The Uniqueness Of Christ

we are dealing with an extremely sensitive albeit provocative subject if this question cannot be answered and the Christian faith cannot be defended and the Christian faith cannot be defended why even bother proclaiming it and in my second talk particularly as we deal with the uniqueness of Christ in the religions of the world I will make a few preliminary comments at that point because of that juncture will be setting him in Contra distinction to any other claim that points its way or there espouses as being one amongst many ways that take us to God or to salvation my first lecture is entitled as for assignment the uniqueness of Christ in history the uniqueness of Christ in history you can come to this academically by looking at the New Testament documents and showing how they have withstood the onslaught of critics or any kind of analysis across the centuries you could look at this from the perspective of missionary movements and see how it is many parts of the world have been conquered by the message of Christ and that still would be quite unique but I would like to look at this from the very person of Christ and try to set that before you in your thinking many years ago as a teenager growing up in India I remember listening to a song being narrated by one who was well known in the 1960s a man by the name of Ed Ames and of course raised in India my ears perked up because of the specific nature of the questions he raised in that song which was chanted quite in an Eastern fashion with the background of music almost provoking some kind of mysticism and he said this it is a rather long song I'll just quote a couple of verses at this point he said this from the canyons of the mind we wonder on and summer blind wade through the often tangled maze of starless nights and sunless days hoping for some kind of clue a road to lead us to the truth but who will answer he's our hope in walnut shells won't that ecwid temple bells or deeper than some cloistered walls were hooded feeders spray in shawls or high upon some dusty shells or in the Stars or in ourselves who'll answer and the chorus goes if the soul is darkened by a fear it cannot name if the mind is baffled when the rules don't fit the game who'll answer who answer who'll answer notice the specific nature of the question he does not long for some abstraction or some dogma he's not looking for a set of precepts to adhere to or some system that he can give allegiance to he is personifying the very source of his answer by saying who has the right to be the answer to the many questions that are plaguing my mind and indeed he raises dozens of them as a song unfolds the fact of the matter is ladies and gentlemen that the name of Christ has been virtually unique and unparalleled in history as the one who claimed in himself to be the locust and the sum and substance of the answer not just only what he said or what he taught but in himself so that if you remove Christ from the Gospels there is no gospel message he is a central feature of his own message you have heard these words I'm sure but it is most appropriate to use them for a theme such as this and title one solitary life he was born in an obscure village the child of a peasant woman he grew up in another village where he worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty then for three years he was an itinerant preacher he never wrote a book he never held an office he never travelled 200 miles from the place where he was born he did none of the things one usually associated greatness he was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him he was turned over to his enemies a mental a mockery of a trial he was nailed to a cross between two thieves when he was dead he was laid in a borrowed gray nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he is a central figure of the human and a leader of mankind's progress all the armies that ever marched all the navies that ever sailed all the kings that ever reign have not affected a life of man as much as that one solitary life I'd like to take the liberty and please bear with me to read for you a rather protracted passage I hesitated to do this but I think if you stay with the imagination of this writer you will be as enthralled with it as I was I lived it out of a book called a 20th century pulpit and in that is a collation of some of the fine sermons preached in this century most of them follow very straightforward line uncle you come to a man by the name of Frederick Speakman who uses his imagination and preaches a whole sermon on an imaginary conversation between Pontius Pilate after he had spelled the death sentence of Christ that he has in turn with one of the servants called Gaius so here it is it breaks up some a message in title what Pilate said one night please listen it's very very creative it suddenly closed in on me guys the impact of how trapped I was the proud arm of Rome with all its boast of justice was to be but a dirty dagger in the pudgy hands of the priests I was waiting in the room for him Gaius that I used for court officially enthroned with cloak and guard when they left him in well Gaius don't smile at this as you value your jaw but I've had no peace since the day he walked into my judgment Hall it has been years guys but these scenes I read from the back of my eyelids every night you've seen Caesar when he was young inspect the Legion his arrogant manner was childlike compared to the manner of this Nazarene he didn't have to strut you see he walked towards my throne arms bound with a strident mastery in control their bites very audacity silenced the room for an instant and left me with a trembling and an insane desire to stand up and salute the clerk began reading absurd list of charges the priestly delegation punctuating these with the palm rubbing the beard stroking the eye Rowling's and the pious gutturals I had learned to ignore but I'm or felted biased and heard it I questioned him mechanically he answered very little but what he said in the way he said it he was as it his level gaze had pulled my naked soul right up into my eyes and was probing it there and a voice saying in my ears why you're on trial Pilate and that the man wasn't even listening to the charges you have sworn he just coming out of friendly interest to see what was going to happen to me and a very pressure of his standing they had grown unbearable guys when a slave Russian all the tremble interrupting court bringing a message from my wife Claudia she had stabbed at the stylus in that childish way that she has when she is distraught don't judge this amazing man Pilate she wrote I was haunted in dreams by him this night Gaius I tried to free him from that moment on I tried and I always think he knew it I declared him out of my jurisdiction being a Galilean but their native King Herod discovered he was born in Judea and sent him right back to me I never peeled to the crowd that had gathered in the streets hoping they were his sympathizers but Caiaphas such station agitators dupe up the briefs that beats the cry for blood and you know how any citizen here loves just after breakfast to cry for another's blood I hadn't beaten Gaius a thorough barracks room beating I'm really still not sure why to appease the crowd I guess but do we Romans really need a reason for beatings that's the code isn't it for anything we don't understand guys it didn't work the crowd roared like some slobbering beast when I brought him back only you could have watched him guys they had thrown some rags of mock purple over spoked and bleeding shoulders they had Janet Zappala thorns down on his forehead and it fitted Gaius it all fitted he stood there watching them from my balcony flame from weakness by now but Royal I tell you know just pain but pity shining from his eyes and I kept thinking this is somehow all monstrous upside down that purple Israel that crown Israel and somehow these animal noises the crowd is shrieking should be praised and then Caiaphas plays his MA played his master stroke on me he announced there in public that this Jesus claimed the crown and that this was treason to Caesar and the guards began to glance at one another quickly and that marble spineless filth began to shout Hail Caesar Hail Caesar and I knew right then I was beaten and that's when I gave the order guys I couldn't look at him then I did a childish thing I called for water and there on the balcony I washed my hands of that whole affair guys as they led him away I did look up and he turned and looked at me no smile no pity he just glanced at my hands and I feel the weight of his eyes on them from now on but you're yawning guys I've kept you up and the fact of the matter is you're in need of rest and some holidays Claudia will be asleep by now rows of lighted lamps lying her couch she can't sleep in the dark anymore not since the afternoon you see guys the Sun went down and my guards executed yes that's what I said I don't know how or what I only know I was there and orders the middle of the day he turned his black as the tunnels of hell in that miserable City well I tried to compose Claudia and they explained how I've been trapped and she railed at me with her dream she's had that dream ever since when she sleeps in the dark some form of it there was