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Every Christian Needs to Read Lord of the Rings | Sacred Men · Sacred Men

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What's up guys? Welcome back to the Sacred Men
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YouTube channel. This channel exists to equip and
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train and encourage Christian men to be strong, virtuous men
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in a weak and degenerate culture.
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I'm the host Pastor Justin Dean and it's a joy to be with you
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today. And you can hopefully you can
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notice right away that number one, my face is pretty beat up
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from jiu jitsu. I get my face just destroyed
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with the ghee but I'm still here podcasting for you and you can
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kind of see maybe. I got new glasses and these
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glasses are supposed to be anti glare and so I can already tell
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they're they have less glare than they did before.
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So some of you told me that my glasses drove you crazy because
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of the glare. Last year I got glasses for the
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first time, didn't know anything about it, got just the regular
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ones. Now I've got anti glare.
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Boom, trying to improve the podcast.
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I've also got new streaming software and some new equipment
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behind the scenes. Hopefully things are going to be
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a little bit higher quality and sound a little better for you,
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and we're doing our best over here.
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Now. Today's episode is a little bit
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different than we've done in the past.
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I don't really have a script, didn't really write anything
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because I've been thinking a lot about, obviously we've been
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talking about virtue, the four cardinal virtues.
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We broke them down. We want to be virtuous men.
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We got to know what that means. But in order to become virtuous
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men, one of the things that we actually need, we need examples.
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We need virtuous men who come alongside of us and show us what
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that virtue looks like right now.
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We can do that by going to the Bible and and learning from
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things in the Bible, and that's good and we should do that.
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But there's the power to story, right?
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There's a power to even movies that can show us a virtuous man
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and we can want to emulate it. I remember the first time I
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watched Rocky as a kid. I watch, I don't remember the
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first time. I just watched it so many times.
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I remember watching it and, and like learning about
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determination, learning about working hard and out, working
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your opponent and having grit and, and being inspired by that,
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like that, watching that inspired the way that I trained
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for, you know, competition and stuff.
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And so I want us to be able to find good examples and we can
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find good examples by reading, you know, biographies and
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autobiographies and, and we can find good examples in scripture.
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But there's one example that anybody that knows me knows that
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motivates me, that I'm, I'm inspired by, and it is The Lord
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of the Rings. Now, immediately people who've
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just seen the movies or something that they, oh, you
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know, it's a myth or it's fiction and how could it?
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There's something about reading The Lord of the Rings that makes
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me want to be a more virtuous man.
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There's all kinds of virtuous men in Lord of the Rings.
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And there's people that lack virtue in Lord of the Rings.
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There's wicked, evil people. CS Lewis once commented about
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Lord of the Rings. He said he loved the novel
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because the people's insides were displayed on their outside.
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So the elves, you know, they're, they're virtuous and kind of,
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you know, I wouldn't say more morally pure.
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And so they're brilliant on the outside.
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And orcs are demonic on the inside.
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And so they're insides look like they're outsides.
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They're outsides look like they're insides.
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So it's most of the time it's pretty easy to spot a good guy
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and a bad guy. So what I want to do today is I
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want to talk a little bit about Lord of the Rings.
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I just finished the Return of the King.
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I mentioned this in a sermon a few weeks back, sat down.
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I was, it was cold around here. So I sat down and I just busted
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out the last half of The Return of the King and I was just
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deeply moved and inspired in a way that I haven't been before.
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I've probably read the Return of the, I've probably read The Lord
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of the Rings 10 times. I've read it more than any other
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fiction book. I don't like fiction books.
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Most of the time, the way my brain works, I just want to
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finish a book. I want to get it.
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I want to understand what it, what it's about, and then it is
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what it is. You know, I, I kind of eat
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fiction books a little bit like candy.
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They don't really do much for me, but The Lord of the Rings is
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different. It's something I come back to
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over and over and I kind of never stop reading it.
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I finished Return of the King and I walked upstairs and I
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grabbed Fellowship of the Ring and I came back downstairs and I
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kept reading and there's something I've learned.
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The Lord of the Rings is a long book.
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It's a very long book. It's going to take you weeks,
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months, maybe a year, depending on your reading speed and how
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much, how often you read it to get through it.
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And the first time you read through it, you're going to be
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like, what is this? You know, it's, it's going to be
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like, man, he's really descriptive about scenes and
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flowers and all, all kinds of things.
