Welcome To Oikos 143 ~ "The Red Pill"

It is raining very hard this night. Neo is escorted by a strange group of counter-cultural misfits. Part geek, part chic, they act as though they are smarter than the rest of the world.

Neo is controlled at gunpoint and taken to an old abandoned building under the promise of meeting the infamous Morpheus. Here he will be offered some pills from a dark stranger wearing reflective sunglasses and a black trench coat - - and he will willingly swallow one of the pills!

What would compel him to do so? He is driven by the desire he can no longer resist. An insatiable curiosity and holy dissatisfaction with the norm push him to abandon restraint. He is motivated to take extraordinary risk now because he can no longer stay in the dull world of normal life . . . of business as usual.

There are polite greetings. Then a most interesting dialogue ensues.

Morpheus begins by describing Neo’s plight as similar to Alice falling down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s story. He comments that Neo has the look of one who accepts only what he sees because he is in a dream and about to awaken, which is ironically very close to the truth. Morpheus tells Neo why they brought him here. It is his chance to learn what the Matrix is; Morpheus asks if he wants to know.

Neo nods slowly, but without hesitation, as if realizing that this is a turning point in his life, marking the change forever. Morpheus explains: “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 to the truth.”

Neo inquires as to what truth Morpheus is referring to.

“That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.”

Morpheus opens a small silver box, takes two pills from it, and informs Neo than mere description is not enough; he must see it for himself to understand. Morpheus then leans forward, with a pill in each hand.

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

Neo slowly yet deliberately reaches for the red pill.

Morpheus suddenly tells him that he is offering only the truth, nothing more. Neo takes and swallows the red pill, and the adventure begins.

He awakens to find that he was previously in a made-up world known as the Matrix. All that he understood was really a mask covering the truth, meant to hold him and everyone else in bondage to a lie.

“Welcome to the REAL world!”

This is the plot of from the movie The Matrix, made by the Wachowski brothers, but it reflects something else that is also real. There is a red pill of sorts that opens our eyes to a more vivid reality of the Kingdom of God. It is the truth of God’s Word that we need in order to be set free and unleash the power of His Kingdom on this planet. The Scriptures have always held the truth, but our mind has been blinded by a warped sense of spiritual reality. Yet, we could open our eyed and see the Oikos, the Kingdom, and our role in both in a more vivid and real light.

Many people are longing for a greater cause. They are no longer content with “church as usual.” They read of the Oikos in the New Testament, and their curiosity is piqued. (Note: Oikos is written as “church” in some English New Testaments, it is the Greek ekklesia). The New Testament accounts are far removed from their experience every week. They hear contemporary stories of the Oikos expanding rapidly in parts of China and India, and there hearts soar. Dare they dream for something more? “Can I experience the same power?” “Can God work here, in this place? Will the Kingdom of God unleash itself on an unsuspecting society such as the United States? Or the Philippines, or what ever country you are reading this in?” Yes. Yes!

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Mat 6:10 KJV).

Before he swallowed the red pill in The Matrix, Neo was given another choice.

“Stop the car!” commanded a member of the strange sect that has abducted him and is taking him to met Morpheus. She turns in the car to face Neo with a gun in her hand and demands that he surrender completely to their agenda or to take a walk. He responds with defiance. As he opens the door to leave, Trinity, a beautiful and respected computer hacker, stops him and tells him to trust her. He asks why he should trust someone he’s just met.

Gazing down a dark street with rain pounding down relentlessly, she says, “Because you have been down there, Neo. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that’s not where you want to be.”

Neo slowly gets back into the car, unknowingly resigned to an appointment with a red pill.

When you look at the conventional “church”, and all that it offers, you are left gazing down a soggy street. It does not compel you to go further down that road. More vision statements, more “Christian” concerts, more sermons, and more blueprints for bigger auditoriums are not enough.

You will be amazed what people do for Yeshua that they will not do for your vision Statement. There is something better. There has to be. Yeshua did not die and rise from the dead so that we can have better “church” bulletins and more comfortable pews.

To adapt the words of a fictional prophet known, in The Matrix, only as Morpheus: “Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you know something. What you know you cannot explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there is something wrong with the “Church.” You don’t know what it is, but it is there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is the feeling that has brought you to this point. You know what I am talking about.”

After reading this Oikos web site you may not want to go back! The ideas we are sharing here have ruined people for the ordinary “church”. This is your last warning!

All around the world, people are taking the red pill, and they are not going back. “Church”, as you know it, will change. This is your moment of choice. This is your red pill.

The rabbit hold awaits. Let the adventure begin…