to be a new Caesar and that I killed him oh we've been to Egypt editions we've listened by the hours to the articles the musty temples of Greece shattering their identities we called it an oriental curse that we're under and you tried to make a break in a thousand ways but there's no breaking it but you know why I keep going eyes deeper the curse is the haunting driving certainly that heat certainty that he saw somewhere here there are unfinished business with him that now then as I walk by the lake he's following me and much as that strikes terror I wonder if that isn't the only hope you see guys if I could walk up to this time salute and tell them I know now whoever he is he was the only man worth the name in all Judea that day tell them I know I was entrapped that I trap myself tell him here's one Roman who really wishes he were Caesar I believe that would do it don't you think so I believe he listened to know that I meant it and at last I'd see him smile yes quite tonight guys isn't it a breeze stirring by the lake good night you'd better run along no no I think we'll be waken in my slave outside the door and tell him to bring me a cloak my heavy one please I'll walk by the lake yes it's dark out there guys but I won't be alone I guess I never really have been alone yes powerful powerful use of imagination interwoven with the specific biblical narrative of what really happened when he was handed over but the line I like there is that his haunting Spectre still remains and the writer is writing in the 20th century pulpit 20 centuries later critics have not been able to obliterated contrary views have not been able to smother him and somehow within the deepest recesses of recesses of the human heart for millions of people in this world the name of Jesus Christ still brings the concept of hope and the reality that there must be somebody out there who put my two feet on this earth and with a reason to give me some hope I believe it was James Stewart the great Scottish divine who put it in these words in a marvelous passage he said this about Jesus he was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God he was austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming yet he was so genial and Vincent unapproachable that the children loved to play with him in her little ones nestled in his arms his presence of the innocent gaiety of a village wedding was like the presence of sunshine no one was half as kind of compassionate to sinner's yet no one ever spoke such ready in words against sin a bruised Reed he would not break his whole life was love yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees how they were expected to escape the damnation of Hell he was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions yet for sure shock realism he has all of our self-styled realists soundly beaten he was the servant of all washing the disciples feet yet masterfully he strode into the temple and the money changers and fell over one another in their mad rush to get away from the fires missile blazing in his eyes he saved others yet the last himself he did not save there is nothing in history like the union of contrasts which confronts us in the Gospels Stuart the mystery of Jesus is a mystery of divine personality what a startling coalescence of contrariety see listen to the songwriter saying who will answer you heard the anonymous voice crying out about the solitary life you heard the imagination haunted that he still somewhere near you heard the theologian after the fact of this startling blending of contrariety our Lord now we do listen to a secular voice the voice of the great historian weh lucky in his book a history of European morals from gustas to Charlemagne published in 1969 listen to what he says the character of Jesus has not only been the highest pattern of virtue but the strongest incentive in its practice and has exerted so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind then all the dispositions and all the exhortations of more or less end of quote and the New Testaments for ever Bruce responding to lackeys comments said this that is a non-christian or at least not distinctively a Christian judgment of one sense in which Jesus is not only a historical figure but also our eternal contemporary he is his influence lives on why is it what is that uniqueness how is it that when he ascended into heaven though only about 120 people professing allegiance in Palestine that boasted four million in population at that time they were outnumbered one to thirty thousand what was the uniqueness of that message mainly just define the term in one statement and the great English professor CEM Joe used to be on the airwaves quite often and used to be asked a lot of questions and he had a brilliant way of responding to the many a question and he would begin his answer with these words it all depends on what you mean by it all depends on what you mean by so when we look at the theme the uniqueness of his Christ industry let's ask the question he all depends on what you mean by the uniqueness doesn't mean that there is nothing in Christ that you are his message that you will find anywhere else in some fragmentary form no but it does mean that in him there is such a consummate expression of God and in his message is the totality of the expression of what we need for salvation and life listen ah please select anything that contradicts it becomes untrue by definition of the fact that there may be hints of truth and ideas that are in other systems but the consummate expression in Christ is so geared to a truthfulness in an absolute sense so that anything that contradicts it if so facto becomes false and that I'll be glad to sustain even in the panel discussion but as I look at the uniqueness I want to give you five ways in which Jesus is unique and I raised to the latter part as I spend more time on the first first is his eternal perspective his eternal perspective the Bible says unto us a child is born unto us a son is given the Sun is not born the child is born the Sun is given because the Sun eternally existed he prays in his high priestly prayer restored to me the glory father that I had in your presence before this world was made his eternal perspective and his eternal existence the Apostle Paul says who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation took upon himself the form of a servant which means he we existed the form that was presented in his earthly manifestation he is the only creature in existence as part of the Godhead the reason for whose existence is in himself when I was filling out my doctor no examination at the Graduate School that I studied I was sent to the questionnaire and the first question said this God is perfect explain God is perfect explain and I turned to my wife and said the only more difficult question I can think of is to say define God and give two examples God is perfect explain how do you find an Aladdin analogy for perfection and thankfully the space given to answer the question was yes small because I have no doubt whatsoever the longer the answer the greater the possibility of heresy and so I gave that very simple one-liner that I gave to you earlier on he is the only being in existence God is the only being in existence the reason for whose existence is in himself every other creature looks for the reason existence outside of itself we are all contingent cause and finite God alone is infinite uncaused and and has a reason eternity but doesn't it blow your mind listening to my brother Lou Albert's talking about going back and back and back till you move to 1 and 10 to the power of minus 46 or 47 such abstractions we go to an essay we got a stop here because we cannot pull the veil beyond that we're gonna finish you live our own minds you know we Lisp about our world we lists about the universe because we can never quite come through with a pointed answer how can we who are locked into time and space ever talking terms transcending time and space and that's what Immanuel Kant the great philosopher said talking about the categories in which we understand reality we are locked into the categories of time and space but that's not too bad you know we use words where we actually invoke the opposite in order to prove the idea for example when we use the word nothing try to picture nothing can you picture nothing while you're using something to picture nothing do you hear a sound as we in the background defining nothing it is no thing so we talk about a thing in order to deposit his absence that's why somebody said to Aristotle how do you define nothing he said it is that which rocks dreamboat how do you define Eternity how do you define eternity when he looks at his questioners and says before Abraham was I am an eternal being what does that do for us in looking at his uniqueness the first thing it does is it points to the reality of heaven which is the hearts deepest longing it points to the reality of heaven which is a hearts deepest longing one of the most bizarre and if you allow me to use the term logically silly and I'm being very kind logically silly movies ever to come onto the screens was nikos kazantzakis book put on the screen form the Last Temptation of Christ and Nikos Kazantzakis got into the problems in his own theology and