Are You A Dummy? (A Lesson Learned From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

By now I am sure everyone has seen the latest version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory staring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. My family and I watch this movie again on television last night and something in the movie just hit me very hard. It made me do a lot of thinking.

The premise of the show, is that Willy Wonka has hidden 5 Golden Tickets among his millions of Wonka Bars around the world. 5 "Lucky" children who find these tickets get prizes, including one prize "beyond their wildest dreams." The first four children who find these tickets are not the best examples of children (or parents for that matter) as far as their character is concerned. The last ticket is found by a young boy named Charlie Bucket.

This young man has character beyond his years. After he finds the ticket he is torn between selling the ticket to people who have offered him money or keeping the ticket and visting the Chocolate Factory of Mr. Wonka. "Our family needs the money for than chocolate," he explains to his family. At this point one of his grandfathers calls Charlie over to his bedside. This grandfather gives Charlie some very wise and sound advice.

He says, "There's plenty of money out there, they print more every day. But this ticket; there are only 5 of them in the whole world. That's all there is ever going to be. Only a dummy would give that up for something as common as money. Are you a dummy?"

God offers us something much more valuable than a Golden Ticket. He offers us Salvation. The Bible tells us there is only ONE way to reach the Father. This is found only through Jesus Christ. The Bible also tells us there is ONE God, Body, ONE Faith, ONE Spirit, ONE true word of God and we have only ONE Soul. Many of us sell this precious and rare gift for worldly things every day. We trade in our eternal life for such common things as money, fame or other things. We must be "Dummies."

Willy Wonka has 5 Golden Tickets, GOD offers us a ONE time gift of LOVE and GRACE, He offered up his ONE Son, JESUS, in order to offer this gift to us. We really would be fools to trade in a chance at eternal life with our FATHER, for something as common as what Satan offers in return.