GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)

Directed by: Victor Fleming
Written by: Sidney Howard
Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Starring: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland
Rated: G

About the film:
Scarlett O’Hara, a Southern belle of means, copes with the devastation brought on by the Civil War. But that devastation is nothing compared to the pain caused by losing the man she loves to her cousin Melanie. Based upon the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind remains an epic piece of filmmaking and storytelling.

Movie Quote:
“As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”
Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) in Gone With the Wind (1939)

Bible Quote:
“I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.”
Psalms 37:25 (NIV)


Commentary:
Bless her heart; Scarlett is her own worst enemy as well as her biggest asset. Her strength of believing and conviction is indeed admirable. But her selfishness and stubbornness is not. Her vow before God is less a statement of faith as it is a challenge. If only she knew and followed the scriptures more.

God is not only our witness, He is the reason we need not go hungry. As we trust in Him and His faithfulness to perform all that He has promised, we can repeat Scarlett’s assertion with the same level of conviction she managed to muster, knowing that our heavenly Father would never have the needs of His children go unmet.

Our God is the same God who led the children of Israel out of bondage and sustained them for forty years by providing them with manna from the heavens. He is the one who allowed the multitudes to be fed with five loaves and two fishes, providing so much abundance twelve baskets of leftovers remained. His goodness, grace, and mercy have not diminished with time.

His promise to us is that He will never fail us nor forsake us. He is and continues to be a God who supplies; a God who provides; a God who will withhold no good thing from us. He is our sufficiency.

Questions to consider while watching the film:
1. What are the qualities to admire in Scarlett? What are the qualities that we would not want to emulate?
2. The Civil War contained men of faith on both sides who believed that God would fight for them. Who was wrong? How do you think God viewed that war?

Michael Elliott
http://screensermon.blogspot.com