he talked about in his book where Jesus is hanging on I have seen the movie in his book he talks about how Jesus is hanging on the cross and dying and when he's paying the penalty for his message he married to Mary or Martha and I supposedly dreams and some physical relationships with them can you believe that somebody whose home was heaven and glory is regretting that he lost his Shack in Bethany it really doesn't make sense does it who thought it not robbery to be equal with God the eternal I am who came into this tiny little world are created by his own utterances who could talk to us of the glories of heaven one day I am longing to listen to a whole sermon I don't have the capacity so I'm borrowing a paragraph from CS Lewis who talks about heaven in one of his writings in his own inimitable way listen to it and listen to it again when you get back in your mind's in your mind's hearing hear it again and again in speaking of this desire for our own far-off country which we find in ourselves even now I feel a certain shyness I'm almost committing an indecency I'm trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like nostalgia and romanticism and adolescence the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when in very intimate conversation the mention of heaven becomes imminent imminent we grow awkward and effects to launch to laugh at ourselves the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell though we desire to do both we cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience we cannot hide it because our experience is constantly longing for it and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of the name heaven and Jesus Christ in his embodiment pointed points to the glorious heaven which was his home how unique for someone to come from the glory of heaven and tell you and me in my father's house are many mansions if it were not so I would have told you and I have told you earthly things and you do not understand it how are you going to understand how many things there is no analogy yet we cannot hide it in our experience he keeps on suggesting it but not only does his reality points to the reality of heaven please notice now he uses every moment of history with meaning if he is transcending over time if he is the eternal I am and always is ever-present our eternal contemporary in the words of Bruce then the fact of the matter is he fuses all of time with significance when you talk to the existentialist the existentialist lives in a now living with a passion for the now is given all the passion you've got and do it now the song extrapolates the idea of existentialism if it feels good do it or the hedonist extrapolates it eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die so the athlete gets onto the track and runs 100 meters knowing he's got the steroids injected him hoping he will not find nobody will ever find out because there now is what matters the glory of the moment go out into the night betray the promises betray the one to whom you made your promises indulge in it for the night because now is all you have how can it be so wrong when it feels so good the existentialist slips further now and think of the havoc existentialism has created jean-paul Sartre was the existentialist guru in the 60s his teaching influenced the ankle a movement in Cambodia and resulted in the slaughter resulted in the slaughter of millions and millions of people as portrayed in The Killing Fields Sartre in ethics and Sartre in existentialism provided the worldview for the uncle a movement to bring about its slaughter just as nice as the existentialist lives further now the traditionalist looks to the past have you ever seen the play Fiddler on the Roof and you see Teddy coming onto the center stage and he's giving his little monologue they're talking about how they move from village to village persecuted Anatevka Tsar home but as they keep moving along persecuted tormented he said somehow we keep going somehow we keep going and you ask me how I'll tell you says he tradition tradition tradition and if we did not have our traditions our existence would be as tenuous the Hebrew lutes to the past the existentialist moment the utopianist looks to the future by in the sky by and by when I die a la Marxist philosophy and after seventy years of living a lie in Russia where millions have been obliterated in the name of utopianism experiments in history where their own in the future he takes a piece of bread and he breaks it and he says this as oft as you shall eat of this bread and drink of this cup now you proclaim the Lord's death in the past until he come in the future he used every moment of history pregnant with meaning the dog is true if I were to ask for one sermon that I could listen to live it would be tough wouldn't it this great trance temporization idea where he transcends the temporariness meaning but he could transport me and say Ravi I'd like you to listen to one message live as portrayed in the Old Testaments which one would you take rowdy oh my I could think of Elijah on Mount Carmel I can think of Peter at Pentecost I could think of Paul on Mars Hill and of course that summit of all sermons the greatest of all Sermon on the Mount but I think as I have weeded through I don't know if I'm in error but I've latched on to the one I would love to have listened to live as those two disciples on the Emmaus Road in Acts chapter 24 in Luke 24 hour walking are walking by this time talking despondently of all that went wrong we had hoped he would have been the deliverer of Israel as they are walking this third personage joins them they don't know who he is and he says to them what are you boys talking about and they say to him are you the only one in Israel who does not know what has happened ironically he was the only one in Israel who did know what had happened and the Bible says that he unfolded the scriptures and showed them all from beginning of the prophets all that had to come to pass and they say how their hearts burned within them so that as the time came to the party said I'll buy you your dinner would you sit down and continue talking and in a masterful stroke of the beauty of the word of God it wasn't some great exposition at that moment but when he simply took that piece of bread and broke it their eyes were suddenly open and they saw the entire panorama of history in my office and I have these words penned in and someone has put it on a parchment on the frame and it says this Jesus Christ continued and he compels us to radically redefined what we mean by life he encounters us the way he encounters the disciples Sunday they were the ones marked out for death those who had survived him were really the dead he the dead one was he continually contradicts us experience ourselves little using the word football the way they use it he was a college football coach one of the greatest talks of the time that one of the young men on his team was an outstanding young man in character but never quite made it to the front to the top spot he was always a backup benchwarmer as they called him a great young man and luleå says many times I see this young man walking his father through the college property his father's arm would be in his sons and the son would be talking to the buildings are explaining some piece of architectural painting and he said they seemed to be so close as dad and son then I never quite got to the point of introducing myself and breaking up that closeness and one day I got a call from his mother saying coach little my son admires you an awful lot he feels very close to you his father has died will you please help my boy I want you to do this for me I leave you in there you played that for your dad didn't you he said yes coach but I want to tell you something my dad was born blind and this was the first time he was going to watch me play I granted there's a sentimentality there I granted she won't base a doctrine on that story because it has a romantic imaginative touch to it let me tell you something he being the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God and made himself of no reputation came and dwelt among us there was nothing romantic about him when he talked about heaven he knew its stark reality albeit used to the glory of the romantic love and the beauty of being in the presence of his eternal perspective secondly his internal imperative is it internal imperative he did not come to set up a political power that would rule and constrain from without he came to touch the hearts of men and women that would bring the imperative from within and what a world Jesus did not come to set up some political structure in this world politics swings from one end to the other and political ideas almost become like a drunken man moving from one wall to the other knocking itself senseless with every hit and almost correct maybe ideological he was a Hague Aryan doctrine of how each idea which forms a thesis sooner or later spawns its antithesis and somewhere they meet in the future to form a synthesis but moving from one wall to the other knocking itself senseless is what I'm talking about he did not come to change humanity by establishing an earthly government or some political strategy you see politics inevitably moves towards power politics