Ravi Zacharius at Lee University

Conny day a lifetime member of Broad Street United Methodist Church at Cleveland Tennessee had a dream her dream was alive in her hugs in her sparkling eyes and in her smile and it was contagious she wanted all to know the love of Jesus Christ and the joy of sharing that love with others Connie was a person who literally lit up the room when she entered it was never about her part of her charm was her interest in each person It was as if she thought nothing else mattered Connie died on August 30th 2002 but her memory lives on through the prayer evangelism Memorial Fund this fund was established in her memory with the mission to seek the truth to know the truth and to tell the truth of Jesus Christ Lord and Savior of the world when I think of my friend Connie day a scripture that comes to mind is Jude 1:3 you should earnestly contend for the faith the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints you see Connie never compromised between two opinions she knew whom she believed and that is Jesus Christ tonight's event with dr. Ravi Zacharias is made possible through Connie Dave's dream and the generosity of the prayer evangelism Memorial Fund and in cooperation with Broad Street United Methodist Church and Lee University thank you for coming good evening I'm Rochelle I'm the senior pastor at Broad Street United Methodist Church on and on behalf of our church we want to thank Lee University for collaborative effort for this evening and we thank you for coming and sharing it with us and with dr. Zacharias we would ask at this time that you would stand and join in reciting one of the historic Creed's of the church as we you may look to the monitors if you need them as we will recite together the Apostles Creed I believe in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified two dead and buried the third day he rose from the dead he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the day I believe in the Holy Spirit the Holy Catholic Church the communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting amen you may be seated thank you very much pastor shell it's it's a pleasure to in welcome all of you here for this special joint service which includes members of the lead community and our students and faculty and members of the Broad Street United Methodist Church and many many other Clevelanders who are here because we have such an unusual opportunity to welcome such a wonderful guest to our community let me say to those of you who are visitors that this is for us here at Lee this is called you Church this is something that we do on Sunday night the you means University University Church and on Sunday nights from 7:30 to 8:30 we meet in worship here on this campus and we're so pleased to be able to join with members of Broad Street in this special you church tonight we hope those of you who are guests had no trouble finding a seat we tried to clear our students out to make room for company so thank you so much for being here and we also have many of you who are visitors to our campus have been in Dixon Center and in Squires recital hall where we have many community musical events and both those two venues have closed-circuit television from this venue and that we have students in those places tonight so that we can accommodate a larger crowd we really appreciate not just the Ministry of Broad Street in our Cleveland and Bradley County community but we enjoy very much being neighbors in this downtown area and having the opportunity to lead in worship and worship together with this wonderful congregation and with pastor shale is is really a pleasure for us and it's particularly a pleasure that they have brought to us our guest speaker there are a few voices in the world today that speak more persuasively and with greater integrity of the claims of the Christian faith than our guest dr. Ravi Zacharias dr. Zacharias was born in India and lived as a young man in Canada but he now lives in Atlanta and so he's practically a neighbor of ours this is practically a home crowd for him at being as close to Atlanta as he is because he's truly a citizen of the world and his work takes him around the world over and over again he is not only a leading voice in Christian apologetics but he has worked in the field of apologetics not just in the in the ivory tower of academic theology but he has a real heart and passion to take the claims of the Christian gospel to the marketplace of ideas and to engage in this fairly fierce cultural and intellectual war that we all know about and which seems to be so much a part of the world in which we live most of you know his bio but let me just take a few minutes just to mention some of the things in the off chance someone is here tonight who doesn't remember dr. Zacharias background he has spoken in colleges and universities around the world and in many many Christian meetings he is so greatly in demand because of the uniqueness of his voice and the way he thinks and presents the claims of the Christian faith he spoken at places like Harvard Princeton and Oxford and is now a senior research fellow at Oxford at Wickliffe Hall he has authored or edited 20 books and his weekly radio program which is called let my people think is on 1,700 outlets worldwide and has a very large audience dr. Zacharias and following here in Cleveland Tennessee and on this campus because the program let my people think well dr. Zacharias you are on a campus and in the community where we love to think and where you have helped to shape the way we think and it's a great honor that we have to welcome you to this microphone tonight help me welcome dr. Ravi Zacharias okay whenever that happens I feel like ending at that moment and you can always say it ended with a thunderous applause it doesn't