The Man Abides

"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love."  John 15:10

Recently, I was thinking about the movie, The Big Lebowski, and how much I had enjoyed it. When it first came out, I was not yet born again and I smoked a lot of weed and had a tight-knit group of misfit friends like Lebowski so I found the movie to be both relatable and very funny. It also seemed somehow mysterious and profound. In part this is due to the main character habitually smoking marijuana, which of course encourages viewers to smoke it also and watch the movie in that state. Generally speaking, things seem more mysterious and profound when a person is stoned.

As a Christian, I still respect that it is well-made and I get that it is kind of anti-cool, which to many appears as cool. I am grieved that the character of Jesus, a Latino bowler, is a pedophile. I understand that Jesus is a fairly common Latino name and that the character is something of a minor villain in the movie, but the fact that he pronounces his name not as "hay-SOOS" but as "Jē-zəs" coupled with the fact that he is an almost-miraculously skilled and graceful bowler, makes it plain that the Lord Jesus is being referenced. Making the character a proud boaster and a pedophile is offensive and yet the directors use all their considerable artistic talent in music, choreography, and slow-motion camera work, to make the scene of Lebowski and friends looking on while Jesus bowls a strike one of the most smooth, seductive, and compelling scenes in the entire film. It entices one to overlook the core offensiveness and falseness of the implied message.

When I was thinking about the movie I googled it on my phone and to my surprise discovered that there is an organization offering 'ordination' as a dudeist priest and many people have actually obtained this ordination. For anyone who hasn't seen this movie, Lebowski is called, "the dude" and so a dudeist priest would be someone who takes Jeff Bridges' character as his spiritual teacher. It reminds me of the story told by the prophet Isaiah (44:8-28), of the man who cuts down a tree and uses part of it to make a fire to warm himself and to bake bread over the coals; he also roasts a roast and then with what is left of the wood he carves a god and falls down to it and worships it and prays to it, saying, "Deliver me, for you are my god." He has no sense to realize that by doing so, his spiritual food is ashes. His deceived heart prevents him from saying, "Aren't I engaged in a lie?"

The Big Lebowski is a fictional story conceived and designed in the mind of man. That which comes from man cannot deliver man, a god made by men's hands is not alive and cannot save. This passage about idols describes the idolatry of this or any movie precisely:

"Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.
Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?
But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.
O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.
O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.
Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield."  Psalm 115:1-11

Can "the dude" speak to you or see you? Can he hear your prayer? Can he interact with you at all or is he simply a dead letter, unable to connect with you in a vital way because there is nobody home in the image? The recorded image of an actor is empty of life, and the dire warning in the scripture passage above is that all who trust in such are like unto them.

Jesus Christ in contrast is the image of the invisible God and He is alive; God is present and available to you in the living person of Jesus Christ. He is able to interact with you freely and through the faithful reception of His Words (the Bible) because His Spirit Who breathed in those words will be in you after you call upon His Name. This is a vital interaction that saves and gives life and I am begging you not to be deceived and trade this for something dead and empty that will bring shame and destruction in the end instead of glory when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels (2 Thess 1:7-10).

As mentioned, in the movie Lebowski is called, "the dude". And what is a dude, after all? According to Merriam-Webster, it is a man extremely fastidious in dress and manner, a dandy. And while the Dude does not look like a typical dandy, he does dress and act with a very characteristic style. Most of the time he wears pajamas and a bathrobe that make him look like a prophet but in his case it's indicative of his overall style of leisure and ease. The whole reason he got caught up in the adventure of the movie is because his rug was stolen and he couldn't let it go because, "it really tied the room together." He truly is a kind of dandy. When the Lord Jesus was speaking to the crowds about John the Baptist, He said,

"But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they which are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings' courts. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet." Luke 7:25-26

And this comports very well with Merriam-Webster's other definition of a dude: "a city dweller unfamiliar with life on the range." So the dude is contrasted from a prophet, being a pampered person focused on a stylish appearance instead of a down-to-earth man living a rigorous life devoted to the faithful service of God. Jesus Christ is called "the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5).  It is becoming evident that the dude is a counterfeit of the Man, which means he is a product of the antichrist spirit that is in the world (1 John 4:3).

After considering these things and looking a bit more for things relating to The Big Lebowski and dudeism, I came across the saying, "the dude abides". This phrase is, of course, from the film, spoken by Lebowski and expounded on somewhat by a mysterious character called, "the stranger".

"To abide", as used here intransitively, means to remain or continue with or in some place or state.

What is so striking about this is that Jesus often speaks of abiding; however, not simply abiding but abiding in something. He commands us to abide in His love by keeping His commandments, even as He kept His Father's commandments and abides in His Father's love (John 15:9-10). And He said this to us so that His joy might abide in us and our joy might be full (v.11). And if we abide in Him and His words abide in us, we shall bring forth fruit and our fruit shall abide: that whatsoever we ask of the Father in Jesus' Name we shall receive (vv. 7, 16).

The dude's saying makes one wonder, what is he abiding in? The stranger answers our question when he says, the dude continues to "take it easy for all us sinners". The dude abides in ease. The stranger presents the dude as a saviour who is abiding in ease on behalf of all sinners.

But is the dude truly a saviour?

"Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me." Isaiah 45:21

Jesus also spoke of the stranger:

"And when he [the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ] putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers."  John 10:4-5

So there is a stark contrast between the Christ and the dude. The dude abides in ease, allegedly on behalf of sinners, doing nothing for them except entertaining them and enticing them to waste their time in vanity. Those who follow him would likewise seek to abide in ease, pleasure, and physical comfort. As Andy Greene of Rolling Stone writes, "...there's something comforting about a fortysomething character who will blow an evening lying in the bathtub, getting high and listening to an audiotape of whale songs."