inevitably moves source power and Lord Acton has rightly said power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely he came instead to touch your heart and to touch mine and that's why Napoleon said it Napoleon said it well he said a god Alexander's Kingdom and my kingdom will ultimately come to naught but Jesus's kingdom is indestructible because ours was dominated by power and force he's dominated the lives of people with the power of love he changes us from with him that divine implant internal imperative that we talk about CS Lewis describes his conversion in these words I always wanted above all things not to be interfered with I had wanted to call my soul my own I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight I always aimed at limited liabilities you must speak to me alone in that room in Marlon night after night feeling whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work the steady relented approach of him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet that which I greatly feared had at last come upon me in it in 1929 I gave him and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed perhaps that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England I did not see then what I see now the most shining and obvious thing the divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms the prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet but who can duly adore that love which will open the high gates we go who's brought in kicking struggling resentful and guarding his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape the worst compel a infra ray compel them to come in have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder them but properly understood they plumbed the depths of divine mercy the hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men and his compulsion is liberation reading his book surprised by joy he says there was no pressure as he rolled in that bus that day just that gentle tug this is right you know Jesus critical temptation and the devil said to him turn these stones into bread and they'll follow you he said no the marvelous thing about him was he did not want to draw people by feeding some earthly appetite of this every leader sooner or later finds out that self-centered appetites are insatiable you can never satisfy the one who wants more and more and more bread and the things of this world he works from with him Billy Graham tells the story of a man who had lost his life and alcoholism a medical doctor who marvelously came to know Christ and one day when he was sitting in his doctor's office a friend came to him let me ask you something please tell me I'm trying to explain what's happened to you trying to explain it away as a tell me something they're all trying to understand you what's happening on of liquor tell me if you were to come back to your home some if your office some afternoon after a miserable day of all that's gone wrong and you shut that door and you are and you know you're alone and nobody is there with you are you telling me with that finest bottle talk to me behind your medical journals if you had one you're not gonna reach out and take that drink once more even though it'll bring back all the memories of the past and your enslavement are you telling me but a miserable day locked behind closed doors nobody with you you're alone you would yield to that he said no every contingency you've given Kenneth sometime probably happen except one since I have come to know Christ I have found out I am never ever alone I came to know Christ on a bed of suicide as a teenager in all the religiosity from without had done nothing from me all the power my dad alienated me because I was no longer important how he entered a hospital room and touched the heart of a young man with the gentleness and a whiteness of his mercy just as he's done for many of you here you know what it is not to be compelled from without but to have that person to have that internal imperative from within Will Durant says this in his book there is no greater drama in history in historical record and the sight of a few Christians scorned or in some way beaten by a succession of emperors bailing Bay bearing all trials of the fierce tenacity multiplying quietly building audio while their enemies generated chaos fighting the sword with the word brutality with hope and at last defeating the strongest state that history had ever known Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won Durant says this Christ won by attaching the hearts people you have the eternal perspective the internal imperative thirdly in quickly his personal directive as vast as this world is and as vast as the bosses this world was Christ had time for the individual his message is personal in this cosmic scheme of things in this cosmic scheme of things I say to you how marvelous to know that he has time for you and me personally we heard statistics earlier on billions and billions and billions numbers that stagger the imagination what is there in man that you are mindful of him but yet as he walked through that village with the masses he got talking to this woman will be married five times rejected by many people evidently who was immoral in the sight of society and in that society being a woman was even more rejected in a very gender her ethnicity was against her she bawled that horrible term called a Samaritan which was a scourge in that time despised by the so called pure there she was more akin morally in her femininity in her ethnicity all of those rejections and she runs back to her village and she says this you'll never believe what happened I have met somebody who knew everything about me and in me I didn't hang me up by a cord is what she's trying to say I have to think of a comment made by a great professor of the major religions in the world professors in California when a death sentence was fossum and for writing a book against us that seemed to mark that a very foolish thing to have done gets nobody anywhere and it was in what I believe I got so involved in his cause I don't have time for the individual anymore and the secretary paused and said that is incredible sir even God has not come to that stage it is nice to know in the macro cosmic entities of this world he has a particularity of your need in mine too and you can come to him by prayer and call him Holy Father and he hears you and he hears me his personal directive so you've got first his eternal perspective second his internal imperative thirdly his personal directive fourthly and critically his inspirational incentive his inspirational incentive how he has been the focal point of musicians and artists for centuries virtually unparalleled virtually on that a man by the name of George Frederick Handel in 24 days can penned that great masterpiece called Messiah so that as he's writing with almost a sense of inspiration he says it is as if I saw the heavens open and God presents himself and the tears are running down his face and he's writing the marvelous words and the music to the Hallelujah Chorus and as he talks about it he says I felt as though I had a divine visitation and after the first performance one of the nobility looks at him and says he says mr. Hanley said the people really enjoyed what you have done and he said I'm disappointed I was hoping they would be better people for what they had just heard how God has inspired the songwriter from the box from the sailors from the Mendelsohn's to the handles and the Wesley's and the Watts and a marvelous hymn writers and the converted slave trader John Newton Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now I'm found was blind but now I see when we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the Sun we've no less days to sing God's praise and the young man who went insane under the influence of William Cooper God moves in a mysterious way he's wonders to perform he plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm his purposes will ripen and pass unfolding every hour the bud may have a bitter taste but sweet will be the flower blind unbelief is shorter and scan his works in vain God is his own interpreter and he will think of what Christian music has done across the centuries unparalleled unparalleled in so many languages of the world you know what it does he does two things it has not only bridged a memory to the imagination with eternal value but it binds our emotion and stirs affection across linguistic and cultural barriers here are the two things broken down first it knits your heart with your fellow believer in many parts of the world where you don't even understand the language one great evangelist too much to leave unnamed had one of the Steam members years ago walking on the streets of Romania and as he was walking by looking at this desolate country as a visitor on incognito as he was walking somewhere in the streets of Bucharest he heard a man walk by on a cold wintry day whistling a tune and a common tune it was from this hymn the Great Physician now is here the sympathizing Jesus and this man paused looked at him walked by him and started to whistle the tune along with him they looked at each other couldn't speak then the Romanian points to the heavens and then touches his heart this American