The Lord of the Rings Illustrated (Tolkien Illustrated Editions)

You know, I bet it's a wonderful book. You know, it's just that you got to sit down and read all three of them.

And it was standing there and of course there's some broad there who like you're supposed to respect but for no fucking reason at all She's showing way too much skin.

Is that really the Lord of all horses? You fucking senile old coot The fuck is wrong with you and not to mention subtly racist Why is the Lord of all horses is white as fucking chalk, huh?

How come how come it couldn't been like one of those Arabian horses, you know jet black with the sun shining off the side Seeing all the muskles

And the Ricky Schroeder who got fucked by Spock is like Yeah, I don't know what he said. What if is up with that if I don't know what he said and the fucking Obi-Wan Kenobi guy goes Oh, that's so and so the Lord of all horses

would you rather be a simple nerd living on a small budget, enjoying his life of board games, Lord of the Ring and rings and nerd books in a one bedroom apartment in a small town and a simple job at the grocery store with no excitement but complete comfort and peace.

Would you rather be a simple nerd living on a small budget, enjoying his life of board games, Lord of the Ring and rings and nerd books in a one bedroom apartment in a small town and a simple job at the grocery store with no excitement but complete comfort and peace.

Lord of the Rings actually watched a little bit of that shit.

You know, I bet it's a wonderful book You know, it's just that you got to sit down and read all three of them.

Is that really the Lord of all horses? You fucking senile old coot The fuck is wrong with you and not to mention subtly racist Why is the Lord of all horses is white as fucking chalk, huh?

Why isn't all white horse the Lord of all horses? Is that racist to do that Or for other horses and like ponies You know horses and ponies would never get along Black horses we make in front of the point with the ponies.

I'm like I'm gonna give it a shot here I'm gonna try You know or at the very least get a couple more references for my podcast

You know, I bet it's a wonderful book You know, it's just that you got to sit down and read all three of them.

Is that from fucking Lord of the Rings?

I found out the other day that Led Zeppelin was really into Lord of the Rings.

I bet it's a wonderful book. You know, it's just that you got to sit down and read all three of them.

I found out the other day that Led Zeppelin was really into Lord of the Rings. I didn't realize that when they were singing about all that shit cuz in the darkest depths of mortar. Is that from fucking Lord of the Rings?

And for those who didn't know, the Lord of the Rings series was mostly filmed in New Zealand. By Peter Jackson. And Peter Jackson was inspired to, one of the key inspirations for him in making Lord of the Rings was Excalibur.

Big he's a big fan of Lord of the Rings.

He then went on to found his own venture firm, Narya. He named it after another object from the Lord of the Rings book which just shows how much he really was kind of this Peter Thiel stan.

For most of you listening to this Andrew is a significant sword in the Lord of the Rings series.

And both of those you can see his passion for Lord of the Rings because both Palantir and Andrew L have Lord of the Rings

I haven't seen Lord of the Rings. I haven't seen any of those. ... I've read the books. I've read the books.

Lord of the Rings, like when they were making that movie, that had to be like the most pressure in the world. Because Lord of the Rings has been a big book series for 50, 60, however many years. And then you make a movie and it wins an Oscar.

Because he likes Lord of the Rings.

I like Lord of the Rings. I guess that makes me weird.

He likes Lord of the Rings.

I like Lord of the Rings. I guess that makes me weird.

So when people do the 'you got check out Lord of the Rings and stuff' I'd be like 'I don't want Lord of the Rings'. Let's go to the park and play on the rings and like hang off a ring and then we'll beat each other with a mop handle, we'll see who stays on the longest.'

We could spoil Lord of the Rings, but to say the like she loves the spiders. Yeah. Like poor Frodo is just wrapped up in the stuff and it's like in any in Skyrim you'll be in, you know, dungeons and they'll just be this stuff just like covering the walls and then you realize that spiders web.