always end that way but it's nice to be here my colleague Quinn and I drove in from Atlanta this afternoon we don't really it's not too often we are within driving distance of our hometown this week it happens to be that I was not far from home on Friday speaking to a group of 100 plus leaders from Islamic nations and they were dealing with the whole area of the Arab Spring fascinating to hear some of them and then present an apologetic and a challenge to them and now here I think thus endeth the lesson is about it because I don't know if I'm doing anything more with in Atlanta's driving distance for the rest of the year it's all great distance of the way I do a big trek between Atlanta and the Orient quite often in that long flight 14 and a half hours from Atlanta to Seoul non-stop celebrate a few birthdays along the way and then get off and connect too early you're going my wife would have been here too but three months ago I better get this right or I'll get slaughtered we became grandparents for the first time so I was thrilled to tell the world I'm not married to a grandmother and in fact his name is Jude and nice to hear that verse quoted from the book of Jude he's an amazing little boy came in several weeks early I was traveling for seven weeks non-stop and it was petrified that he would be born during the time I was on the road and Quinn was with me and I prayed every day in a heart not I wasn't thinking my daughter's just singing myself being there I said Lord and let that not happen while I'm gone let not happen while I'm gone the day we landed it was 3:15 that Hartsville would come in from somewhere overseas I forget where got home at 5:15 at 6:15 I got a telephone call that Labour had said and she was on her way to the hospital and in good aeronautical nomenclature at 7:47 she delivered the child and I was at the airport at that time so there's still peace in the family and my daughter is quite thrilled that I was back I've heard so much about this University and it's a real honor to be here thank you for having me I get terrified with audiences that expect so much it was easier in the early days when nobody expected anything and sometimes you precisely delivered that and they never were disappointed but somehow with the years going by when you get into print and on the air expectations get too high for one's own good so please bring that down several notches and if god ministers to us we'll all be grateful and if not he probably would have told you you should have been somewhere else tonight and you just picked the wrong spot some of you have I've no doubt heard this but it's so well done that is what's repeating and maybe for some the first time the story is told of Holmes and Watson on a picnic trip and they were out camping and after a lot of liquid refreshment for the night tucked away and were sound asleep and in the middle of the night Holmes woke up and looked up and he looked at the stars and he woke Watson up and he said look up tell me what you see and Watson says I see stars and stars and stars he said what does that tell you what's um he says it tells me that astronomically speaking there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets astrologically it tells me that Saturn isn't Leo or illogically tells me that it's about quarter to 3:00 in the morning meteor logically tells me that tomorrow will probably be a beautiful day and theological he tells me that God is sovereign and we are just a minut part of this great whole why homes what does it tell you he said what's a new idiot somebody is still in our tent have you ever been overwhelmed by all the big words that some seculars use in order to tell us we're an accident that we really are here by no design that there is no purpose no meaning essentially that you manufacture your own and so Richard Dawkins and all shout louder and louder and louder to convince you that there's a wonder of it all even though we're the ultimate product of primordial slime and headed towards extinction sort of oblivion really you know you look at an enormous intellectual personality like Steve Jobs and you think to yourself is life is really worth nothing what does it all really matter most of all to the one who spent his life or her life and ends up in extinction nothing beyond the grave we are reduced to the end product of time plus matter plus chance I find it fascinating because they still cannot eradicate this lunge within our hearts towards value and meaning even the whole problem of evil which we wrestle with the only reason we wrestle with it is because we assume value we assume intrinsic worth not extrinsic words conveyed by some culture or some gathering of intellectuals the only reason we even ask the problem of evil and pain and suffering is because we treat human life as intrinsically worthy so you cannot even talk of purpose now you cannot even talk of evil or good without assuming purpose they are hinged and linked to each other and as I stand before you tonight Hill we are you know towards the tail end of 2011 and if you were to stop an average student on a university campus and ask him the following questions how do you define what it means to be human I think your person would sort of be just offended by the question why do you have to even ask such a question what is the definition but they will write volumes on humanism ask them what is the meaning of sexuality in its essential expressions there are no answers are some what does it mean to have human life within the womb there is no answer for everything is contingent upon one's own pragmatic disposition and changes by the whims of culture and time I think it was James Russell Lowell who wrote you know he is the one who wrote once to every man a nation comes a moment to decide in the strife of truth with falsehood