points to the heaven and touches his heart too and they both walk each other in embrace the gift of music transcending mere verbiage the uniqueness that God has given in this inspirational incentive but not only that it talks about the joy that comes into our hearts of the loneliest times in our lives I recall three years ago being in China in the town of Shanghai visiting that agent evangelist wang ming dao who died very recently wang ming dao hit the church news many years ago because when mom house they don't took over he put one mean Dao into prison in Beijing and they was being she was suffering greatly he suffered so much that one being Dao denied the name of his Lord and somehow they doing released him but after he was released he was so gnawed by sadness and by remorse he walked through the streets of Beijing shouting at the top of his voice my name is Peter I denied my Lord my name is Peter I've denied my lord Mao Zedong had him arrested again and put him behind prison bars for over 20 years after he'd been released so I had the privilege of being with him in his tiny little room in Shanghai along with another evangelist we were there and as we sat there this man with his head phone back hands gnarled mouth unable to close his tongue was not easily controllable through to some deformity he developed over the years his wife completely blind and some young listening to our conversation and all of a sudden before I left he said would you mind if I sing for you the song that I sang in prison every day so that first the guards hated it then they began to tolerate it then they loved it and were disappointed if I didn't sing it and he sang all the way my Saviour leads me what have I to ask beside can I doubt his tender mercy who through life has been my guide heavenly peace - comfort here by grace with him to dwell for I know whatever before me Jesus with all things well I can never listen to that song again without listening to it in a Chinese accent the inspirational incentive I don't have time to tie this thought together with a marvelous quote from GK Chesterton who talks about why Jesus never laughed from us was his mirth an eternal mirth that there is no analogy for in her earth again he wept he was then he was sad at times but the laughter has no peril the laughter of heaven has nothing like that on earth alone but have you seen his eternal perspective his internal imperative his personal directive his inspirational incentive and lastly his incarnation or distinctive his incarnation or distinctive as the word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth what we have your ladies and gentlemen is the embodiment God becoming flesh giving this body dignity so that I don't have to be like a Gnostic thinking matter is evil nor do I be like the hedonist who indulge without restraint now I know this body is a temple of the Living God and consummating in that monogamous heterosexual union the marvelous gift that God has given to us in marriage the consummate physical expression that points to a greatest spiritual reality for we now are his bride and he is the bridegroom but God in the flesh giving the body a dignity so that when we erase again it is a glorified body and while he himself takes that body it is not essentially evil he shows us how to live in this mortal frame Victor Hugo said the world was made for the body but a body for the soul and the soul for God I had requested from clothes now with this quote and we talked about the uniqueness of Christ in history perspective is internal imperative his personal directive is inspirational incentive and his incarnation of distinctive my favorite quote and most in order to use it here it is so unique it comes from the mouth of Malcolm Muggeridge who had the world he says this we look back upon history and what do we see empires rising and falling revolutions and counter-revolutions wealth accumulated and wealth dispersed Shakespeare has spoken of the rise and fall of great ones that even flow with the moon I look back upon my own fellow countrymen once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world most of them convinced in the words of one still popular song that the God who made the mighty shall make them my world I've seen an Italian clown saying he was going to swap and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power i met a murderous georgian brilliant in the kremlin acclaim by the intellectual elite of the world as a wiser than solomon more humane than marcus aurelius more enlightened ashoka I have seen America wealthier and in terms of military weaponry more powerful than the rest of the world put together so that had the American people Saudis they've done a Caesar or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests all in one lifetime all gone Gone with the Wind England part of a tiny island of the coast of Europe dismemberment and even bankruptcy Hitler muscled me dead remember only in infamy Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he found in dominate for some three decades an America haunted by fears of running out of those precious foods that keep some always worrying and a small settling with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam and the victories of the donkey hoodies of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate all in one lifetime all in one lifetime gone said behind the degree of these styles on Superman and Imperial diplomatists sand the gigantic figure of one person because of whom by whom in whom and through whom mankind might still have hope the person of Jesus Christ yes there were many who tried to be many men who tried to be God but only the one true God who was willing to become man and in his uniqueness he gives us perspective on history may God bless you with us this is not an easy subject that has been assigned to me although my field of study is philosophy of religion and I do an awful lot of lecturing on the theme around the world I also want to be very very sensitive because it is easy to bring offense when you're dealing with something like this it is easy to trample underfoot truths and ideas that others greatly treasure and none of us once had done to that which we believe and why end up doing it to what someone else believes that is the positive and the noble ascetic side of it but the counterpoint is how does one really ever come to grips with truth if it is not put in contrast with conflicting truth claims what do you do when there are conflicting truth claims and therefore what I would like to do ladies and gentlemen as I introduce my message is first of all set the foundation for the laws of logic that two contradictory statements both cannot be true only one of them may be true both of them may be false but both of them cannot be true unless the laws of logic do not apply to reality and if one denies are the laws of logic applied to reality how do we ever even converse the moment you open your mouth you assume a meaningful statement is about to be made and if somebody challenges that statement how do you anchor anything in reality I mean a scientist like Roberts cannot possibly take two conflicting measurements for the same thing a pilot listening to the guide that or the guidance that is coming from the tower is not going to take two opposite numbers both to be true unless in one sense one of them becomes qualified asserting something else so what I'd like to do is first establish the laws of logic some of you may be familiar with that argument but many of you may not be and so I'd like for you to hear that but the second thing I want to do is deal with the major attacks that Christianity has had to face particularly from Islam so I'm not going to deal with Islamic doctrine I'm not going to try and debunk any of their doctrines I'm just going to try to present to you what is the problem the Christian faces in trying to communicate somebody to who also a Muslim world view what is the difficulty the Christian faces in communication and I can assure you I will do that as sensitively as I can but I have the privilege by many Islamic governments around the world to be in their country and lecture and dialogue and this year is no exception I will be in three Muslim countries speaking and they are kind enough to host me I want to be respectful of the fact that they are willing to give us a hearing and the other thing is I have the greatest respect for one or two fine Islamic scholars around the world today particularly one by the name of Jamel Bala we in the United States who is a very fine gentleman and makes dialogue much easier as we talk I will highlight the tensions that I have presented in such situations and they realize it but it is important to know that having said the logical base then having said the greatest tension in a dialogue with the ala moana theistic worldview that is principally trying to in some way undermine the Christian faith explicitly then I will move on to the uniqueness of Christ in world religions I won't have time to deal with the pantheistic worldview there are other Eastern beliefs here too if those of you are interested we have a lot of material where you analyze pantheism again rather than just a comparison one of the finest books he has written is called Christianity and world religions Sir