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And you're, if you're like me, you're going to be like, get to
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the point, get to the fights, get to the battle scenes, get to
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the climax, get to these things. And you're, you're just wanting
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to read it like you would watch a movie and just kind of gobble
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it up and then walk away. But this isn't that type of
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book. It's a type of book that the
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more time you spend in it, the more it changes you as a person.
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The darkness gets darker, the brightness gets brighter, the
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beauty gets more glorious. The virtue starts standing out
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at you. You start like, really caring
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about the characters and understanding them more and
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more. You start seeing yourself in
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some of the good guys, some of the bad guys.
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You start picking up things that you have never noticed before.
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And I started thinking, like developing virtue, becoming a
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Virtuous Man. I really think that you can.
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It's like reading through The Lord of the Rings.
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You know, it's a slow, kind of arduous process and then you get
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through the book and then if you go back again and read it again,
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it's, it's like the process of developing virtue, man.
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Like you, I I think there's some virtues that you can develop
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just by reading it because you're becoming attuned to light
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and dark goodness and evil. You're becoming attuned to the
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deceit of the enemy. You're becoming attuned to how
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compelling wickedness and darkness and the evil use of
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power can be, and you also start to crave goodness, truth, and
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beauty. You start to see how they're
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actually more compelling, and though they're not easily
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accessible, you don't just give yourself over to goodness,
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truth, and beauty. You can give yourself over to
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wickedness, but you actually have to pursue virtue.
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You have to actually have to grind and go through the battles
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and go through the hardship and go through the difficulty and
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strive with all your might and face insurmountable odds and
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insurmountable, you know, enemies and think that you're
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not going to win. And if God doesn't show up, then
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you will lose. And over and over and over.
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In the book, God shows up now. It doesn't show up.
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He doesn't show up as God. He shows up as the author's
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prerogative. He shows up as, you know, it
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could be chance or just in the nick of time, but you get the
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sense that God the you know, the Tolkien here, the author is in
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control of the whole story the whole time.
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And each character thinks that that, you know, it's going to be
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their last moment. And sometimes it is.
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But you know, the main characters throughout, they're
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being guided by Providence. And this process is meant to
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create them, create in them, make them certain type of men.
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And so I'm going to commend this book to you.
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If you haven't read it and the first time through, it'll
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probably be OK. You'll probably, I think you'll
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enjoy it. It's it's I think it's one of
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the best stories ever written. But the gold is found in
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rereading it and rereading it. And I think there's something
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about its virtue, like the virtue of this book that seeps
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into the reader who keeps reading and keeps reading.
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Now let me give a quick kind of overview that I think most
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people miss. I missed it now.
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I was late to the game and reading the book.
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I was late to the game and reading period.
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I don't think I read a book until I graduated high school
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when I became a Christian. You know, I don't think I ever
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read a book before that. So I watched at least the first
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movie. I watched at least the first
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movie before I read the book. I might have waited.
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I might have watched all three movies before I read the book.
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I can't really remember off the top of my head, but I think I
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might have watched all three movies because I remember the
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first time I read through it, I got really confused by the
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ending because the ending in the book is a lot different than the
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ending in the movie. So let me lay this out for you
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really quickly. The whole story begins in this
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place called the Shire, and it's begins with these creatures
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called Hobbits. Small, pretty insignificant
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characters, but they're happy. They're kind of, most of them
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are pretty joyful. They're simple.
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They love good food, they love good drink, they love their
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family. They're kind of protected in
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this Garden of Eden type of space and they don't really know
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any battles. They don't really know any
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enemies. They don't fight.
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They don't do any. They don't go on any, you know,
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extraordinary journeys. They just kind of exist in this
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little garden. What what they don't know is the
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reason that they can enjoy that peace and quiet of the Shire is
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that they're hard men out in the surrounding areas protecting
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them. There's people watching over
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them and keeping kind of evil things and darkness and evil men
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at Bay. And so they're enjoying this
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kind of protected state in the Shire.
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And because they're so protected, they actually lack
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many virtues. You know, they lack fortitude
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for one, right? They lacked fortitude for one.
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And they don't have to really do much with justice either because
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there's not much wickedness going on around them.
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And, you know, they're pretty much happy and they get along
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relatively well. And so they're, they're actually
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lacking virtue. And there's this growing
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darkness coming out of Mordor and coming out of other places.
