testament, the eye for the eye and the tooth for the tooth.

A lot of people think that's the bad part of justice, but it's actually the biblical style of justice.

Because when God instituted the Ten Commandments and the laws in Exodus, the world was twisted in retribution.

So it was like if you stole somebody's ox, he'd come back and kill your family.

So it wasn't like an eye for an eye.

It was a death for an eye.

You know, it was like, I'm gonna get you back so much that you're gonna die for what you did to me, even though what you did to me was a petty crime.

And so the justice that came through God's law in the Old Testament actually balanced that out more.

So instead of retribution, it was more of a one on one kind of thing.

So it balanced it out, it made it a little bit more fair, you know, on both sides.

And it got rid of the vengeance and the retribution.

And it was more like ordained by law.

And that's what God's justice looks like.

Unfortunately, our crimes against God are so great that it does require death.

But thankfully we have not just a just God that we serve, but a gracious and merciful God.

And so we don't have to suffer that punishment because he also has grace and mercy for those who repent.

And so I think that when we look at the world's form of justice, they're always wanting a little bit more back.

So you always see, you know, it's like, I want justice and they don't think about the mercy or the grace side of that.

Like, if somebody repents or asks for forgiveness, are you still going to demand justice?

And, and so I got to thinking about this because once again, we have things going on in our world where it seems sometimes like things are a little unbalanced.

And I think we need to wait for the government to do its job.

My public position on what's going on with Charlie Kirk and the conspiracies having to do with his death is I think there are certain people who are wanting to investigate and try his murder in the court of public opinion.

And it hasn't even gone to trial yet in the actual authentic courts.

And I feel like we need to wait for the authorities to do their job and present their evidence and have the trial.

And once we've seen the evidence presented, if there's still questions, then I think there's legitimate ways to raise those questions.

But you don't try a case in the court of public opinion that is the wrong place.

It's a double whammy.

Because trying in the court of a public opinion, you know, that the public opinion is not informed by facts, but by emotion.

Right.

And even those who are out there that take fact into account can't do that if the investigation hasn't been completed.

Yeah.

So not only do you get everybody speaking from emotion, but they are speaking only from emotion.

And when you're Dealing with someone who was so beloved a person as Charlie Kirk, it's only going to be negative emotions.

Right.

So, yeah, it's a root of discernment.

Right.

To make sure you know everything you can about it before bearing false witness.

Right, yeah.

And I mean, if you think about it, we have a world full of armchair experts on everything now.

So it's like you have all of these people saying, well, the gun could have done this and the gun couldn't have done that, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, you weren't there.

You're not an eyewitness.

You're not like the world's gun expert.

You know, nobody's going to be calling you to witness on the stand in a trial on whether or not the gun could do whatever they said the gun did.

You're not an eyewitness.

You're not a detective or an investigator who's actually working on the actual evidence.

So therefore, at this point in this stage of the investigation, your opinion really doesn't matter.

So there's really no reason to be giving it out there in the world of public opinion, because nobody who really counts is going to care.

But no good shall come from this.

Yes, exactly.

So just a couple verses to kind of wrap that up.

First, I want to just remind you that God requires justice for sin.

At the same time, he is mercy and grace.

He's provided substitutionary atonement for sin.

And Christians should want proper justice and also desire grace and mercy for repentant hearts.

So we shouldn't be out there, you know, demanding justice, demanding that somebody pay, because we serve a God who is omnipotent, all powerful.

I was impacted by Charlie Kirk's assassination.

Probably more so than you, because you never heard of him at the time.

Right.

But my position on this is that Charlie Kirk was saved.

Charlie Cook know the same Savior that you and I know.

And I'm hoping most of our listeners know.

And God preordained his death.

He was immortal until God called him home.

He could not have been slaughtered by a gunman's bullet unless it was was God's preordained will that he died that day.

And whatever came from that is God's will.

And whoever stands trial for that is God's will, whether or not he is found guilty.

Whatever earthly justice is done, that is also God's will.

But regardless of whatever the conspiracies are, the ultimate justice will be done at the foot of the throne of God.

And there's nothing that you and I or anyone else on the Internet or not on the Internet can do to get in the way of God's ultimate justice.

It's going to happen.

He is omnipotent.

He's all powerful.

He already knows.

He has already preordained all of it.