for the good or evil side with the choice god speaking to us offers and the bloom of light then the man or nation chooses for the darkness or the light it's a great American thinker he also said this truth forever on the scaffold wrong forever on the throne but the scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows keeping watch keeping watch above his own truth forever on the scaffold wrong forever on the throne but the scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows keeping watch keeping watch above his own Alexander Solzhenitsyn years ago said these poignant words often times sophisticated intellectuals booed him when he uttered such thoughts here's what he said the West is on the verge of collapse created by its own hands between good and evil there is an irreconcilable contradiction one cannot build one's national life without regard for this district we the oppressed people of Russia what should an wish the tragic and feeble ment of Europe we offer you the experience of our suffering we would like you to accept it without having to pay the monstrous price of death and slavery that we have paid we would like you to accept it without having to pay the monstrous price of death and slavery that we have paid Muggeridge writing in the seventies wrote it is difficult to resist the conclusion that 20th century man has decided to abolish himself tired of the struggle to be himself he has created boredom out of his own affluence impotence out of his own erotomania and vulnerability out of his own strength he himself blows the trumpet that brings the walls of his own cities crashing down until at last having educated himself into imbecility having drugged and polluted himself into stupefaction he keels over a weary battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct though there were voices in the 60s and 70s telling us to check our tickets to see where our philosophical assumptions were going to get us off francis schaeffer was among them when he when he wrote the book whatever happened to the human race he alerted us to what was coming because somewhere in that time in Western history in American particular values were being jettisoned absolutes were being mocked and Chesterton's warning has come home to roost he said whenever you remove any fence always pause long enough to ask the question why was it put there in the first place whenever you remove any fence always pause long enough to ask why it was put there in the first place you know the interesting thing about the Scriptures is that it alerts us to these tough questions and gives us the points of reference for answers if you were to go back into the old and the New Testaments you will find that the foundations for life and its definitions are right there clearly ripped I I would I will just take three or four of them tonight and talk to you about what these foundations are meant to be for you and me individually for us as a culture and right from the global perspective what it is that we ought to be looking to in order to establish firm pillars on a for a foundation on which life can be built I think if you followed this along just like any sermon when you are preparing a talk when it's all finished and it's all put together you have to answer three or four questions before you shut that book and know you're ready now to talk about this subject every talk has to be evaluated by certain parameters and certain measurements I have a grid of four questions that I raised for myself when I prepare a talk identification translation persuasion and justification have you identified with your audience is it your thoughts within a lengthy language and concepts like that they can ultimately hang on to is there something in there that will persuade them to connect with the ideas is there a justification for what you've just said and laid claim to so you put everything down to a test I want to present you four tests for a foundation on which life must be designed and cultures and nations must follow along also the first is this the dimension of eternity you must measure your choices by the dimension of eternity it is interesting that the man who violated it so often is the one who reminded us that God has put eternity into our hearts and yet we don't know the beginning from the end but he's put that grid of the eternal within us we yield to that when we ask ourselves the question what is life really worth what are you living for we heart back to that when we talk about justice the Greek philosopher said that justice was the firmest pillar of good government in fact Aristotle said justice was the essence of all ethics just as in justice he said is the essence of all evil to them justice was very important how do you come to definitions of justice if there is no eternal point of reference who becomes the judge so whether it is the question of life's purpose or whether it's a question of life's meaning whether it's the essence of all ethical decisions on justice and ultimately of all the the question of relationships what do relationships really boil down to I said to my wife this morning before I left home we'd received a letter of a friend much younger than ours who'd just been diagnosed with very serious cancer just a few weeks ago one of my dear friends who is whom I happen to have met at mount Paran Church of God when I was speaking there years ago and the Paul Walker his name is Annette the man I'm talking about is Nick Charles who was the first sportscaster at CNN Nick Charles was diagnosed with cancer a little over 20 months ago and died just a few weeks ago he was only in his mid-60s one story that came to our attention this week of somebody we know is of their two-year-old child diagnosed with cancer two years old and all of these things weigh on our lives because