As Cape Lancet says in Lord of the Rings Men above all else desire power

he looks like he'd be carrying a staff in a Lord of the Rings kind of film something like that

Oh, it's the Ring from Lord of the Rings, a book that I heard about.

Exactly. I have to read the Hobbit and jack up to Lord of the Rings.

I've read lord of the rings three times

But Return of the King is also like Lord of the Rings. It's very Hobbit-y.

Yeah. So that's why I credit God with writing Lord of the Rings.

If you're a fan of Lord of the Rings or just honestly documentaries and stuff, it was really crazy.

And what will be like the elves from Lord of the Rings will just go away will be a myth who built these buildings well they say they were angels They're not here anymore

And I picked out one of old, one of part of my favorite novel, J.R.R. Tolkien's book, Lord of the Rings.

And there's a place there where Gandalf, great Gandalf, boy, could I use Gandalf on my staff right now. But Gandalf is this wizard and he's basically an old wizard and all the world's problems are on his shoulders. He's really trying, basically, he's basically trying to save the world from falling under the dominion of darkness and evil and terror. And it's all on his shoulders.

And at one point somebody makes a statement and he begins to laugh. And he laughs from the heart, deep down. And this friend of his looks at him, and in the novel this friend looks at him and says, he suddenly realized that in spite of all this incredible pressure and strain and stress on this old man, that underneath it all there was a fountain of joy that was so deep, a gusher of joy that was so deep that no matter how big a boulder there was put on the top, that gusher of joy could not be held back. And that there was enough mirth down there to set a kingdom laughing.

I don't know if any of you are fans of Lord of the Rings, but you might remember that passage.

There's this old bent man with the weight of the world literally on his shoulders and suddenly he laughs a clear laugh from the heart.