And it doesn't make any sense for us to get anxious, worried, or spread our opinion all over the Internet if we have true faith in an omnipotent God who has his hands all over it.

And so that's kind of my position.

I take peace in God being in control of it all.

And so in Romans 12, 9, it says, Friends, do not avenge yourselves.

Instead leave room for God's wrath.

Because it is written, vengeance belongs to me, I will repay, says the Lord.

And that's Romans 12, 9.

And then in Matthew 6, 14, 15, it says, for if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well.

But if you don't forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.

And so that's a reminder to us to have a forgiving spirit, to be always thinking about what God's will is in any instance.

It's interesting when you tie that back into what we were talking about earlier.

If you do not have the spirit, then you are incapable of offering true forgiveness, because true forgiveness is the same forgiveness that the Father has granted us through his son.

So even when a non believer doesn't forgive, we can't really hold that against them.

We shouldn't be holding anything against them.

No.

And I think in the case of watching what Erica did on that public stage, and she has actually spoken to that multiple times in interviews since then, is that she didn't forgive him because she doesn't want him to stand trial for the murder.

She forgave him so that she could let go of her own feelings of anger and hatred and all of those things that are against the spirit and setting it aside for her own sake, for her own spiritual well being, and she still desires that there be justice, but she has forgiven him so that she can move on and have the correct spiritual and emotional attitude.

And I think that at least in that instance, portrays her understanding of having the Spirit in her life that's able to give her that strength.

Yeah, that kind of thing is cathartic, being able to offer that forgiveness.

And I don't want to imply that she did this because I don't know enough about her to say one way or the other, but there are people out there who say it just for the publicity.

Right.

And those people are the Ones that I feel even the worst for because they are setting themselves up as something that they are not and still carrying the anger that goes with it.

So it's the worst of, you know, both worlds there.

Yeah.

But we had talked about, you know, that the four horsemen practiced retributive justice and tying that back to the gotcha at the end.

One of the reasons that we like the gotcha is because we get to see how everything was done.

And I have made it no secret that I am a huge fan of redemptive arcs.

So I like it when, you know, the bad characters are redeemed.

But one of the great gotchas that I appreciate, and I think the first one had more of this.

No, the first one had pretty much the same plot is when the movie has the gotcha that involves the bad guy outing themselves and that.

Now you see, four horsemen have that, but they also steal from them.

They have that Robin Hood aspect.

Right, Right.

So that's the part that I am not as comfortable with.

Because when they steal from the rich and powerful who they think, you know, they had gotten away with something bad, it's not just retribution, but they are specifically taking authority from the people God put in charge.

In Romans 13:4, it says, for it is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason, for it is God's servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong.

God reserves municipal or secular justice for the government.

And that's not to say that there won't be times where the government fails that.

And if you decide that you need to take action where the government has failed to do so, you have to be willing to suffer the consequences of your own actions.

Because what you are doing is supposed to be out of respect for the law, not out of disregard for it.

Right.

And that goes back to Robin Hood in the now you see me series.

And now you see me, now you don't.

In particular, the four horsemen seemed to claim the same moral authority as Robin Hood.

But Robin of Loxley actually stood up for the absent King Richard and was acting and defending people in a way that he believed Richard would approve, whereas Prince John was acting in complete selfishness and from a position of utter corruption.

So Robin was be Robin Hood the.

Not that he was a real person, but Robin the legend of Robin Hood is respectful of the law by fighting for it.

But the horse in the now you see me series, they have decided that they know better than the law and have appointed themselves the authorities.

And that's where I feel like they cross over that boundary from what is moral to the immoral.

When I was thinking about my initial impressions literally walking out of the theater, I was thinking about this one scene in the chateau where they, all the magicians are gathered together for the first time, and everyone but Thaddeus is showing off, and they're showing off as part of this ongoing conversation about what they should do.

And I gotta say, it is an extremely well done scene.

I love the pacing and the wonder that it brings.

And I was curious if the actors were actually doing the magic themselves.

So I had looked into it and it turns out that they had.

Just like when an actor has to learn the choreography of a.

A dance or a fight scene in the same way, these actors had to learn to do the.

The dexterous motions of the magic.

But one of the philosophies that the creative team behind the now you see me series embraces is they want the magic to all start like the stage magic that we're used to and that we grew up with, you know, David Copperfield.