Norman Anderson operating out of England was a scholar scholar still writing all those seniors very much an authority in history philosophy and law and in his book Christianity in world religions he gives three major distinctives that come under the category of a unique Proclamation a unique salvation unique disclosure I greatly encourage you to get a hold of that it is very succinct and very well done by a fine contemporary thinker here is the law of logic as it applies to reality I remember speaking please bear with me for those of you familiar with this illustration it is the most incisive one that I can give to you I remember speaking in one of khaki in the United States Western cities when one of the professor's was attending a lectureship and asked me to speak against an Eastern religion which I said I would not do he said I'm an American I belong to that other Eastern religion let's just call it X and he said and I have taught this X religion in my lectures and so on I want you to speak on the subject why you do not subscribe to the dogma religion X and my students will take you apart to do that I said I will speak on that subject at the end of the talk he said and even sorry it is his food had become congealed in front of him and he had taken off his paper place mats of all the tables to draw his argument and basically what he was trying to say was this that there are two kinds of logic actually he was wrong there are more but he said there are two kinds of logic one is the law of non-contradiction the law of non-contradiction means if something is true the opposite of it is false if something is true the opposite is a sauce it is called an either/or logic if i say to you for example there is a red car immediately outside the steps there if that statement is true the opposite of it is false I'm not at the same time saying that red car is not parked out there it is either true or false I just given you a simple illustration if it is a then it is not non a at the same time you basically established the either/or dogma and he says Robbie that is the law of non-contradiction that is either-or that is a Western way of thinking Westerners think either/or I said I disagree with the last statement why don't you ride with Rob Rob it off he wouldn't do it so then he moved to the eastern way of thinking he said in the east you do both and it is a dialectic you don't say either this or that is a bonus and that Karl Marx used the dialectical system he was either the employer or the employee you put them together and you find a classless society both employer and employee talk about that there is a bolt and Dogma in the dialectic tuples of an argument there and he says you see Robbie he said the dialectical system is Eastern the dialectical system is Eastern what he was trying to say was this I had talked about the many contradictions in certain pantheistic worldview very strong contradictions and he said you see Robbie if you took the dialectical system to be true anytime you came into a contradiction you won't both of them are right so if you asked one follower religion X is yes he says that's a we son way of thinking so you got you got the healer or which is Western the both hand which is Eastern he was waxing finally I said can I say something to you sir he said yes and he picked up his knife and food and as he was cutting into the morsel of food I said here's what you throw me there is an either-or which is Western there is a both hand which is Eastern and you want me to study religion X right now here's my question to you doctor are you telling me when I'm studying religion X I either use the both hand system or nothing else is that right there I either use the whole time system or nothing else is that right do you know what he did he put his knife and fork down and with a very nervous expression I wish I had the cameras there to film it he says to me the either-or does seem to emerge doesn't it I said yes in fact I've got some shocking news for you even in India we look both ways before we cross the street he does either the bus or me not both of us do you see what he was doing he was using me either or we this should prove the both hand he was telling me I either use this system or nothing else and he was staggered to realize that he used it every day so it's not good nothing to do he's got everything to do with that which best reflects reality and when Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the Father but by me it is the most reasonable segment the question is is it true it is the most reasonable statement because truth by definition is exclusive the moment you affirm something you exclude anything that challenges that and the way you prove the law of non-contradiction is there by just talking and if anyone else stands up and challenges you against it by challenging you they're proving you right what you're saying over there saying now the Eastern understands this malady that's why the Easterner says when the mouth opens all our fools but the problem is is mouth opens to tell us that or as one of the famous Mystics said he who knows does not speak he who speaks does not know well did he speak anybody spoke then he does not know does it really matter he spoke the law of non-contradiction must apply to reality if you deny the law of non-contradiction you may as well talk about a one and it's stick it cannot even be pictured leave alone stated because the opposite poles are very much in your mind of an either/or there now it is therefore more logically possible that all the religions in the world are wrong but it is not logically sensible to say that he just can't be the pantheist affirms something very different to the theists the theist affirms something very different to the atheist and you go on and on and right down the line and you find out that contrary to the contrary now this is really the fundamental problem that I find as a Christian lecturer dealing with the Islamic world you I find at least four basic challenges that they give to us that are impossible to meet that are absolutely impossible to meet because in the process of them stating those arguments against Christianity those arguments end up in a sense of disrupting and by the way I have debated some of the best they are not they have never really responded to this challenge I'm not talking about their fundamental doctrines I'm talking about their assumptions this you see if their profit is espoused by them which he is as being a prophet to the world he is espoused by them as being a prophet to the world not just to Arabia or to the Middle East he is the last and the final prophet to the world and he they say performed no miracles because there was no need for it the Quran is in itself a miracle but here's the problem the Quran is in Arabic and I do not I am not given the privilege of even challenging its word usage please remember this is Bible because you see when you take words or changes in the Quran which they will tell you have never been made although some great scholars the fact of the matter is unless I know the language I cannot perceive the miracle unless I know the language I cannot perceive the miracle which basically means there are millions of people in the world to whom the language language it can never be tested in your experience because the English translations they tell you and any other translations are not accurate how does one deal with a miracle that is not recognizable by the masses in society that problem they abolish our Authority which is the scriptures without an original with which to condemn ours so we are told by the scholars representing that you that the Bible we have is not the original Bible given it is a corrupt Bible there are many contradictions in it it is not accurate reflection of Jesus Christ for example their spouses Jesus never really died on the cross and therefore the resurrection was purely a fabrication of later collectors of the ideas now let me ask you this how does one ever know something to be truthful if there is not a unit by which to measure it there is no point of reference if I were presented with an original that clearly debugged amongst what we do have then the dialogue can begin but if I'm told what I have is error-prone and wrong on the basis of something they have never shown to me how does one it is like talking about the moon being so far away from here but saying we have no way to measure it but take my word for it that's all parties it has been it has destroyed our original authority and told us we have no authority now therefore the Bible has been taken away from and how does one begin a dialogue with that thirdly and very importantly here now as you know the Quran was written about six centuries after Jesus Christ now was that the original absolute has been lost but the original has been lost now comes the final three and number four this is a sad one but it is true many scholars of that Soula thought reserve the right to impugn and debunk truths that we hold about our Lord but you cannot do the same with the names are precious to them follow I'm saying I can be told in the Quran that Jesus never died which is what is said out there and I can have people look at me and say that he Jesus they're all kinds of concepts that are treasured