I don't know what they're going to do this the last of the three Lord of the Rings movies about to come out and I don't know what they're going to put in you know they leave things out of the book and they put certain things in and they change a few things and I don't know if this will be in the last movie but it's in the book and if it isn't the last movie I want you to remember this sermon because one of my favorite things in the book is at the very end the returning king you know the true king has come back and he's got it all he's got the lineage he's got the royal line he's got the sword he's got the stature he's got the size he's got the battle skills and he has conquered he has conquered and so they come to the field of Cremalin it's a place where he's going to be honored and there's a throne set up and there's banners everywhere and all the roads lead to the throne and there's the crowd the host has come to see and there's a feasting that's going on and then at the key moment the king steps off of his throne and he's got the returning king and he grabs the two little hobbits he grabs Frodo and Sam Gamgee and puts them on the throne of course they both fit and he turns and he says to the host praise them with great praise and they do that's what Jesus is doing in some cosmic way do you get that Paul got it and once he got that it converted him he spent the rest of his life spinning it out and it converted him more deeply and more deeply and more deeply why would you ever feel poor again when you know you've got the only wealth that's real why would you ever care about what people say about you when you know that your charges against you have been dismissed by the only judge that counts when God beholds you in Christ he sees an absolute beauty that you know the honor of being a Christian secondly when Jesus Christ says why persecutes thou me he's not just saying what's true of me is true of them he's also saying what hurts them hurts me and that's the second amazing killer app I would like to share with you when the resurrected Lord says I am still experiencing the suffering of my people we have an incredible resource for suffering and what we do I know are going through some terrible things and when you go through some terrible things it's natural to say how do I know he cares how could I know he cares how could he care if I'm going through all this only Christianity and we just said this three weeks ago so I won't go very long on this only Christianity even claims that God has suffered only Christianity gives you a God who knows what it's like to lose a son only Christianity gives you a God who's been tortured only Christianity gives you a God who's suffered who's been rejected who's died only Christianity gives you a God who's actually on the cross looked to heaven and said why why of course he cares are you kidding even in heaven he's hurt when you're hurt persecute them he's persecuted me stab them you stab me hurt them you hurt me of course he cares there is no other religion even that makes a claim like that that God has so enmeshed himself in our needs and so bound his heart to our heart that he suffers when we suffer there it is that's one resource but it's not the only resource the other resource is this this is the resurrected Lord saying he hurts for you and you know what this means the resurrection the resurrection the resurrection is a teaching completely defeats the whole idea of suffering people say well why is all this suffering happening I don't know why the particular suffering is happening but I know this when I had a nightmare that my family was dead and then I woke up and saw they weren't the nightmare only enhanced my joy in my family remember the doctrine the Christian doctrine of the resurrection is not just that when we're all raised from the dead and when the whole world is renewed we're not just going to heaven the world is going to be renewed so the Christian doctrine of resurrection is not just that the suffering is going to be eliminated or that there's a suffering is going to have a consolation don't you realize what this means on the field of Cremalin Sam Gamgee said I thought you were dead I thought I was dead is everything sad going to come untrue is everything sad going to come untrue the doctrine of the resurrection engulfs suffering it doesn't just end suffering it doesn't even just console you for suffering the doctrine of resurrection engulfs suffering because what it says is everything sad is going to come untrue all the worst things that have ever happened are going to become a nightmare the resurrection will make all things a nightmare which means the worst suffering that's ever happened to you will only make your eventual joy infinitely greater for it having happened that's the defeat of suffering it's not just ending it not just consoling you for it it's just suffering so the suffering is taken up into the glory and it makes it vastly better that's defeating suffering when the resurrected Lord says I have come into your suffering so that you will come into my glory you got a to defeat her for suffering in your life one last thing and it really is the last thing Jesus identifies with the church so much that he says when you hurt them you hurt me he identifies with the church now I want you to know we don't want to it doesn't matter what church you identify with right now you're embarrassed if you're Baptist there's things to be embarrassed about by Baptist so you're Presbyterian there's things to be embarrassed if you're Episcopalian there's things to be embarrassed it doesn't matter what your church is so let's just not belong to any church let's not identify with any church it's just humiliating if Jesus wasn't afraid to be humiliated if Jesus wasn't above identifying with the church then you shouldn't either why because Jesus says I am present in my people so much so that what happens to them happens to me and if Jesus is present with his people you need to be present with his people you need to be deeply committed to the church you need to be deeply enmeshed participating in the church do you want to be converted do you want to have a more converted life have an untamed God through the Bible resurrection and spin out the implications when Jesus Christ says you are in me and I am in you and that is life and you'll be converted let us pray thank you Father for helping us understand what it means that our lives turned inside out by the truths of the gospel and we've seen some of those truths now and we ask that you would help us to either become converted for the first time or be converted because we have spent this time considering what you did in the life of Paul do that in our lives we ask it in Jesus name Amen Thanks for listening to today's teaching We trust you were encouraged by it and that it gives you new insight into how you can apply God's word to your life each day You can find more resources at www.gospelonlife.com Just subscribe to the Gospel Unlife newsletter to receive free articles sermons devotionals and other valuable resources Again it's all at gospelunlife.com We also invite you to stay connected with us on Facebook Instagram YouTube and Twitter This month's sermons were recorded in 2003 The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel Unlife podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church

One of my favorite things in the book is at the very end the returning king you know the true king has come back and he's got it all he's got the lineage he's got the royal line he's got the sword he's got the stature he's got the size he's got the battle skills and he has conquered he has conquered and so they come to the field of Cremalin it's a place where he's going to be honored and there's a throne set up and there's banners everywhere and all the roads lead to the throne and there's the crowd the host has come to see and there's a feasting that's going on and then at the key moment the king steps off of his throne and he's got the returning king and he grabs the two little hobbits he grabs Frodo and Sam Gamgee and puts them on the throne of course they both fit and he turns and he says to the host praise them with great praise and they do

If you know anything about the history of how he would write, probably every chapter in The Lord of the Rings was written 10 times.

He was trying to... He had this idea in his head of a tree, a beautiful tree. And he was trying to paint a tree.

Before him stood the tree. His tree finished. Its leaves opening, its branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt and guessed, but had often failed to catch.

