Taking The Red Pill To Escape Satan's Matrix: Coming To The End Of Yourself Series

“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?

Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

The Matrix. Do you want to know what it is?

The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

You are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” -Excerpts from the Matrix (1999)

Are you ready for the truth? Growing up in this world there was always a splinter in my mind. I was taught a particular way of life. I didn’t see anything beyond it. Life was a happy accident. Get rich. Have a family. Pay your taxes. Watch your television. Live a normal life. Focus on the physical. Watch the news. Live for yourself. Do what you want. And just be happy.

I embraced that life, and lived it. Yet deep down inside, there was a splinter in my mind, driving me mad. It was very quiet at first, easily ignored. Over the years it grew louder and louder, until I realized something was missing. I was seeing through a web of lies built around me my whole life. And I began to see the truth. A terrible truth, far beyond anything you could imagine. That there was something terribly wrong with the world. Most people can see that one. But deeper and further in, I realized, there is something terribly and fundamentally wrong with me. I do bad things. And I need something more. Nothing in this world satisfies me. And I was empty inside. I was broken. As much as I pretended I just needed more self esteem and more happy pills and more personal peace and affluence, I soon realized, I was the problem, and I needed to be fundamentally changed within. I realized I was sin.

That is the horrible thing, none of us want to admit, none of us want to realize, most don’t go beyond, I see something wrong in the world, but some few will go further and realize, I see something wrong in me. I need something new. I need something outside myself, to make me right. That is where God comes in. We realize, we’re departed and disconnected from the infinite creator of the universe. And that is something we fight our whole lives. We’d almost rather die than face it. We run, we rebel, we flee, but then a lucky few one day realize, I can’t run anymore. I will return to God. And everything changes.

It reminds me a man 2000 years ago named Simon. He was a fisherman. Probably many a day and night sailing the sea, wondering at the skyline and the rain and the sun overhead, wondering if there was something more. And he began to fail at his trade. He couldn’t seem to make ends meet. And one day he had fished all night and had caught nothing. He’s at the end of his rope. He’s hopeless. He’s miserable. And he’s realizing, I just can’t make life work anymore. And at that moment, God intersected his story. And said to him, cast out, one more time, and Simon said, alright, I will. So he did. And he caught so many fish the nets couldn’t barely hold the catch. Simon would later become a new man. He became Peter. A leader of the body of Christ.