On the heels of how Ultraman can serve as a parable for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, comes another myth from Japan that also serves as an accurate portrayal of Biblical truth. and thus the real world. The video game “Mother 2” aka “Earthbound” in the States has many aspects that can serve as a bridge to share God’s love and salvation with Japanese people. Though I could criticize “Earthbound” for a few things, I’d rather focus on what it can do to further the gospel.
For those who have no idea what this game is, or what it’s about, I will be summarizing the main points, but I won’t be doing a full summary/walkthrough. If you want to know more about the game and see screenshots, go over to www.starmen.net and look through the walkthrough section for “Earthbound.” Suffice it to say, it’s a role-playing game in the vein of “Dragon Warrior” and “Final Fantasy” except set in the modern world. Swords are replaced by baseball bats, and magic with PSI (psychic) powers.
As the name implies, “Mother 2” is the sequel to “Mother” which was not released in America, at least not officially. The plot of “Mother” in a nutshell is as follows. In the late 1800’s a pioneer couple is abducted by aliens, and begins to raise an alien named Gigue (Giygas in the US. I’ll use both interchangeably). The plot then picks up with the grandson, Ninten, who finds Gramp’s diary and so Ninten goes on to thwart Gigue’s invasion of Earth by singing a lovely song (REALLY!) that Ninten’s Grandma used to sing to Gigue. Somehow this reminds Gigue of his love for Grandma and he gets mad. (As a side note, I believe Gigue had invaded Earth because he had taught PSI powers to his care-takers which was forbidden.) Gigue then runs away, defeated and vows revenge.
Oh, did I mention what Gigue looked like? Gigue is more or less a typical grey type alien, with the typical psychic powers. Except for one thing.
Gigue looks like a devil.
That is, he is a grey alien with horn-like protrusions from his head and he has a tail.
So, moving on, that’s where “Mother 2” picks up. It’s essentially a remake of “Mother” but it’s a lot cooler and there are a lot of differences. “Mother 2” starts with Ness. Ness (basically Ninten) gets woken up in the middle of the night by a meteor crash. After going to check it out, he meets someone from the future named Buzz-Buzz. Buzz-Buzz is basically a bee, but he’s super powerful. Buzz-Buzz tells Ness that he is destined to fight and defeat Giygas. He also explains to Ness that Gigue is incredibly evil, and because he is also powerful, Giygas is causing evil to spread all over the world. This evil is causing animals, people, and even inanimate objects to act in ways that are violent and evil. In addition to this, Gigue has sent out his forces to put a stop to Ness. So at this point, Ness has a lot of evil life forms, taxi cabs, and UFO’s in the way of his stopping Gigue.
So, let’s pause for a moment, and see how this setup, relates to the Bible. We Christian’s believe that God created everything perfect. This perfection, did not last unfortunately. At some point, one of God’s creations, Satan, became very proud and so he sinned by rebelling against God. By sinning, Satan brought evil into creation. Satan then introduced mankind to sin. He tempted Eve, the first woman to eat the fruit of a tree (Genesis 3). God had forbidden Adam, the first man that God had created, from eating this fruit. (Genesis 2:16 - 2:17). Adam’s failure to prevent Eve from eating the fruit, and the fact that he ate the fruit himself is the first sin, that is, the first time man had disobeyed God.
Because Adam was the first human to sin, every human being from that point forward has a natural tendency to sin. We all seek our own pleasure and actively disobey God. Even those of us who are more or less “good people” are still inclined to sin. In God’s eyes, all of humankind has been disqualified from being with Him, because God is just and cannot tolerate evil. But there’s more, because of Adam’s sin, all of the Earth was cursed. Much like Giygas’ evil infecting everyone and everything in Earthbound, sin (and Satan’s rebellion against God) has cursed our world. So, here is the first parallel.
Moving on I will briefly summarize a few points in the game. I bring these up, because in the real world, they appear to be separate issues, but when viewed through the lens of the Bible, specifically Ephesians 6:12, it is much easier to see that at their hearts they are all indeed connected.
So, Ness moves forth on his own in his town of Onett. Here he does battle with the local street, the Sharks. The Sharks have become extremely rowdy at the start of the game, because of Giygas’ evil influence. Ness defeats the Sharks, then deals with the corrupt mayor to gain access to a cave where Ness must battle a giant ant under Giygas’ power. After this battle, Ness faces the Onett police force, also corrupted by Giygas.
Ness moves on to Twoson. Here Ness is attacked periodically by bystanders, people under Gigygas’ control. I believe they were New Age Retro Hippies and Cranky old women. Ness continues on to the Happy Happy village, fighting UFOs, robots and trees. In the Happy Happy Village Ness finds a religious cult that has painted everything blue. The cult is run by a cranky old man who has also kidnapped Paula who joins Ness later. The cult leader is not only under Giygas’ control, but is also given power as well. Ness’ neighbor, Pokey, also has been with the cult leader, but has moved on.
Ness and Paula go to the next town, Threed. Three is overrun with zombies, ghosts and more ghosts. Ness and Paula are then joined by Jeff, they defeat the monsters in Threed and the town is freed from the darkness. The next town, Fourside has more violent bystanders and taxi cabs, but it also has something else. A corrupt business man. This business man also has taken Pokey under his wing. Matters also grow worse as Paula gets kidnapped by a space alien. Once the corrupt business man is dealt with and repents of his evil, Pokey escapes in a helicopter. The friends are soon after joined by Poo.