relationships are meaningful and so whether its purpose and meaning whether it's justice whether it's relationships the question of the eternal always haunts and we always ask that question I remember moving to Canada when I was just 20 years old moved from New Delhi which was my home city and my father sent my older brother and me ters Canada to sort of scout the land to see if the family could make a living out there the the economy was not doing well in India at that time some of its youngest mines were leaving its shores and we were amongst them in 1966 I remember shortly thereafter maybe 68 of Christmas when the rest of my family had joined me we were sitting in our small little town house in Toronto watching something that had never been shown to the human eye before when when the Apollo astronauts were going round the dark side of the moon and it was vouchsafed to them the glimpse of the earth rising over the horizon of the moon draped in a beauteous mixture of blue and white against the black war void of space garland it by the glistening light of the Sun it was awesome overwhelmed this man with all it was an unrehearsed response because it welled up within him no poet no philosopher no historian could come to his aid with what he had just experienced the only thing that seemed meaningful at that time was for him to go back to the first words of the Bible in the beginning god I remember sitting there with sort of chills felt in your body as these men thousands of miles away could only leverage one epithet to describe what they were going through God which to you and me represents every point of definition in the very person of our Holy Father the Holy Trinity in the beginning God you see the eternal is too vast and too immense for you and me to comprehend and yet we talk about it again and again and again CS Lewis in a brilliant series of ideas linked together talks about one day when he was standing in front of a flowering bush as a little boy with his brother Center the sequence of his thinking there suddenly arose in me without warning as if from a death not of years but of centuries the memory of that earlier morning at the old house when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery it is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me Milton's enormous bliss of Eden comes somewhere near it it was a sensation of desire but desire for what not suddenly for a biscuit tin filled with Moss not even for my own past but before I knew what I desired the desire was gone the whole glimpses were drawn the world turned upside down a commonplace only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just seized it had only taken a moment of time and in a certain sense everything else had ever happened to me was insignificant in comparison but what does this mean when we have such thoughts he says then he goes on to say this the books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them it was not in them it only came through them and what came through them was longing these things the beauty the memory of our own past our good images of what we really desire but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols breaking the hearts of their worshippers for they are not the thing itself they're only the scent of a flower we have not found the echo of attune we have not heard news from a country we have not visited and then he comes here with the clincher he said you know we are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it how he's grown we exclaimed how time flies we say as though the universal form of our experience were again and again on novelty it is as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water and that would be strange indeed unless of course the fish were destined one day to become a land animal why how he's grown my how time flies we expressed surprise as if it's a novelty we experience it constantly constantly he says it would be as surprising as of a fish were to be surprised at the wetness of water unless of course it were destined one day to become a land animal time moves time flies and we yearn again and again and again for the eternal you know I was mentioning to you about Nick Charles who passed away a few weeks ago I knew Nick and the first time I met him was a Church of God I mentioned to he'd come to listen that morning and he put his arm around me after that service was over and he said can I talk to you and then he says this to me said I've not been a good man I'm not been a good man he said I've lived a very indulgent life Ravi was a handsome looking guy and on icon on television admired by many they told me he said the truth is I'm not been a good man he said help me help me we became good friends we chatted we talked and the Lord worked in his life he settled down and fell in love with a beautiful woman from CNN also producer name was Corey I had the privilege of uniting them in marriage and after the wedding a happy life had come to both of them and a few years went by he phoned me and he said can I see you for a moment I need to talk about something so he and his wife invited me for lunch I said is everything okay said we've got a problem we need your help I thought oh my so I went for lunch with sort of high degree of trepidation and as he sat across the table he said I have a question for you I said what's that he said I'm much older than my wife as you know and she'd like to have a little baby I'd only become a father in my 60s what do you say to me I said Nick this is not fair I said getting you two married was okay as a minister he says and now you're asking some tough questions of me he said now give me your advice I said I can't give you advice I can just give you one statement he said what is that I said one statement to you is this Nick if you deny her this