He gazed at the tree and slowly he lifted his arms and he opened them wide. It's a gift, he said. Suddenly Tolkien realized there is a real tree and someday everybody's going to see it.

And so over the next 20 years, C.S. Lewis wrote the Space Trilogy, Book One, Book Two, Book Three, Narnia Chronicles, Book One, Book Two, Book Three, Book Four, Book Five, Book Six, Book Seven, Screwtape Letters.

He just churned them out and churned them out and Tolkien continually wrote over and over and over again, rewrote, rewrote one book.

All those 37 years he was just working on one book and he never got it done. He thought he would never get it done. And he envied Lewis because he had more problem with envy.

And in the early 40s he actually got so frustrated with his own artistic incompetence and his own envy, in a sense, that he got writer's block and he stopped working on The Lord of the Rings completely.

And one night he had a dream. And when he woke up, he wrote the dream down into a story.

And the story is called Leaf by Niggle.

Kathy and I have a lot of trouble, whoa, have a lot of trouble not crying when we read one chapter in the third volume of Lord of the Rings.

It's called, it's the chapter is the Battle of the Pelliner Fields. It's in the famous Tolkien fantasy trilogy.

There's a hobbit. His name is Meriadoc and he's a little guy. That's what hobbits are.

And he's, he's in this great battle and he, his, his, his beloved king, his friend and father has just been cast down by this towering evil general, a kind of a demonic king.

And Meriadoc is supposed to defend his king who's now lying wounded and dying. And he's absolutely terrified. It says he was just crawling around in the mud blind with terror and he was saying, why can't you get yourself together? You're supposed to be a king's man and here you are terrified.

And he couldn't, he couldn't get the courage up. And the evil demonic king starts to come on to the good king. And suddenly a woman stands up in full armor, throws off her helmet.

Some of you know this, surely. Her name is Eowyn and she stands between the nameless terror and her and her beloved father. And she says, touch him and I'll smite thee. And of course the evil witch king looks at her and says, if you don't get away, I will not only kill you, but you will die in terrible torment.

And what does she say? She just draws her sword and says, okay, do what you will. But if you touch him, I will smite thee.

So the demonic king comes down upon her and starts to crush her into the ground. And when Meriadoc, the hobbit looks up and sees what she's doing, this is what he says. He suddenly, his courage comes up and says, if she is willing to stand there like that, I can do my little thing.

And he jumps up and he attacks this towering inferno of evil. And together, the way the story goes, together Eowyn and Meriadoc do slay the terrible general. What's that mean? I'll tell you what it means.

It's very hard for us to read this thing and not cry. Jesus Christ stands between you and destruction. Justice, death, that's what we deserve.

Death and destruction, the nameless terror. And Jesus Christ stands between us and it's after us. Death is after us. And Jesus says, no, no. You want my brothers and sisters, but I will stand here.

And the Bible tells us that down upon him came our punishment.

And we are as, even as Christians, we are as cowardly and as blinded with terror in our daily lives as Meriadoc, unless occasionally we look up and we see what he is doing for us.

We see what he's done for us. And then your courage will come together and you'll start to say, no, if he's willing to do this, I can do my part.

You become a great heart. You will only answer the totalitarian call. You'll only say, how high do I cut it off?

You will only say that if you see how he was cut utterly off.

You know, Jesus says, cut off your hand, pluck out your eye if I asked you, but Jesus was cut off at the waist.

Jesus was cut off at the roots. He was cut off from the land of the living.

Unless you don't remember the Lord of the Rings when when Gandalf smoked and then he made like a boat out of the smoke

We would get a little bit buzzed and lay in the bed and watch like Lord of the Rings or like Harry Potter before we got ready for the night.

I had only seen the first Lord of the Rings.

He made Lord of the Rings. He made King Kong with Jack Black.

Lord of the Rings trilogy, 12 years.

I don't know if either of you've read Lord of the Rings, but I turn into this golem creature who wants to protect my money. I will spurred at anything that gets close to my riches.