Poo, the last member of the party to join Ness, completes his martial arts training by meditating and emptying his mind. This causes him to encounter a spirit. This spirit is not of Giygas, but I bring it up because in reality this sort of situation is in fact brought on by Satan and his evil followers. In Russ Dizdar’s testimony, he recounted a similar experience while doing Golden Buddha meditation. While doing this, he encountered a spirit that told him to kill himself. Though this doesn’t relate to Giygas, I wanted to bring it up here.
I’m going to pause here a moment. I am skipping a lot of details, and will do so a bit more here. The first four cities lay the ground work for what follows and also contain almost all of the important elements of the game. I will now highlight the rest of the things Ness and his friends face.
• Ness and the others (just before Poo’s arrival) encounter another religious cult of sorts. The Stoic Club. This is really not a Giygas thing, but one member of the cult had quit her job of making cakes to join this.
• They also eat one of these “magic cakes” later on which sort of starts off a vision which results in Poo’s arrival. My thought is that this is some sort of drug. It also is not related to Giygas, but is worth mentioning.
• The kids encounter pseudo-Egyptian artifacts and mummies that are under Giygas’ power. They then go to pseudo-Egypt and encounter UFO’s and tomb guardians. Also under Giygas’ control.
This Adventure in pseudo-Egypt also sort of implies an “ancient astronaut” connection. The UFO’s in and around the pyramid sort of tie the aliens in with the ancients.
Backtracking a bit, the ancient astronaut thing also comes into play as Giygas has a UFO base under Stonehenge.
• The game progresses with Ness and his friends fighting all of these sorts of enemies, until finally he has collected power from the eight sanctuary locations, then at this point Ness is catapulted into his own mind. Ness, our hero is a good and loving kid, but he finds that deep down inside himself there is a darkness. This is akin to the sin nature I spoke of earlier and this sin nature/darkness in each one of us is what keeps from being able to be with God.
• The four children then have to go fight Giygas. I’ll spare the details, but it involves the use of robot bodies and time travel. The kids encounter Giygas, but also at the same time, Pokey. Pokey explains that Giygas has used a “Devil’s Machine” to increase his power, and in the process has lost the capacity for rational thought.
Wrapping up, the kids fight Pokey, and he runs away. But before running, Pokey turns off the Devil’s Machine and releases Giygas’ full power. The kids fight Giygas, but soon find out that he cannot be defeated by their attacks. The only way they can defeat Giygas is to pray. After a number of prayers, including some that seem like they were absorbed by the darkness, Giygas is defeated.
Tying this all together, the following separate evils, in reality are all under Giygas’ command. It should be obvious that none of the below are of God. (1 John 4:3, Ephesians 6:12).
• Gangsters
• Corrupt Police
• UFOs
• Aliens
• Zombies
• Ghosts/Evil Spirits
• Religious cult leaders
• Random people being aggressive
• Pokey
• And Corrupt business men and politicians
There are undoubtedly more. Look through the list again, they really aren’t connected on the surface. What does a business man or corrupt cop have to do with a UFO or an alien? What do either of them have to do with a gangster? They are all under Giygas’ sway. Giygas is an “alien” yet the only way to stop him is by praying.
So too in our world.
Everything on the list above is under Satan’s influence or direct control, Satan is referred to as the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:3 – 4) Obviously, the ghosts and evil spirits are. Aliens are basically the same (see the link to CE4 Research) as ghosts. Satan also has sway over religious cults like the Raelians and the Moonies among others. Even a random person on the street like you or i may be under Satan’s influence on some level. But there is a way out.
God has provided us all a way to escape Satan’s influence and in fact, if we don’t accept this offer of God’s love, He will not accept us. The only way to switch sides, to leave Satan’s team is to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior. Accept what He did when He died on the cross for our sins and when He was raised from the dead. Then, when we face Satan (Giygas) and his attacks we can pray to God, in the name of Jesus Christ and He will defeat Satan for us. Since Jesus Christ has defeated Satan for us, by uniting ourselves with Christ we can share in His victory over the devil. Satan and evil spirits are subject to Christ's authority, so when we ask Christ for help against them, they must obey.
1 Corinthians 15:27 – 28
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=1Cr&c=15&t=NLT#27
Luke 10:22
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Luk&c=10&t=NLT#22
Hebrews 2:8, 9, 14
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Hbr&c=2&t=NLT#8
Ephesians 1:22
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Eph&c=1&t=NLT#22
Luke 10:19, 20
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Luk&c=10&t=NLT#19
For more on how Christians can defend themselves against the attack of Satan and evil spirits in any form, see the links on the side for Shatter the Darkness, CE4 research and the podcasts on Revelations Radio Network.
You can also read my series on the Betty Andreasson alien abduction.
So if you are faced with ghosts, evil spirits, or aliens, God will deliver you from them if you believe in His Son, Jesus and call on His name when you are in need. God will also help you deal with the corrupt business and governments. If you put your faith and trust in Him rather than the earthly governments, you will have eternal life and security. If you put your faith and trust in men, they will only fail you.
Remember, God loves you and will forgive all of your sins if you believe in His Son (John 3:16). If you want to know more about Jesus, go to the link for Blue Letter Bible and read the book of John, Matthew, Luke and Mark. Then read the rest of the Bible.
PS, if you have suggestions for scripture references, please suggest them. I'm kind of easing back in after vacation and not many verses are coming to mind. I will hopefully add some more as some come to mind.
Update 10-31-11
Bible in Japanese
http://www.biblica.com/bibles/japanese/
No comments:
Post a Comment