Is that so? The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, sent by the Father in the Name of His Son. The comfort that comes from the dude's vain deathstyle is a false comfort, like something that lulls you to sleep when you ought to be awake because a real threat draws near. Blowing an evening leads to blowing your whole short life and a man should not feel easy with this but should seek the Lord.

"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."  Psalm 90:10-12

"LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am.
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah."  Psalm 39:4-5

The Messiah, abiding in His Father's Love, suffered and died for the sins of the whole world and on the third day rose again from the dead to justify and save all who receive Him. Those who would come after Christ are enjoined to deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Him (Matt 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23). And then, as they abide in the vine, their labour will not be in vain in the Lord but they will bear much fruit that will remain (Isaiah 65:22-25, 1 Cor 15:58). This is a life lived unto God, which has good and fruitful meaning that will continue and outlast the world, which all men may have through faith in Jesus Christ. Don't be deceived by a counterfeit into throwing it all away and end up losing even your own self, but give your life to God with faith in Jesus Christ to the saving of your soul!

Following the dude is easy--it is a very philosophy of ease--but following Christ is hard. Jesus Himself contrasted these two ways:

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." Matt 7:13-15, ESV

If you believe in and follow the Dude, you will do what you please and be entertained, having pleasure in sin for a season, and then be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. If you believe in and obey the Christ, you will experience hardships and persecution in this world along with much fruitfulness and spiritual comfort, and in the world to come, eternal life and pleasures forevermore.

One last thing I noticed in researching this blog post is a poster for the movie of "the dude" bowling through a spiritual entity known as a valkyrie, a warrior-woman angelic being of Norse mythology. In Norse myth she attended battlefields and escorted the souls of slain men of valour to Valhalla. But remember that Hitler admired and was influenced by such things, by Norse paganism as expressed by Richard Wagner's Der Ring Des Nibelungen cycle of music dramas based on the thirteenth century Poetic Edda, one part of which is called, "Die Walküre", or, "The Valkyrie". And another such man inspired by Norse paganism, Anders Breivik, murdered 77 people in a terror attack in 2011, allegedly to prevent a Muslim takeover of Norway and Western Europe, and to punish the Labour Party. After his arrest, Breivik described himself as "the greatest monster since Quisling." This is a remarkable statement because Vidkun Quisling was the Prime Minister of Norway's pro-Nazi puppet government during the occupation by the Nazis during World War II. This suggests Breivik was sympathetic to Nazism (which he has confirmed as fact since his imprisonment) and thereby links the valkyries of Hitler's Volkish admiration to those of Breivik to those of Norse mythology. And both Hitler and Breivik made statements despising Christianity for its supposed 'weakness'.

The valkyries are thus revealed to be demons, which the Lord Jesus parabolically identified as fowls of the air (Luke 8:5, 12), and their activities concerning the dead remind me of the Supper of the Great God, prepared for the "fowls of the air" on the day of the Battle of Armageddon, when the nations gather themselves together to fight against Jesus Christ as He returns, in righteousness to judge and make war:

"And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great."  Rev 19:17-18

They won't carry them to Valhalla, they will eat their flesh.

DOUBTLESS SOMEONE WILL SAY TO ME, "THAT'S ONLY YOUR OPINION, MAN."

But God provides an answer for this in the scriptures to show you that the truth is more than someone's opinion. He has declared the end from the beginning, so we may know that the true God is the one who has given the Bible (Isaiah 46:9-13, 48:3-11). Jesus is prefigured in Adam and Eve being clothed with skins when they were cast out of the Garden of Eden, in Abel's offering of a firstling from his flock, in Abel's murder by his brother Cain, in the offering up of Isaac by Abraham, in Isaac's persecution by Ishmael, in Joseph's being cast into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers and his eventual rise to become Pharaoh's chief minister at which time he forgives and saves his brothers, in Job's suffering and patient endurance and eventual exaltation by God, and countless other examples. And Jesus is explicitly prophesied in many places too, that He is the Son of God in Prov 30:4 and Psalms 2:11-12, that he would be born in Bethlehem in Micah 5:2, that He is God in the flesh in Isaiah 9:6, that He would be born of a virgin in Isaiah 7:14, His death by crucifixion in Psalm 22:16-18, for our sins in Isaiah 53:4-6, 10-12, His burial in a rich man's tomb in Isaiah 53:9, His resurrection in Psalm 16:9-11, His ascent into glory in Psalm 24:7-10 and Daniel 7:13-14, and His Second Coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory in Jude vv. 14-15, and many more such clues to the identity of the Messiah who was yet to come at the time they were written down and disseminated!

With all these prophecies given hundreds and thousands of years ahead of time, how can anyone seriously maintain that the claim that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, is merely a matter of opinion?

For these several reasons I urge and beg you, dear reader, no matter who you are, whether a dudeist devotee or simply an internet traveller who stopped to read this: Save yourselves from this willfully contrary generation that takes pleasure in exalting false gods they made, like the dude, in place of the One True and Living God. Flee from the voice of the stranger to Jesus Christ the Lord and be saved from wrath through Him. He didn't take it easy for us sinners but He suffered and died on the cross for us, and rose again from the dead on the third day. He is our only hope and our sure hope: the hope of glory.