truths the very cross and the empty tomb are so precious to us and how does one dialogue with two people talking to me I want to say to you about that system and I believe in the heart so let me take the person of Christ and his uniqueness in the religions of the world the applications move from one mind to another each with its distinctive strengths first is Jesus's description on the reality of human nature the reality of human nature he knew what was in the hearts of men and women many times as he talked to his antagonists or as he talked to those who had bitter questions about him or against him when he replied to them the Bible says he knew what was in the heart of man and he faced the temptations that Satan caused his way also without sinning himself but he showed us the real of the human nature with which we all live I have not gone into a detailed study of this hellish act that has taken place recently of that little two-year-old child so brutalized and savagely murdered by two ten-year-olds how do you in England how do you explain that where does all this come from where does one come up on a Hitler or a Stalin or where does one come up on racism and the bitter specter of it in many many parts of the globe not just in the United States but in even the Far East or even in the land of my birth where there is such tension between different colors of people in a land how does one explain it are we really going to change the human heart by better education are you really going to take away the lust in my heart by writing some great book on physiological theories are you going to take pride away from me by just telling me that somebody else had a downfall because of his all pride are you going to take lead away from me just by telling me look what happened to Donald Trump we mess this whole thing up so you should be how does one change the longings of the human heart Malcolm Muggeridge put it best when he said this he said the doctrine of depravity is the most debated doctrine in society but it is also the most empirically verifiable you cannot cannot deny it let me give you a classic illustration that comes to me from the pen of Muggeridge himself and when he began to realize what kind of a person he was punch magazine I had the privilege of being with Malcolm Muggeridge in a few months before he died the great truths of my life in his beautiful home as we walked his gardens and talked about all that he had learned in these 80 some years of his and Margaret said he was teaching journalism in India and how all of a sudden one morning he went out to swim in the river nearby and when he went out to swim in that Sun sunrise there was nobody there but way out in the distance so he swims towards her and he describes a passion within his heart raging like a swirling river within him even though something within him said don't don't don't he said I swam harder to get away from the from that which was restricting me and as I came closer and closer and emerged from the water and shoot the water off my eyes I was face to face with this Indian woman until I suddenly realized as she lifted her hands up no fingers the next day the eyelashes and the eyebrows all gone and eroded away with that dreadful nerve disease almost animal-like at him with her eyes sunken in a state of shock what are you doing so near a leper sir he said of saying to her what a lecherous woman when it hit me between the heart as hard as it could be it what a lecherous heart I had just a few days ago I was in a city that I should leave unnamed on a very high floor the top floor or the building by one of the most powerful businessmen in the country extraordinarily wealthy and he and I talked for about two hours after a talk that I had just given and he kept talking about the fact that he doesn't want to believe in God but he does want to believe and he said I see this right or wrong around me every day in morality and as we dialed the businessmen who taken me to top him suddenly broken with a brilliant question he said to this businessman he said you know that I love you and so I think I have the right to ask you this he said you've been telling me all along how much you despise the immorality that you see around you he called him by name and leaned forward and said what do you do with the evil that you see in your own heart I don't know I guess I would have to say that whenever I express it it is a victimless Act I said do you recall sir when Prime Minister Connery of Japan died committed suicide he left on his night table the book by Oscar Wilde April Furness and he had underlined one line there which said this as terrible as it was what I had done to others nothing was as terrible as what I had done to myself evil is no longer the same person what do you do with this how are we going to change it how are we going to change it I have a beautiful story that I tell I love it so much for these two very wealthy men who were immoral both of them were pretty bad in their behavior and in the city and I'll pay you what I said I would challenge and the funeral came and he wax eloquent and he said the man you see lying here in the coffin is a murderer he's a liar he's an adulterer he does is that every dirty rotten stinking thing your mind can think of but compared to his brother he's the same who are you compared to someone else maybe a saint compared to someone else the Bible describes sin not only in transgression he describes sinners coming short of the glory of God coming short of the glory of God and I want you to know that the powerful treatment that Jesus gives to this whole issue of the nature of man and sin is felt more and more in our world today than ever before just think about it the 20th century has been the most bloodletting century in history think about that supposedly in the age of progress I think of what's going on in Yugoslavia I think of the hurts around the world I think of the slaughter of infants in all the rights that we now claim to ourselves I think of the tragedy so much so that one recent appointee of President Clinton when he was being quizzed by the committee for his confirmation described the world as a thousand points of darkness a thousand points of darkness one of the men I had as a hero in my teenage years was the great tennis player Arthur Ashe who just died of AIDS very recently in the last two to three weeks he was a gentleman on and off the court and through a blood transfusion contracted their disease and died I will I do not hear it directly but my sister quoted it to me and I was using it at Harvard University some time ago speaking and all of the students nodded their head exactly he said I have lived with a lot of pain in my life including AIDS having gained it innocently he said but nothing has hurt me more please show me then the pain that I have felt for the rejection of my race think of that a man dying of AIDS saying to you not to me you need to the world nothing has hurt me more than the pain I had experienced dying man son of mine how are we going to change this how are we going to change this please believe me it will never happen just because unless we understand the nature of the human heart and the unique answer that Christ gives we will never be able to change it listen to Association the whole matter of making but at length we have discovered that to be free in this sense that is happy excuse of being sick rather than sinful the danger also becoming lost this danger is I believe in becoming a moral ethical neutral and free we have being asking Who am I what is my deepest the reality of human nature is best portrayed in the teaching of Christ and even secular Mara was that something has been lost when we lost the understanding of the dogmas and he said he will see more letters to him than any other thing he ever written just trying to recover a concept ascend the reality of human nature secondly is the spirituality of genuine worship the uniqueness of Christ the spirituality of genuine worship Jesus rescued us from the tyranny of limiting worship to geographical boundaries and buildings here that he rescued us from that tyranny of restricting worship to tropical locations and buildings you know that entire tragedy which India today captured under two words on the front page India's shames were called the destruction of the mosque by some fanatics because they said it was holy ground and belonged to one of the gods how tragic to inflict things like this while men and women were killed children were killed because the worship was restricted to a certain geographical location when you go to the Old Testament you see something fascinating happening God is describing the dimensions of the temple and Moses complied but you see in our day we have church buildings we don't have temples were given why is that because as Christ taught us we don't go to the temple anymore we take the temple with us so when 300 people gather together for worship it is not 300 people going into a century but 300 sanctuaries gathering at a point so that we could be rescued from the tyranny of a locational worship and how this body has become sacred because of that to think that on these flesh and bones God himself has branded the fact that I can house the very Living God Christ in me that's what David lives from