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There's this growing darkness around them.
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And this ring of power, right? This ring of power that is
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controlled by the Dark Lord comes to Frodo, The Hobbit.
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And to make a Long story short, he's got to take this ring of
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power and he's got to do this long, arduous, difficult journey
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all the way back to Mordor to destroy it.
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And hobbits don't do this kind of thing.
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And yet Providence has brought in this ring, and he's got to do
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it. And, and of course he's got this
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wise counselor, Gandalf the Grey, who's going to try to help
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him on his way. But of course he, Gandalf is
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busy with wizard things and, you know, trying to figure out this
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everything that's going on behind the scenes.
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And he's got all of these different pieces that he's got
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to put together. So Gandalf leaves him alone for
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a while and he's got to make his way back.
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And then eventually he gets this fellowship around him.
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There's a couple men, there's a dwarf, there's an elf, of
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course, Gandalf. And he's got a few of his
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buddies, three other hobbits with him.
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And it's the Fellowship, I call themselves the Fellowship of the
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Ring. And this is this idea that if
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you're going to be a virtuous man, and if you're going to do
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an impossible task, you can't do it alone.
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You're going to need help from other brothers, even people that
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you know, elves and dwarves don't get along.
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And so you've got this kind of unity in diversity going along
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with that. This is this task is so big.
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It's going to take kind of all the tribes of men in one sense,
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all the all the parties on Middle Earth to unite to defeat
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this great evil. And you know, the, the, the
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journey to mount Doom is so long and it's so slow that it tests
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your patience. You get, I mean, there's plenty
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of action in there, but it's this The Lord of the Rings is
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not like this action-packed adventure story.
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There's great battles and, and all kind of stuff, but there's
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long pieces of dialogue. There's, you know, it, it really
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kind of drags out this journey. And the whole point is, you
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know, we're called to, to something like this that's going
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to take our life. It's going to take everything
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we've got to accomplish and it's not always done in a week or in
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a few days. It's not just something you can
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sit down and watch in 2 1/2 hours and boom, you're there.
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But Frodo and, and I'm going to, I'm going to just track the
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hobbits here. There's so many things I can
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talk about, but I'm going to track the hobbits.
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These hobbits go from kind of clueless, jovial.
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They don't, they kind of lack wisdom.
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They definitely don't have fortitude and not really dealers
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injustice, OK. And then they have to go through
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this long, arduous journey that radically changes them.
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All four of them that go on this journey are radically changed.
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They're changed through their friendship with one another.
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This book is a phenomenal book about friendship, about loyalty
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to one another. You read it and you want to be a
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better friend. You want to be like Sam Wise and
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Pippen and Mary. It's about, like I said,
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loyalty. It's about virtue.
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It's about facing impossible tasks but doing the right thing
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anyway. And so they have to face demonic
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creatures, the Nazgul. And Frodo right away gets
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stabbed with a Nazgul blade, and it's such a poignant picture.
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He gets wounded by this invisible blade that damages his
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body. And yet through kind of Elvin
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magic, they they heal him, but they can't heal his soul.
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There's this mark. He's a changed man after that.
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He's a changed Hobbit after that.
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He's got an ache that is never going to leave him.
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And this is what's interesting about The Lord of the Rings
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compared to The Hobbit. The Hobbit Bilbo goes on this
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great adventure, all kinds of, you know, Dragons and all kind
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of cool stuff. And then he comes back and he's
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pretty much the same man. And not only is the same man,
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but he's got this ring and basically it just brings
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blessing into his life. For the most part.
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He gets a longer life. And so it's like a there and
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back again story. But Bilbo isn't like radically
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changed in who he is, but in Lord of the Rings, it's
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completely different. All the people that go on this
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quest come back radically changed, but Frodo most of all.
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And so he's you've got these and then they leave, they leave from
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there and the Fellowship ends up kind of starting to fall apart.
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Gandalf, they lose Gandalf and his fight with the Balrog and,
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and of course Frodo and Sam from that moment on.
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So in the first book that happens and Frodo and Sam think
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that Gandalf's dead. And then there's this other
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thing going on that eventually some of you know, they get
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reunite. He gets reunited with Mary and
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Pippin and Gimli and Aragorn and Legolas, and they realize he's
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back alive and they're fighting all these battles.