But then they want to push it a step further, using the movie magic to make it seem even more spectacular.

But one of the things that both of them rely on is speed.

It has to happen so quickly that the audience doesn't have time to stop and ask what just happened.

And from a discernment point of view, it's great to enjoy it, especially when the whole intent is to entertain, like in stage magic or street magic or in movie magic.

But for the discerning Christian, we have to remember that becoming reliant on this type of immediate gratification can be dangerous if we get too used to it.

Proverbs itself tells us that acting hastily, that is, without, without due consideration, like opening your mouth so that you can insert your foot type of thing, can lead us to literally, in the original language, go wrong.

And that is one of the many Hebrew words that it means to sin.

So in Proverbs 19:2, it says, Even zeal is not good without knowledge.

And the one who acts hastily sins.

Kind of goes back to that idea of, you know, not having enough, not waiting to have all of the information before you act upon it.

Being hasty in your judgment.

Yeah, exactly.

But like we said in the movie, it's harmless, it's all in good fun, and it's meant to entertain, so we're okay with it.

There's a difference between illusion for enjoyment and deception meant with a malicious intent.

Right.

It really does come back to why you are being deceived.

Magicians, their entire industry is about deceiving people because that's the fun in it.

Right.

But so are con artists.

Yep.

We've talked about leverage in the past, and that show in particular crosses that line from going from con artist to doing it for the Robin Hood goodness.

Right.

Yeah.

So I really appreciate how that all ties in.

And I once had a really long email discussion with our senior pastor about whether or not David was wrong to deceive the other king when he pretended to be mad, whether or not he was sinning when he did it.

And we never got to a conclusion I was happy with.

But it goes along the lines of is all lying, sinning?

And that's a moral question that comes up a lot.

Like the people who had the Jews from the Nazis.

A lot of times they were lying and being openly deceptive, but they were doing it to save lives.

And so, yeah, I mean, it's a moral question that comes up all the time.

Time.

Yeah.

And I think this speaks to that moral question.

Lying for entertainment, when we know we're being lied to, it really is all in good fun.

The audience is complicit.

Yes, exactly.

So one of the things that.

That I thought was interesting was at the very beginning of the movie, like I said, the creative team likes to start with real stage or street magic to set the expectations and then blow them away by adding a little bit of movie magic at the end.

The opening language of the series, it says, watch closely.

As a matter of fact, that was on the movie posters for the first one.

It says, watch closely and is actually telling us to look closer and pay attention.

But then it goes so fast that it's impossible to watch closely.

And, you know, in the entertainment aspect, that's an interesting kind of irony.

Watch closely.

But we're not going to make that possible.

They don't give us a space to do it.

But this happens outside of the entertainment venue as well.

When people try to test us, they give us tasks that they believe are impossible.

And we see this in the Bible from the Pharisees several times, including, you know, the Pharisees asking whether or not you should pay tax.

Because they thought, okay, if he says you should pay tax, he's going to take off this sect of Jews.

And if he says you shouldn't pay tax, he's really going to get in deep with the Romans.

And, you know, they looked at it from the position of.

Of it's an unwinnable thing.

And we're going to get Jesus with it.

But that's the thing, is Jesus knew what they were doing and he answered in a way that only godly wisdom can provide.

We can't do that.

And once more back to the speed thing.

I wanted to say that there's a trope in storytelling, particularly in tv, where if you walk into somewhere wearing a hard hat, reflective vest and carrying a clipboard, no one will challenge you because you look like you know what you're doing and you're there for a reason.

And you know, that kind of thing is sort of a social shorthand.

And we see that in now youw See Me because they display confidence and through their speed, they clearly demonstrate that they know what they're doing.

So it disarms the potential for mistrust, and it really does allow people to relax.

And that's how real magicians do it, too.

But Proverbs 18:17 reminds us the first to state his case.

Seems right until another comes and cross examines him.

So basically, if you seem like you know what you're doing, people are gonna accept it unless they look closer.

And that's the root of the discernment, right?

Looking closer.

Yeah.

And at the same time, which I think is one of the actual points of that, is that not just looking closer, but also looking at the bigger picture.

So if you look too close, then you miss the distraction, what's going on around you.

And while you're looking closer, you also have to have the broader perspective as well, where you don't miss the misdirection.

Because when you look closer, all you're seeing is what they want you to see.