great longing and joy in her heart you will never be a totally fulfilled man I said this all I say to you not long after that lovely little girl was born name is Giovanna but a little over two years ago he phoned me said I really need help now I've been diagnosed with can sort of ladder and they're giving me no more than 20 months we talked before he lay he said you know I've always wanted live in Santa Fe always he said we're gonna move I know I'm gonna make it much but I want to move there and Cory's willing to go on to take our little girl and it was a move they made before I began my seven week trip two months ago he asked if I could come and see him before I left because he didn't think he would make it through the seven weeks so my wife and I flew into Santa Fe and I sat down next to him because his whole body was just trembling as a minor word he was just agitated like that and a nurse was there trying to inject something into his bloodstream to get get him to settle down and as he was about to come down he reached told Graham my hand he said please pray for me so I held his hand and started prayers on a spring with him his dog came over a nuzzle next to my leg there it goes name is Dante my wife was standing to my left with her arm around Corey's little girl just helplessly not knowing what was happening to her father and then he looked at me and he said you stay long enough for dinner you've got him under control physically the four of us drove over dinner the poor guy all the hair coloring from his face had gone the hair was gone and he told me this story said you know Robbie a few weeks ago I lay in bed and I said Jesus you know enough I can't take this pain anymore please take me home tonight I cannot handle this he said my little girl's lying next to me Cory next to her and said Lord you'll take care of her you take of Cory I can't handle this anymore you said in the deadness of the night Ravi I promise you this a light shone in the corner of my room and a figure just as I've always pictured Jesus came over towards me sad where you sat when you held my hand he said I promise you this happened he took my hand and he said Nick I will call you home but not tonight I'll call you home the right time not tonight he said you know the world may laugh at me the world may mock at me but I'll tell you something that's what has kept me going one of the producers from CNN phoned me if it is later I was in Singapore II was late at night he said I'm doing a story on Nick Charles he said what do you make of this story he tells of the night that he had this vision I said where are you coming from in this he said I'm an atheist I said let me say something to you his faith in God is not based on that solitary experience of that night but it confirmed for him that which he already knew in his commitment and relationship to Christ and Jesus will always meet you where you need to meet him the most in the quietness of your life and he will meet you to fulfill what it is you need to know at that time but your faith goes beyond just that moment into something more sturdy and solid the Word of God that abides forever and so on I said now let me ask you this what do you think of Nick Charles has said he said he is for real I said then take him at his word this experienced him so is it you know I want you when my father-in-law died he was 85 struggle to the bitter end in fighting off the cancer as well but the last two things he did the last two things he did I was actually on the plane coming back I'd spent quite a bit of time with him and had flown out for some meetings and just before I got onto the plane I spoke to him he was he was struggling to to to to speak and then he had already gone into silence for days and then came back to speak a few things and my wife was standing by his bedside along with her sisters and her mother and the last two things he did he opened his eyes looked to the heavens and said this amazing just amazing and then he closed his eyes looked at his wife of 60 some years and he said Jean I love you and he was gone I has not seen ear has not heard neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him ladies and gentlemen I want you to think of this when we ultimately stand in the presence of God no metaphors will help people often say what question are you going to ask him when you first see him nothing what would terrify me is what questions he's gonna ask me the glory of the eternal everything we do in time must ultimately be measured by the value of the eternal if you don't you to get reduced to the pragmatist who relativize 'as everything with no absolutes of any kind eternity when you find eternity you realize at that point that you have defined existence but you move beyond eternity to morality in which you define essence you have to understand what moral reasoning actually amounts to this is the struggle of the skeptic total struggle of the skeptic they don't know how to define moral reasoning they don't know many times I have used this illustration and my colleague grin often says every time that you tell that story I cringe and I say so do I so do i but I remember taking off from a country in one part of the world that I let shall leave unnamed it has in its the heart of its city a place called snake alley where men come at the end of the day to satisfy whatever grotesque desire they have and in order to do that their their mind is ravaged by a concoction of snakes blood and hard alcohol they mix that together and just swallow it down into their system and then they ask for whatever it is they want and is provided for them a woman from Holland who rescues with children from the sex trafficking industry told me this story while she was flying out that city she said last night I was in that area called snake alley