the last words he saw Christ in me David listen Christ in you as a believer Jesus gave us a reality of human nature the spirituality of genuine worship thirdly the purity of his own person talking about that the purity which of you convinces me a sin I find no fault in this man but what I think I want to draw here is very significant I know the last time I was here I gave you that beautiful thought which is like a treasure in my own life now I mentioned anything you create from you anything you create from you only that which is begotten is identical to the beginner and Jesus Christ is the begotten of the father I and the father are one and in that garden of gethsemane this one whose begotten of the father impeccable and spotless praise and in his praising the first prayers he refers to God as his holy father as his holy father now here's the dramatic truth in Christian faith when the Holy Spirit works within our heart that internal touch we become begotten of the Spirit and when we are begotten of the Spirit and the Christ comes and lives within us we can lay claim because of his purity his work and his regeneration we too can turn to God and call him Holy Father so the purity of Christ is not merely an abstract Dhamma that purity which is so marvelous that light knowledge and glory converges there is no religious teacher in history I repeat that there is no profit in history there is no apostle in history none of them can ever affirm what Jesus did even in fact the Quran refers to him as born of the Virgin without any fault softening word but there is that sinlessness about our Lord and then we see the reality of the purity of his own do you realize that Alexander has been in the American universities do you realize in order to explain diversity in the unity and diversity in the affect I'm more and more convinced or would have to be unity and diversity in the first course and only in the Christian dogma is the unity and diversity in the doctrine of the Trinity you see the unity and diversity and a community that is established distinction yet identity and purpose how does this work out in life my own life my own life in the worship of Christ in boundaries established by his opening of all my faculties in the unity do you remember the film Chariots of Fire how the Scottish runner Eric little is charged or challenged by his sister in that film she says Eric you're giving up so much to order to win this gold medal and he says to her Jenny God has made me for a purpose for China but he's also made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure you see not only his missionary activity was an expression of worship of God so this is running on the track and field and it was over with a bonnet he was gone on to a missionary in China and he lived his life of worship which was score extensive with all that he did so he worshiped not only when you take the Lord's Supper we worship even if we are out in a tennis court taking the exercise that the body needs as an expression of my gratitude to God worship the unity in diversity so we've got here in Jesus the reality of human nature the spirituality of genuine worship the purity of his own person the unity in diversity and lastly the continuity of life beyond the grave the continuity of life beyond the grave it is interesting to read in the Quranic writings where they describe that Jesus did raise people from the dead found in the Quran very interesting he did raise people from there of course today our entire Christian doctrine hangs on that peg in G and Paul said of Christ put yourself in the place of the disciples all of a sudden lost it to pieces of timber dying such a shameful death and then his body is taken and tucked away they were hiding like a bunch of frightened Boy Scouts themselves as they pondered that in the marvelous breaking of the chains of death as Jesus emerged alive as he prophesied he would destroy this temple he said and three day and in three days I will raise it up and you go back right to the Old Testament you see the prognostication of his resurrection you see it in the New Testament two very different to some of these mythical legends that people espouse from some remote mystery religions somewhere but here it is he said that would not be able to hold him he was going to go back to being glory with his father prepare a place so that we could go and that dogma of the resurrection uses life with such hope and such guarantee because our home is not just here for now but our home is ultimately have you ever pawned have you ever pondered on this one idea what would you do to frighten Lazarus after he'd been raised from the dead is there anything you could do to say to him I'm going to scare you Lazarus ie I'm going to kill you there is a well-known play by Eugene O'Neill entitled Lazarus laughed because going and the argument goes back and forth and finally says Lazarus one more hahaha out of you and you're going to be a dead man and Lazarus bends over and uncontrollable laughter now comes up for air and says having to hurt Caligula death is dead death is dead how do you frighten somebody who's already been there and knows the one GK Chesterton wrote it so beautifully in the word secret words into Lazarus is bound body coming out of the tomb he says this after one moment when I bowed my head and the whole world turned over and came up right I walked again where the old road sean whyte the SATA and heard what men said the sages have a hundred maps to give that trace they're calling cosmos like a tree they rattle reason out through many a sieve that stores the dust and that's the gold go free and all these things are less than dust to me my name is Lazarus and I know all these things are less than dust to me for my name is Lazarus and I live Billy Graham said once he was in the offices of konrad adenauer the mayor of cologne and the Chancellor of germans and then he went over to the window looking across the ruins to say and he says Mr Graham I want to ask you a question he said do you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead do you really believe in the resurrection of the Dead those were in Christ as he looked over the debris city I didn't believe I would not be preaching the gospel and had an hour continued to look outside and this great twentieth-century statesman said this to the histogram outside of the resurrection of Jesus Christ I know of no hope outside of the resurrection of Jesus Christ I know of no other hope for mankind I promise to read you these words earlier on at the end with this through believe me I flipped a lot to see with these words we see him face to face our Lord in all of his security and his splendor and in his high priestly prayer he prayed that he would be with him so that we could see him in his glory I think of Peter Paul Peter James and John at the top of the mountain so stunned by the Transfiguration what is heaven going to be like because was it not gone words from the songwriter who said when engulfed by the terror of tempestuous unknown ways before you go at the end of trials and so on is your destiny and in fear in conflicts he seizes your soul he said oh just think or stepping on shore and finding it heaven touching a hand in finding you air and finding up in glory and finding it home that's the joy I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came and I'm again haunted by a kind of confirmation this tremendous figure of Jesus which fills the Gospels towers in this respect as in every other out of all the thinkers his faith was natural almost the Stoics ancient and modern were proud of concealing that is he never conceived this years he showed them plainly on his face at any daily site city yet he did conceal something some supermen an imperial diploma to stop proud of restraining their anger he never restrained his anger he flung down the damnation of Hell yet he restrained something I say it with reverence there wasn't a shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness there was something that he hid from all men when he went up to a mountain to pray there was something that he covered constantly by abrupt silence or a better style isolation there was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when he walked upon our earth and I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth his joy his laughter and I say to you that is the glory that John saw in Revelation and the beauty of what was going on no longer everyone fell down and said holy holy holy this Christ who understood the reality of human nature through his purity bringing unity and diversity ultimately has a continuity in our lives to take a strawberry heavenly learning there is no one in history Jesus and that is the truth as he is unique you

Channel: Nathan Prindler2

Views: 75,489

Rating: 4.7186699 out of 5

Keywords: Ravi, Zacharias, missions, missionaries, preaching, sermon, apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Jesus, Christ, God, Holy, Spirit, evangelism, Gospel, Church, religion, Word, atheism, Creationism, Proof, Logic, Response, Reason, debate, debunk, controversy, dispute, challenge, evidence, refute, Truth, Lord, Belief, Morality, Theism

Id: ycWXXBMfWnQ

Length: 105min 35sec (6335 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 25 2012