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But if you track Frodo and Sam, they're pretty much alone.
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They've got, they get some help from Fermere and stuff, but
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they've got this just impossible journey, step after step after
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step, encountering darkness the whole way, Incarnate hunger,
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thirst. Frodo's still dealing with his
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womb. The weight of the Ring is
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getting heavier and heavier and heavier.
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It's taken all of his strength. He'd almost dies several times.
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Sam has to learn how to fight. Frodo has to learn how to fight
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a little bit. Sam has to carry the ring for a
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little while, and then Sam eventually has to carry Frodo.
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Frodo can't even make it up to Mount Doom.
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I'm fast forwarding a long ways and they get to the the end of
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the goal and and Frodo is overcome by the ring and he
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can't destroy it. And then the mercy that they
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showed to Gollum, that mercy that they showed by not
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destroying Gollum, Gollum comes back and bites Frodo's finger
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off and takes the ring and then dances around and falls into the
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mountain Doom. And the ring is destroyed.
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Now, this is where most movies would end.
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And The Lord of the Rings kind of did end there in the movie.
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But when you're reading the book, there's still 130 pages or
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so left. And I remember the first time I
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read the book, being so struck by this, I was like, whoa, they
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just destroyed the ring. You know, this should be
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happily, happily ever after. But this was more, it's more
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than just, you know, we have to do this thing novel, we have to
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destroy the ring. That is what the book's about.
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But again, the book is actually more about these characters
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going from characters that lack certain virtues to virtuous,
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strong and virtuous characters. And So what happens there when
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they destroy the ring, of course, it's reveal, you know,
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Gandalf flies in on the eagles, rescues them.
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They find out Gandalf's alive. This is amazing reunion.
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And then you begin this kind of this trek back to the Shire and
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Aragorn is crowned king. And it's a glorious ceremony.
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And you know, you like, this is one of the reasons why he
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destroyed the ring. Like the rule of men has come.
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Gandalf realizes that his time, his age is up.
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The age of Wizards is over. Now it's the time of the Age of
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Kings. So they kind of leave the king
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where he's at and the Fellowship kind of begins to to break
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apart. Legolas and Gimli go do their
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thing and you get them and they go back.
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They find Solomon in his tower and he runs off and, and, and
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there's this sense that we've won.
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We've won the battle. The king is enthroned and yet
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there's there's still work to do.
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There's still something that has to be done.
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And what that something is, you don't find out until like the
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second to last chapter. And it's called the scourging of
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the Shire. And it's become one of my
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favorite chapters in the whole book.
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And what it is, is these happy go lucky hobbits have come back.
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The king is on his throne, Gandalf has left them, Legolas,
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Gimli has left them. Basically all the tough guys,
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all the hard men have left them. All the battle tested men have
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left them. And now it's just 4 hobbits that
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have to go back to the Shire. And what happened?
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They didn't know this happened, but what happened is Solomon and
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Worm Tongue fled the tower and they went back to the Shire.
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And Solomon's power has been taken from him by Gandalf and
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because the Ring is destroyed. And so now all he has is the
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power of his tongue, right? He's got the power of a normal
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man, the power of his tongue. And what he does is he goes back
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and through fear and manipulation and, you know,
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threats, he takes over the Shire.
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Again, the Shire weren't fight. They weren't fighting folks.
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They didn't have weapons. They weren't strong.
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They didn't, they weren't just men.
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They weren't, they didn't have fortitude.
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So he conquers the Shire pretty easily.
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And this is what it looks like. The Shire is what it looks like
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when you have a culture full of soft men.
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You have a culture full of men who lack the hard virtues of
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justice and fortitude. And so he basically takes over,
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he takes over all the means of production.
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He basically turns it into a socialistic kind of communistic
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or place where he's in control of all the harvests, he's in
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control of all the wine, he's in control of all the the pipe
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weed. And he gives out a little here
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and there, but he's basically using it for his own use and,
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and doing what he wants with it. And the, the hobbits get back to
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their hometown. The hobbits get back to the
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Shire and there's gates set up where there was never gates
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before. But this was what's so beautiful
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about this chapter. The hobbits are not the same as
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when they left the battle. They've been through things,
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right? They've been through loss,
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they've been through pain. They've had wins, they've had
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losses. And it's made them into hard men
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now, right? Or hard hobbits.
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And so these guys start talking smack over the fence and they're
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just like, they're different men.