and I rescued an 18 month old baby girl being sexually molested by this man now I was sitting in a plane when she told me this and I really thought I was going to be sick to my stomach explain to me what has a man done to himself to come to that point and you say the blood and the alcohol ravages of mind what about the men who peddle this stuff and I remember saying to a young officer scholar once you consider that evil because he was denying moral frameworks I came to illustration and he just with his top laser the carpet and then he looks at me and he says you know what I really wouldn't like to see that happen but I can't honestly tell you that I think it is immoral sure sure if that were your 18 month old baby girl you'll find a very accurate description for what happened man like that could end up becoming a professor telling us someday there's no such thing as glittery you know what the problem is moral reasoning if it only stays horizontally is an argument between cultures and individuals and communities and people with no on techno transcendent point of reference I've just finished the most difficult book I've ever written I've called it why Jesus long subtitle rediscovering his truth in an age of mass market and spirituality I didn't come up with that subtitle was given to me I had a simpler title I just called it from Oprah to Chopra they didn't like it so I put it into a chapter heading you know when you research all these new spiritualities you'd be amazed at what sophisticated people think is spiritual amazed at what sophisticated people think is spiritual and so I say to you that when we are talking about moral reasoning even mere spiritual terminology doesn't tell it has to be based ultimately on the absolute nature of an unchanging God that's the only way we can make sense out of defining absolutes an unchanging point of reference and if you take the 10 commandments what is the one word that is captured in there one word sacred your life is sacred your time is sacred your property is sacred your marriage is sacred your worship is sacred your word is sacred and so is your neighbors ud sacral eyes these things and evil comes in and relativism holds sway you know I was doing writing a book some years ago and use the Holocaust as an illustration and I was doing some research on a man who tracked down that off Eichmann the name of the man is Peter Malkin and in a cloak-and-dagger operation they got into the hinterland in Argentina and with their binoculars from a distance and high-tech equipment watch this man every day Eichmann had no idea he was working at a mercedes-benz fact nevah he would take a bus and come back he didn't know he was being watched and as he would get off the bus they would watch him watch his routine day after day after day on a given day they Mossad involved in all of this hiding in that behind the bushes as he was walking back with his briefcase felled him jabbed a needle into him doped him up put him into a car if you have read the book the house on Garibaldi Street you'll know the rest of the story for over 20 years Peter Malkin who spearheaded the whole thing never broke his silence just a short while ago he died but he broke his silence once he said I just want to tell you one thing of what happened he said I would watch him Eichmann every day and I'm I was in the train bringing him back I looked at him he looked like he's the most scary thing to me was he looked like an ordinary human being I couldn't bring myself to see how he had orchestrated the deaths of hundreds of thousands and so I sat by him in his bunk in a train before I handed him over to the final authorities I said mr. Aikman I watched you every day in Argentina I saw you getting off the bus I saw you walking looking over your shoulder I saw you getting home unlocking the gate looking over I saw you unlocking your door and a little boy was always waiting for you I said who's that boy he said he's my son said how old is he something like eight or something he said mr. Aikman I had an eight-year-old nephew whom you murdered can you tell me the difference between your boy and my nephew he said Eichmann was lying look up to the ceiling and with a glassy look turned at him looked at him and said you know what my son is not Jewish Aikman said at that point i had nothing to say to him nothing he said I went into my room and I saw like a little baby if you have seen the movie the husband Garibaldi Street you'll see that conversation take place and Malcolm going back to his room and solving desacralized the person's ethnicity desacralized sexuality desacralized life what do you get horizontal moral arguments with no transcendent point of reference I am convinced that the reason Hollywood goes about in movies like The Da Vinci Code and The Last Temptation of Christ do you know why they wanted to knock off the causal argument they wanted to knock off the design argument the one argument they cannot knock off for the existence of God is the moral argument what is the moral argument objective moral values only exist if God exists objective moral values do exist therefore God exists very simply stated in a syllogism objective moral values only exist if God exists objective moral values do exist therefore God exists how do they knock that down by making Jesus look just like themselves morality you redefine essence Hana errant in her book the trial of an execution of Adolf Eichmann and her last page has an incredible line she talks about his speech that he gave on the way to the gallows and she ends by saying this it was the ultimate trivialization of evil the ultimate trivialization of evil eternity morality thirdly and quickly the dimension of accountability the dimension of accountability you know this one always scares me because I've lived half of my