Part 37 - Rango - The Prospecting Permit

Continuing from the previous post, here is the last scene before the theft. Sheriff Rango is walking through town when a hole appears in the middle of the street in front of him. Two characters poke their heads out of the hole.

Jedediah: This ain't the bank.
Ezekiel: I told you, Jedediah!
Sheriff Rango: Hold it right there! [pointing his pistol in their faces]
Ezekiel: It's the Sheriff!
Sheriff Rango: Get them hands up where I can see them. Just as I suspected! Prospecting without the authorized equipment. Don't move a muscle.
Jedediah: Prospecting?

Rango runs off and returns with an armload of supplies.

Balthazar: Ezekiel! Jedediah! What in the Sam Hill's goin' on up there?

A stick pokes out of the hole and whacks the two on their heads. Balthazar emerges between them.

Balthazar: I've had polyps removed smarter than the two of you! Hell's fire! This ain't the bank!
Ezekiel: Hey Pappy, the Sheriff is standin' right here! Helpin' us out.
Jedediah: Gonna give us a permit for prospecting.
Sheriff Rango: That's right, sir. Just doin' my duty. The lonely constable on his rounds, keepin' an eagle eye out for mayhem and malfeasance.
Balthazar [to Jedediah]: He look like he sounds?
Jedediah: Uh-huh.

Rango, the “head of the house,” still doesn't have a clue what's unfolding. Those he represents and those who follow them are pictured in 1 Thessalonians 5 as those asleep in darkness who most definitely do need to be written to about times and epochs.

1) Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you.
2) For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.
3) While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.
4) But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief;
5) for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;
6) so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6

The scene continues.

Balthazar: Well Sheriff, if we was to hit the motherlode, being prospectors and such, where would we deposit said annuity?
Sheriff Rango: Well, here in the town of dirt, we happen to have the finest financial institution this side of the Missouri, protected morning, Noon and night, by yours truly.

Rango points. This image of the Bank of Dirt appears with the sound of an angelic choir. Behold, the holy temple! Right? Rango hands Balthazar a handwritten piece of paper, his prospecting permit.

Balthazar: Much obliged.

There's a lot here and I'll return to explain some of it, but let's focus on the prospecting permit and how it relates to the Bride and those who are left behind, which is The Big Deal at the present time. That official document turns up after the crime in the vault right near the hole in the floor. From the previous scene, the next in sequence cuts immediately to dawn, where we see the bank clerk running frantically through town.

Bank Clerk: The bank's been robbed! The bank's been robbed! Oh, good Lord, the bank's been robbed!
Furgus: What's going on?
Bank Clerk: [running past] It's all gone! The water's all gone!

Even while he's yelling, the porcupine asks, What did he say? -- He said the bank's been robbed!

The bank robbery is the Bride Theft. Technically, the bank of Dirt wasn't robbed. Robbery involves violence or the threat of violence. The treasure of Dirt was left unguarded. It was stolen by an undetected thief in the night. It was a theft.

Cut to a scene inside the jail. A trumpet sounds loudly and Sheriff Rango wakes up from his beauty rest with a start (allusion to 1 Thessalonians 4:15-16).

Sheriff Rango: Dr. Martz I'm on fire! Embrace me!

The mariachi band is playing, standing on the table in the jail. Providing narrative, they sing this ballad.

The banks been robbed. The town is dry.
They'll die of thirst, the people cry.
He promised to protect the vault.
Water's gone, it's all his fault.

Clearly, the guardian on watch has failed to perform his duty. Rango puts on his boots and heads over to the bank, the scene of the crime where the fearful residents have gathered.

Sheriff Rango: All right, folks! Stand back. Clear the area. This is a crime scene now. Secure the perimeter, dust for prints, check for fibers, scan for DNA, I want a urine sample from everyone - and get me a latte. Don't mix up the two.

Rango marches straight to the vault, where he finds the bank clerk bending over a hole in the floor.