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They're, they're hollering over there.
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You better open that gate before I come over there and smack you
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and, you know, knock you out or whatever.
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And they're carrying swords now. They know how to use these
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swords now. They're in armor now.
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And that's what they do. They hop over the gate and they,
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they take over and they're like, oh, the big man's going to find
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out Sharky. And they're like, good, take me
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to him. And then they, they go back and,
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and the Shire has been, it's not totally destroyed, but it has
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fallen from its former glory. You know, vegetation has been
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cut down, trees have been cut down, different style of
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architecture has been built up. It's an uglier place than when
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they left it. And, you know, it's kind of a
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sad story. It's kind of like going to your
24:09
hometown and seeing it run over with low income housing and
24:14
crime in the streets and graffiti and all this kind of
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stuff. It's that kind of feeling.
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And the, the best part about this chapter is that these men
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now, these hobbits, they know what to do.
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Right before they would have went along with all the other
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hobbits. They wouldn't have resisted.
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They wouldn't have spoken up. They wouldn't have, you know,
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took up weapons and fought. They would have just gone along
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with it and fear just like everybody else.
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But now they've seen things. Now they've pushed back the
24:45
darkness. They fought demons and they've
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won. They've seen how the light can
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penetrate the darkness and the light cannot be overcome.
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And so now they've got experience, right?
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They've got real virtue. And they, they go back in and
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they cleanse the Shire. They, you know, take out the bad
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guys, they, you know, a bunch of guys.
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They, they rally the troops, they say we're fighting.
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And you see these hobbits who, like I said, they were, you
25:12
know, happy go lucky type of people.
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Finally they have a leader. Finally they have 4 hobbits who
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come in and say, we're not taking this crap anymore.
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We're standing up to this injustice.
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We're standing up to this wickedness.
25:22
We're standing up to this evil. And we're standing up to this
25:25
guy that's got no power, but he acts like he does because he's
25:27
good at talking. And, and ultimately what they do
25:31
is they, they kick all their butts, but they do it because
25:34
they have virtue, because they have fortitude down.
25:36
They've been changed through this great battle and this great
25:41
quest that they've been through. And then you see evil basically
25:49
commits suicide. So you've got Solomon and Worm
25:53
Tongue, and Solomon's always kind of treated Worm Tongue like
25:58
crap when he starts blaming Worm Tongue for all kind of stuff
26:01
that Sarman told him to do. And Worm Thumb freaks out, cuts
26:06
his throat, cuts Sarman's throat, takes off running, and
26:10
then they shoot. They shoot him with arrows and
26:12
kill him. And the whole point from my
26:18
perspective, is that the virtues aren't soft, right?
26:27
The virtues aren't all empathetic and kindness, that
26:32
there are virtues that are hard, like fortitude and justice.
26:36
And if, if, like Edmund Burke said, all it takes for evil to
26:43
win is for good men to do nothing.
26:46
And these were good men now and they had to come back and they
26:49
had to do something. And what?
26:51
What did they have to do? They had to drive out the
26:52
darkness. They had to drive out the evil
26:55
amongst them. They had to regain control of
26:59
the production, put it back into the hands of the people.
27:02
They had to beautify the the Shire again.
27:06
They had to drive the wickedness from it.
27:08
And in order to do that, they needed to fight, right?
27:10
They needed to fight. They like if everybody's Mr.
27:15
Nice Guy, well, the one mean strongman is going to come in
27:19
there and take over, right? And so they had to become
27:23
virtuous men that could drive out these people and give them a
27:27
home again. And that's basically what they
27:29
do. And then we see with Frodo,
27:32
Frodo is so changed from his battle, and you could even say
27:38
his battle with sin, right, If you could, if you see the Ring
27:41
of Power as kind of a analogy to sin.
27:44
He's so changed by it. He's so wounded by it.
27:46
He doesn't even get to enjoy the Shire.
27:48
Sam and Mary and Pip and do, but he's got to go off.
27:54
He's got to stay at West with Gandalf because he he basically
27:59
can't live in that place anymore.
28:00
He's been so changed by it. So it's a beautiful picture,
28:03
man. It's a beautiful book.
28:05
You read it. I just I want to be more like
28:07
Aragorn. I want to be more like Fermere.
28:09
I want to be more like, you know, almost all of the virtuous
28:13
people in the book. I want to be a better friend.