life alone on the road 90% of that time I don't travel alone now I have an Associated travels with me but you're still alone quite a bit of the time and you have to decide early in life if you're really going to be accountable to somebody greater than another human being or not if you don't deceive you don't don't settle that sooner or later somebody will come and trip you up sooner or later somebody will come and trip you up and you know what it'll be either in sensuality or in material things or in power one of these three will trip you up if you don't settle in your heart that you are accountable before Almighty God you know there was an old question only philosophers can think these up if a tree falls in the jungle but nobody thirty here it doesn't make a noise I never in my lifetime thought of that question and I studied philosophy of a tree falls in the jungle but nobody ready here it doesn't make a noise somebody responded and you know questions like that are asked the University of Florida man stood up we've got it on video he walks up to the microphone and he says how do I know that I exist you know very quickly he exists if I don't answer him professor Nathan at the University of New York when he was asked a question love that in his philosophy classroom lowered his glasses and said and who shall I say is asking if a tree falls in the jungle but nobody dare to hear it there was a young man who thought God must find it exceedingly odd when he sees that the street continues to be when there's no one about in the court young man your astonishment scored I am always about in the court that's why the street shall continue to be since observed by yours faithfully God we all seen all-knowing you know it was an atheist from Johns Hopkins there's a professor they committed suicide at the age of 75 how about Maurer one time president the American Psychological Association atheist who wrote this for several decades we psychologists have looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great Incubus and acclaimed our liberation from it as epoch-making but at length we've discovered that to be free in this sense from sin and to have the excuse of being sick rather than being sinful is to court the danger of also becoming lost this danger is I believe betokened by the widespread interest in existentialism which we are presently witnessing in becoming a moral ethically neutral and free we have got the very roots of our being lost our deeper sense of selfhood and identity and with neurotics themselves have found ourselves asking who am i what is my deepest destiny what does live living really mean fascinating Bethan atheist comes to an article in which he says when she writes when we lost the notion of sin we know lost the definition for ourselves I want you to listen to me very carefully before I move to my final thought when I wrote the book an imaginary conversation with Jesus and Oscar Wilde it was part of a series of conversations the one with Buddha was called the Lotus of the cross Jesus talks to Buddha her new birth or rebirth Jesus talks to Krishna and few others and then one on Oscar Wilde was sensing sensuality Jesus talks to Oscar Wilde you know Wilde was driven by pleasure driven by pleasure his whole life was pleasure writ large there he was in his forties dying in a little hotel room in Paris which I visited when I wrote the book his funeral was held in the same church that Blaise Pascal's funeral was while he's lying on his deathbed he looks at his lover Robby Ross and he says to him Robby I have a question for you did you ever love any one of those young boys for their own sake did you ever love one of those young boys for their own sake Robbie a question about love seeking the good of another from an atheist Robbie says no how about you Musca Watson no bring me a minister only Christ is not big enough to heal this sort of my you know what love is a supreme ethic truth is a supreme point of judgment and if it lose either of these two you lose God you lose either of these two you lose God and his poem The Ballad of reading jail is one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry written in which he talks about the woman with the alabaster ointment who came and cost what she had out of her reprobate life and pouring it at the feet of the Lord and because of his death only the blood of Christ was big enough was strong enough to cleanse says Oscar Wilde accountability I'm asking you tonight have you recognized your accountability before God it'll change your life completely change your life the day you recognize that's who you and I will ultimately stand before and so from existence to essence to conscience we move to the last beneficence the dimension of charity dimension of charity if one you have existence defined in other you have essence defined in the third you have beneficence if I have conscience defined in the last you have beneficence you know I go very much to the Middle Eastern countries and the Islamic countries I was in Jakarta Indonesia just a few weeks ago Quinn and I were there on one night you're dealing with the problem of evil about 3,000 people show up and the gates have to be shut because the room is already full in the last day I had a dialogue with an Islamic scholar professor kumara Dean and the question under discussion is why is there so much hate in religion it's very hard to really be blunt at that point and ask him where in the Koran it tells you to love your neighbor as yourself very hard to ask point-blank but I talked about the notion of love and the notion of truth and as I bring this message to a close I say to you take a look at the Middle East today take a look at the Middle East today five thousand years of the logic of unforgiveness five thousand years in the history working out