Apr 6, 2023
What can we learn about our own trials, our own suffering, our own need to persevere and perhaps even lift up a sacrifice from the new feature film coming out right now, His Only Son? That's the topic we're going to address today on Flourish-Meant in this. Easter episode.
Flourish-Meant is sponsored by Access More. Today I have with me an award-winning director, David Helling. He was a Marine for five years, which sent him into the desert, and there's through some battling even within himself, he discovered that his calling was to help bring scripture. From the page to the screen, and he's here to talk to us today about his new film, His Only Son.
Welcome David. I am so pleased to have you on Flourish-Meant.
David: I'm looking forward to talking about just what the Lord did in the life of Abraham and what he's been doing in, in this.
Tina: Tell us a little bit about that personal journey that you went through when you were a Marine and you went through this war inside that brought you to know more of who God is in your life and more desire to delve into scripture and then share it with the world.
David: Yeah, well, you gave the summary of it and really it was during my time as a Marine in Iraq. I grew up in a Christian home and asked Jesus into my heart when I was eight years old at church camp. But really I was just kind of living morally for moral's sake Whenever I went to Iraq, by God's grace, I had taken my Bible with me. And I just got really convicted. It was over there primarily. My team was holed up in one of Saddam Hussein's old missile bunkers in Al Ambar province near the town of Hoban, right on the edge of ancient Babylon. The Lord really began to work in my heart through those long and lonely nights and show me my sin and showed me just how deep it actually ran and that even though I confessed to be a Christian, I had no desire to read his word. And I got really convicted about that.
And so I started reading the Bible. And as I started reading the Bible, I actually started in First Samuel. Cause I didn't even know where to start. I thought, well, my name is David. I'll start with the life of David. And so through going through his life and cross-referencing to the gospels, to the epistles, to the Psalms, just seeing the depth of my own sin and the heights of his grace and the gospel came alive to me and it was like, wait, did I ever get it before? Did I ever really understand what it meant that Jesus died for my sins? That God's standard is holy, but we all fall short of that standard, so the Lord himself came and met that standard in his son Jesus Christ. And through that perfect life, in spite of that perfect life, he was put to death anyway, the just for the unjust. And he atoned for the punishment that we were due. He died the death that we deserve, and he conquered death for all those who believe. Our eternal life with him is by faith in his finished work alone. And all that came alive to me. And not only that, but the people in scripture came alive to me as well. It was no longer letters on a page. It was people in real life. From that moment I had a strong desire to, show people what I was seeing when I read the Bible and to illustrate these accounts we find in in history to show that these are real people.
When you paint that vividly and you see them as real, that's a proper hermeneutic. Hermeneutics is how you study the Bible, and a proper hermeneutic is you start with the text. Who was the writer? Who was the audience? What did the word mean to these people in that time? Then once you have that fleshed out, then you see the true meaning of the text.
Then from that point, you see how it applies to you.
There's a lot of scripture in the film, but this is a tool, which the homiletics is preaching essentially. And I mean, just a pastor would prepare a sermon and you dig from the text and then you set the context in the world so that people better understand the text of scripture. That's what I'm trying to do with this film.
Not everything in the film is scripture, so lemme be clear about that. So this isn't supposed to be a replacement for scripture at all. This is not, you don't go see this movie and think you got your Bible time in for the day. You want to go home and dig into the word. But I know there are many things in this film that are touching on, not only with Abraham's trial and his testing of faith, but for the first time ever, I think there is a richness that is given to Sarah's struggle with infertility and as she works her way to the birth of Isaac . That will resonate differently than, Abraham's story will resonate with people. And so the Lord will use it just like our own testimonies, right? We bear witness of how the Lord has brought us from death to life. And there's different parts of our testimony that the Lord will use in shining that light or sparking that spark in people's lives.
So yes, so I can see the film being used in that regard, and I think it already,
As far as local churches going to see this film and giving talking points, especially even now during Easter, because you know so many of us, we like to invite our lost friends and family to church on Easter.
But there are those that won't even go to church on Easter, but they'll go see a movie. And so what that'll do is you're able to then have those discussions with your lost friends and family and, and be able to talk about what the Lord was doing in Abraham's life and, and what that means for us today. It's not for entertainment primarily, it's for eternal.
The Lord's perfect timing in having it come out right now, in Easter. I was actually praying for an Easter release.
If you haven't entered into that relationship with Christ, if you're not covered by his righteousness, by his finished work, and you know that you can't cut it, you can't do it. So the Lord himself did it. Christ did it. He lived the perfect life. He went and died to death that you rightly deserve. And in the proof that atoning work was sufficient before the father is, he's risen from the grave.
And so all we need to do is put our faith in that. And what we put our faith in that, yes, his work is finished. I now can stand before the Lord, before the throne blameless because it's his righteousness that covers me. When you put your faith in that. Then we love him and if we love him, then we keep his commandments.
We are saved to good works. We are not saved by good works. You wanna be careful you don't flip down on its head. So if you haven't put your faith in Christ, then do that now. This life is hard and it's difficult. We have to consider the amount of affliction that Christ, the only innocent one went through. Otherwise, we become weary in our own affliction.
We're called to do hard things and in the hard things we see that Christ's Grace is sufficient. His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
Tina: So how can people access all the resources available along with the movie and how can they find theaters to invite their friends and family members and their church community to go visit those theaters to see the movie this weekend?
David: If you go to angel.com/son, you can get your tickets there. You type in your zip code, it'll show you where it's playing near you, and. It's cool because Angel Studios actually came up with brand-new technology. Technology that they've been using for The Chosen to get The Chosen out to over a hundred million people around the world for free.
Their pay-it-forward model that people pay for The Chosen so that it stays free for other people that can't afford it. I know it's a hard time economically for all of us, including me.
There are many families that can't afford to go to the movies ever. And I think the last time I checked as of yesterday, there had been, already 16,000 tickets that have been purchased through Pay it Forward so that people can take their families to go and see His Only Son in theaters if they can't even afford it.
And so if you wanna get tickets or pay it forward for others so that others that can't afford it can go see it in Easter, you go to angel.com. I think there are resources for churches and things like that at hisonlysonmovie.com. You might be able to see that also on angel.com/son.