It's always like putting together a puzzle, right?

Yeah.

If you focus on just the pieces, you're never going to get it done.

But if you don't look at the pieces and focus on just the picture, you're never going to get it done.

So, yeah, you really have to look at both the big picture and the individual pieces.

And that's what proper discernment is, figuring out how it all fits together.

But, you know, in the movie, we don't doubt what's happening because they keep us distracted, especially in that one scene in the chateau.

By the time they have finished the reveal of the previous trick, the next trick has already started.

Started.

But Ecclesiastes 7:25 reminds us that wisdom requires taking time.

The preacher says, there I turned my thoughts to know, explore and examine wisdom and an explanation for things.

And to know that wickedness is stupidity and falling is madness.

And again, that's Ecclesiastes 7:25.

And that really takes it all down to me is stage magicians and street magicians and the movie series now youw See Me, they all use speed as a way to increase the enjoyment, and I really like it.

Yeah.

But when we are dealing with our Christian faith, it is not about enjoyment.

It's about discernment.

It's about critical thinking.

Christian discernment does not thrive well in a hurried environment.

Yeah.

Scripture consistently calls us to slowness, to restraint, and most importantly, to humility.

In the now you See Me series, one of the things that always rubs me the wrong way is how cocky many of the main characters are, particularly Jesse Eisenberg's Atlas and Woody Harrelson's Merritt.

They are both alpha males, and the only way they play that is by leaning heavily on the phrase, always be the smartest person in the room.

The interesting thing about that I thought was really interesting is I saw an interview with the actor that plays Atlas, and he said that in reality, he sees himself as being a very anxious, nervous person.

And when they first started filming now youw See Me, the original movie, they were kind of building the story as they filmed it.

And so they actually asked him how he wanted to play the character, and he told them that he wanted to play him as super confident and cocky because that was, like, a total opposite of his actual personality.

And every time he's gotten a chance to come back and reprise the role, it's been, like, freeing for him because he gets to be confident for once in his life.

And I thought that was therapy.

Yeah.

Acting as therapy.

I thought that was super interesting that in real life he's not that person, you know, and he's just putting it on.

Yeah, that's really cool.

I. I have a little bit more respect for the actor now, I think.

Yeah.

So to wrap up my hybrid first impression theme section, I would just point us to James 1:19 and remind us that discernment cannot be properly done when you're in a hurry.

James reminds us to be slow.

Discernment requires consideration for the brain to process and, you know, to ruminate, to chew on what we've seen and digest what we've heard, and to give the.

Spirit a chance to speak into that as well.

Like I said earlier, like, to.

To pray for God, to give us the wisdom to understand what we're seeing.

Be still and know that I am God.

Right.

Be still is the first part of that.

Yeah.

So I just want to finish up with reciting James 1:19.

My dear brothers and sisters, engage this.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.

I always want to say slower to anger.

Yeah, but that would be adding a jot or a tittle.

So I'm not going to do that.

That.

But yeah, be.

I'm just impressed that you use both James and Ecclesiastes.

Hey, I gotta play to the audience, right?

Hey, am I the audience?

No, you're one of them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I think that that was an interesting experiment in blowing through our themes super fast and we'll see how this actually edits out into what the time actually is.

But, but thank you so much for joining us and I wish all of our listeners a very blessed Christmas in remembrance of our Savior, the reason that he came to the world to be a man, to suffer all that we suffer, but without sin, so that he could be our atonement, that he could pay the price for our sin and rise from the dead as a testament to his victory over sin and death.

So that we might be called children of God, adopted into the family and be able to have the indwelling of the Spirit which gives us discernment so that we can be wise and capable of standing for Christ in a culture that is so utterly and thoroughly confused and lost.

So I just challenge you as we approach the new year, that you read your scriptures, that you maybe start a new reading plan at the beginning of the year to go through the Bible again because it never gets old.

Old and be wise, be discerning and return.

We plan to return again next year.

So I don't know what we have in store for January, but we would pray that you would give us a.

Lot of good Christmas releases coming out.

Yeah, I know that there's a new animated movie on King David that I think is already released as we're recording this.

So there's a lot of movies coming out.

So anyway, just come join us in the new year and let us know you're out there and whether you actually liked this abbreviated form of our normal format.

So anyway, thank you so much for listening.

I'm E. Franklin.

And I'm Tim Martin.

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