the logic of unforgiveness and as I bring this message to a close I want to funnel it down especially dear students here with all of your learning and all of the cerebral challenges I want to draw your attention to something if you have never understood what the cross of Jesus Christ means you really have never understood the gospel there's a massive book written best-selling author it's called your best life now I went after page after page after page great appeal to the modern mind not one mention of the cross of Jesus Christ you cannot have your best life now without an understanding of the atonement tell you that I want to mention one little illustration and then close with the point I want to make last fall we did an open forum at Yale it was a Thursday night and it was a message I was asked to give on the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and I have to tell you you go in terrified on the inside I'm not putting you on I've done this for many years and in every speaking occasion you're terrified because you know it's not in you and you just hope and pray that God comes through and on that Thursday night the place is overflowing people are sitting in the eyes the doors are jammed and they can't get in and one of the members of the trustees from Yale happens to be sitting next to one of my colleagues at work and he looked at him and he said I don't understand it you bring Tony Blair or some great figure from politics here on a Thursday night they won't come to hear him to anybody who's anybody comes here they get tired of this stuff what are they doing coming here on a Thursday night to listen to talk on uniqueness of Jesus Christ and my colleague looked at them and said is it possible that you have left their souls empty and I'll tell you when I ended my talk there for the last seven or eight minutes I spoken the cross and the audience sits in stunned silence because you put the links together for them it's the most beautiful aspect of the Christian faith and if you don't understand the cross you really don't understand the gospel and here's how I closed I had a three-hour discussion with Sheikh Husain the leading Shiite cleric in Syria an audience in front of us listening in my interpreter between me and him use a very fine man very gentle a real gentleman always referred to me as professor zacharias professor zacharias and then he was speaking Arabic and the interpreter translate I would speak and he would and on the last interaction he leaned forward I don't know he had his pen or his glasses in his hand and he said you know you have convinced me today of one thing he said maybe it's time for us as Muslims to stop asking the question if Jesus died on the cross and to start asking the question why I said may I quote you on that sir he said yes why well being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal of God made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant being found and fashioned as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross wherefore God also have salted him and given to him a name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am you may be also if it were not so I would have told you eternity morality accountability and charity existence essence conscience and beneficence those are the pillars on which life must be defined and then your life stands and meaning becomes a coherent thing not just a fire definition made in an ad-hoc basis any time it suits you to define something you have been a wonderful audience and I've probably gone way beyond what I should have you know I very ceremoniously take out my watch I don't know why I do that but evidently it helps at least the movement of the wrist I'm gonna pray with you for a moment and then give you about 20 minutes for questions may I pray with you Heavenly Father you are a God of mercy you're a God who dwells in eternity and has addressed us in time Lord I could feel constrained in my heart that somebody has heard your voice tonight and wants to respond to you and as you have spoken may that voice truly cry out to you and ladies and gentlemen it's a better time to do it other than wait till your questions are raised hear you God has spoken to you and you're dealing with him now and wish to make things right with him either you don't know him and you say Robby pray for me I want to come to him tonight or you know him in name but you know you're wondering a far-away off and you want to set that right will you give me the privilege of praying for you it's a matter between you and God I ask you to give me the honor of praying for you just quietly slip your hand up put it down I'd like to pray with you as I close or we throw it open time for your questions you're just looking around this audience just slip your hand up put it down yes ma'am I see it yes yes god bless you the frontier god bless you thank you looking over the ground-floor again maybe a moment yes on my left thank you the back thank you sir am i right yes thank you little thank you sir looking at the balcony area live it up yes thank you thank you god bless you in the back there's several hands up there and I know there are something behind me two of God has spoken to you just signal that and I will pray for you as we close so I bring it to a close giving you that chance father for these hands that have been raised I pray that your hand will reach down to them and gather them within the sound of your voice in the embrace of your love thank you for the privilege of being here tonight in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

Channel: Lee University

Views: 49,840

Rating: 4.7267761 out of 5

Keywords: Lee University, Ravi Zacharius, Chapel, apologetics

Id: JMzE9W9gQTo

Length: 61min 45sec (3705 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2011