Bank Clerk: What's this?

The clerk picks up a piece of paper and begins to read.

Bank Clerk: 'Prospecting Permit.'
Sheriff Rango: I'll take that! Material evidence.

Rango grabs it, and then we see the bank clerk, alone in the vault, with the other key figures involved in the scene's frame.

Ok, so what's with the prospecting permit. Obviously, this particular one connects Rango to the criminal activity. Beyond that, it's a document that gives permission. In Dirt, anyone prospecting is legally required to obtain permission from the authorities. The permit is the official document that is the physical evidence of that permission. What is prospecting? If you search the web for prospecting equipment you'll always find gold pans. When we think of prospectors, we picture miners panning for gold like the 49ers. Now, here's a verse that provides our reference (which appears in exactly the right context - look it up).

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat;
32 but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.

Luke 22:31-32

The action of sifting someone like wheat separates out the valuable from what is not. This compares to gold panning where the similar action separates out the gold nuggets. Panning for gold is prospecting. When Satan demanded permission to sift Peter like wheat he was demanding a prospecting permit, you see.

Notice how the Lord did not say he refused Satan's request. Satan was granted the prospecting permit, so to speak, and Simon was sifted. The Lord prayed that Simon's faith would not fail, not that he would not be sifted. The meaning goes beyond the historical account of that man in that day because it's a prophecy about the church. Notice that the disciple is called Simon there, even twice. The name “Simon” means “hearing.” This Simon Peter represents the church, a people sometimes represented as barley and wheat, and also gold and silver. Those of you with a hearing ear recognize that this Simon-hearing comes through the process of being sifted, a necessary work with inherently severe trial. This work is Satan's to perform, with express permission given by the Sovereign God. The result of this prospecting activity is a people, refined and pure, valuable! In this season, the Bride! Has Satan been panning you like gold? Are you still resisting? He's authorized to do this, and it must be done - and better now than later!

This interpretation is validated with some pertinent observations. You have to know these Rango folk know things, and what I'm presenting here should really be taken very seriously.

At discovering the theft of the water, the bank clerk ran frantically through town giving the report. The bank clerk represents those left behind, who will be frantic, rightly panicked, knowing straightaway that they had been found lacking and rejected. A bank clerk is the common laborer at the bank, the average church-goer who serves dutifully under the bank manager and under those to whom the manager must give account, the “owner of the house.” The bank clerk is then pictured alone in the vault after the theft, as remaining after the theft of the valuable Bride. The bank clerk discovered the prospecting permit in the vault at the presumed point of departure, the witness to why he had been left behind. Reflection upon what the prospecting permit means must bring an undeniable conviction of personal failure to genuinely love the Lord. It bears witness to one's refusal to take up the cross and follow the Lord, accepting the trials and discipline necessary to learn obedience, to develop the character necessary to qualify as one who is worthy. The bank clerk didn't qualify as fine gold and was rejected.

21) “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
22) Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23) And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

Matthew 7:21-23

I pray this is not what you or I will hear, but most will, the vast majority of saints.

The prospectors are identified as Satan, hell's agents. They emerge from underground, the underworld, hell. Balthazar uses 2 expressions that give a clear signal. First, he says, “What in the Sam Hill's goin' on up there?” This expression is typical Rango style obfuscation. “Sam Hill” is a personified euphemism, a minced oath, a substitute cuss word for hell that is equivalent to heck. Balthazar also says, “Hell's fire! This ain't the bank!” These prospectors from hell's fire were on a mission to the bank to address Simon, hearing, the Bride. They had the prized valuables targeted, and had permission and the equipment to carry out their mission.

The following passage applies in principle to the Bride as being refined as by a “Hell's fire” smelter, but directly to those who will be left behind because “the Lord, whom you seek” is the Beast.

1) “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts.
2) “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.
3) He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.
4) Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.

Malachi 3:1-4

More to follow, Lord willing!