Meanwhile, the film that we watched on Saturday night ( that I was not keen to watch at all) was "There will be blood". With the exception of saying that Danial Day-Lewis gave a stunning performance in terms of the quality of his acting, the character was of no good repute, the film itself was... well, it was... actually, three days later I am still trying to figure out the point of it. It is a long film and by the end of it I wondered if my derriere would ever have feeling in it again! Perhaps if one of you has seen it and thought it marvellous, you could enlighten me to it's virtues... there was only one point that caused me to stop and think, it is as follows:
Towards the end of the film the following dialogue takes place between Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) who is the "oil baron" in the film and Eli Sunday the Preacher.
Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!
Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.
Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. Wonderful.
Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.
Eli Sunday: Alright.
Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet... I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet... and that God is a superstition.
Eli Sunday: ...but that's a lie... it's a lie, I cannot say it. [long pause]
Eli Sunday: When can we begin to drill?
Plainview: Right away.
Eli Sunday: How long will it take to bring in the well?
Plainview: Should be very quick.
Eli Sunday: I would like a one hundred thousand dollar signing bonus plus the five that is owed with interest. Plainview: That's only fair.
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet and God is a superstition. If that's what you believe, then I will say it. Plainview: Say it like you mean it.
Eli Sunday: Daniel...
Plainview: Say it like it's your sermon.
Eli Sunday: This is foolish. [long pause]
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! [pause]
Eli Sunday: Is that fine?
Plainview: Those areas have been drilled.
Eli Sunday: What?
Plainview: Those areas have been drilled.
Eli Sunday: ...no they haven't...
Plainview: It's called drainage. I own everything around it... so I get everything underneath it.
I watched and listened and my mind was turned to the lesson I had been reading for the next day as I was due to teach in Relief Society.
My heart swelled with gratitude for a boy Prophet, namely Joseph Smith, who would never have denied what he was or what he saw for any reason. In the face of persecution, attacks and all manner of threatening behaviour, he never denied his testimony. In contrast to the above, this is what Joseph said," I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not dent it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation. "
I am intensely glad to know that Joseph Smith was and is a Prophet of God.
1 comment:
Hmmm.. I'm afraid I don't have an idea :)
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