28:15
I want to be. But honestly, if you're reading
28:19
it and you're, you're more of a soft man, right?
28:23
You have the soft virtues when you read it, when you read and
28:28
you're looking at the hobbits and you're kind of laughing at
28:30
them and they just want a good, you know, cup of ale and they
28:32
just want to eat. They just want to have fun.
28:34
And you see their their arc, their character development,
28:37
right? That should be our character
28:40
development as well. We should be men like that.
28:44
It's good. I mean, the, The thing is when
28:46
they get back and they're, they're hard men, right?
28:48
And they're tough and they're strong and they've got fortitude
28:51
and they, they know how to execute justice.
28:53
They still know how to have a good time.
28:55
They're still jovial. They still laugh.
28:57
They still love a good meal and a good drink and some good pipe
29:00
wheat. And that's the kind of men that
29:02
we want to be, right? We want to get, we don't want to
29:04
get hard and cold and kind of burned out and despondent and
29:11
bitter. We don't want to be like that.
29:13
We want to be tough and tender. We want to be strong and joyful.
29:18
And we want to fight the battles that we have to fight so that
29:21
our children don't have to fight them right.
29:23
And so we want to the battles that the Lord's bringing us to
29:26
right now, we want to face those head on.
29:29
We want to speak the truth in love.
29:31
We want to be virtuous men. And we're never going to be
29:34
virtuous if we keep putting off those battles, if we keep making
29:38
excuses why, you know, we can't do the hard thing today.
29:43
We can't put our sin to death today.
29:45
We can't support our brothers. We can't be a good friend.
29:47
We can't be a good husband. We can't be a good father.
29:49
We can't be a good Workman. We keep putting off these
29:53
battles, these quests that the Lord puts in front of us.
29:56
We're never going to change. We're never going to grow into
29:59
virtuous men. And So what I would commend to
30:03
you is start reading Lord of the Rings.
30:09
Start reading it. I pray that you would get hooked
30:13
by it. I pray that it would cast a
30:16
spell on you and you would want to protect the Shire.
30:24
That's where I'm at. I want to build the Shire here
30:27
in the Quad Cities. I want to protect the Shire.
30:29
I want to make our city a more beautiful, a more truthful and
30:39
graceful place to live, right? I, I wanted to, you know,
30:41
beauty, goodness, truth and beauty, right?
30:43
That's what we want in our city. We want to build the Shire,
30:46
right? And in order to build a Shire,
30:48
we're going to have to drive out some wickedness.
30:49
We're going to drive out some evil, even the evil within us.
30:52
We're going to have to drive out the weakness, the softness in
30:55
US. And we're going to have to
30:57
become a hard man that can do hard things for the glory of God
31:00
and for the good of the Shire. That's what we want to do.
31:03
So whether it's just speaking the truth to liberal crazies in
31:09
our city, whether it's supporting justice in our
31:12
streets, whether it's teaching our kids the Bible, whatever it
31:16
is, we want to be virtuous men that can do that.
31:19
And I think reading Lord of the Rings is a great step in that
31:23
direction. And the more you read it and the
31:25
longer you read it, I'm telling you, man, the more you'll be
31:29
changed by it and the more you'll, you'll be able to see
31:31
the world through virtue and vice, right?
31:35
You'll be able to see the world that way and be shaped by it.
31:38
And you'll be able to, you'll have the discernment to see the
31:41
difference between virtue and vice, and you'll be able to
31:44
pursue virtue with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength.
31:47
And so that's what I'm hoping for you.
31:49
So guys, that's what I got for you today.
31:52
If you've got any questions or comments, or if you just want to
31:55
put down below your favorite part of the Lord of the Rings
31:58
man, or you got questions on the Lord of the Rings, put them
32:00
down. I'm not a Lord of the Rings
32:01
scholar. I've just read it several times
32:04
and love it. I'm always learning more about
32:06
it, but again, appreciate it if you liked, if you subscribed and
32:11
if you shared this podcast with a friend and guys.
32:15
Next week I, my plan is to talk about discernment.
32:19
So I've been thinking about this, written some stuff on it,
32:22
and I want to talk about the, the, the necessity of
32:28
discernment and the life of a virtuous man.
32:31
So that's coming next week guys. I hope you enjoyed this.
32:34
God bless and I'll talk to you soon.