Since Christmas is in the air, we will resume our series on “Our Best Life Now” next year, which is just a month from now. Second, I will have a different preaching approach this morning. Instead of a verse-by-verse exposition of the Bible which I usually do, I would present a topical defense of our faith.
In the past months, according to the Wall Street Journal, “atheist authors… have created a publishing sensation, selling more than 1 million books worldwide.”[1] Topping the bestseller’s list is “The God Delusion” by Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins. Dawkins wrote that God is “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic [or a woman-hater] homophobic, racist, infanticidal [or a child-killer], genocidal, filicidal [or a parent who killed his child], pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Running after “The God Delusion” is “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” by journalist and literary critic Christopher Hitchens. He wrote, “Monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents.”[2] Then coming in third is “Letter to a Christian Nation” by non-fiction writer Sam Harris. He wrote that his aim is “to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity in its most committed forms.”[3] Harris is also the author of “The End of Faith,” for which he won the PEN American Center’s Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. Dawkins praised “End of Faith” as “one of those books that deserves to replace the Gideon Bible in every hotel room in the land.”[4]
Then this December, a controversial movie, “The Golden Compass” will be released. The movie is based on a trilogy by Philip Pullman who himself admitted that he is an atheist. I encourage you to read my article regarding this movie.[5]
How do we respond to all these attacks on our faith? First Peter 3:15 gave this answer: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”[6] I am not encouraging you to boycott the movie or to burn those books. Rather, I am encouraging you to know why and what you believe so you can “defend the faith that God has once for all given to his people.”[7] We should not be afraid but instead make the most of this opportunity. According to Amazon.com, “the publication of The God Delusion last year also prompted a 120 per cent increase in sales of the Bible.”[8] This confirms “that religion has become a pivotal topic in the early 21st century.”[9] Thanks to Dawkins and company, again we have an open door to share our faith.
Is it true that our faith is a plagiarism, a hearsay and an illusion? Is it true that we are just pretending intellectually? Our Lord Jesus Himself declared that the first and greatest commandment is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”[10] How can I love God if my faith has no basis? Even if I am sincere, if my faith is not factual, I am still sincerely wrong.
Let us focus on our Lord Jesus Christ. Was Jesus a historical person or was He just a LEGEND? Our faith stands or falls on Him. For example, remove Buddha from Buddhism and it will continue to exist because it is not centered on Buddha but on his teachings. But remove Jesus Christ from Christianity and it will crumble for our faith revolves on His person, not on His teachings. For no matter how beautiful His teachings were, if Jesus did not really exist, our faith has nothing to stand on.
So, how do we know Jesus really walked on this earth? If I quote from the Bible, you might say that my source is biased. So allow me to quote Flavius Josephus, an ancient Jewish historian who was born about 4 years after the death and resurrection of Christ and started writing as a historian for the Romans 30 years later. In his famous historical work, “The Antiquities of the Jews,” he wrote: “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Messiah… [Pilate] had condemned him to the cross… he appeared to them alive again the third day”.[11] This is just one of the evidences that Jesus really existed! So, Jesus is not a legend.
Now this historical Person claimed to be God. Let us read John 5:17-18. “Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.’ For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” To understand why they wanted to kill Jesus, we have to understand that the Jews did not call God, “My Father.” If ever, they would say, “My Father in heaven.” According to the “Word Pictures of the New Testament,” this is a “claim to peculiar relation to the Father.”[12] It is clear from this passage that the Jews understood what Jesus meant. By “calling God his own Father,” He was in effect “making himself equal with God.” The Contemporary English Version goes like this: “…he had said that God was his Father, which made him equal with God.” The Message translated it this way: “…putting himself on a level with God.” Like Father, like Son.
Jesus could have corrected them. But He went on in verse 19: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” In other words, He can do what God can do.
To top it all, Jesus declared in verse 23: “The Father wants all people to honor the Son as much as they honor him. When anyone refuses to honor the Son, that is the same as refusing to honor the Father who sent him.”[13] In short, Jesus deserves the honor which is reserved for God. These are just a few of the evidences that prove Jesus claimed to be God or equal to the Father.
The question now is, “Was His claim true or false?” For the sake of argument, let us say that His claim was false. We have two alternatives, either Jesus knew it was false or He did not know it was.
If He knew it was false, then He is a LIAR. But here is Someone who dared His opponents: “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?”[14] His followers may follow Him blindly. But surely His enemies would not. They really tried again and again to pin Him down. Yet they could not. That’s why they had to frame Him up. Josh McDowell in his bestselling defense of the faith, “Evidences that Demands a Verdict,” wrote: “Someone who lived as Jesus, taught as Jesus taught and died as Jesus could died could not have been a liar.” Philip Schaff, a Christian historian, wrote, “How, in the name of logic, common sense, and experience, could an impostor—that is deceitful, selfish, depraved man—have invented, and consistently maintained from beginning to end, the purest and noblest character known in history with the most perfect air of truth and reality?”[15]
If he did not know it was false, then He is a LUNATIC. Reading the Gospels, one is impressed with the way Jesus handled Himself. He was so confident and determined. Look at Mark 1:36-38. “Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: ‘Everyone is looking for you!’ Jesus replied, ‘Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.’” He was clearly a man on a mission. A lesser being would have grabbed at the chance to be in the spotlight. A lunatic would be so inconsistent and confused in the way he controls his life. Schaff wrote, “Is such an intellect—clear as the sky, bracing as the mountain air, sharp and penetrating as a sword, thoroughly healthy and vigorous, always ready and always self-possessed—liable to a radical and most serious delusion concerning His own character and mission? Preposterous imagination!”[16]
Here we see that it is untenable or flawed to say Jesus’ claim to be God was false. Thus, we are left with the only alternative. His claim is true. That means He is LORD. Cambridge professor C.S. Lewis, author of the “Chronicles of Narnia,” wrote, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher… You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse… You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”[17]
In Joel 2:32 we read, “And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved”. If you noticed, the name “LORD” is in all capital letters. According to the preface of the New International Version, “In regard to the divine name YHWH [Yahweh, or as some prefer, Jehovah], commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton, the translators adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering the name as “LORD” in capital letters...” Romans 10:9 tells us “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Then in verse 13 we read that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” That’s a quote from Joel 2:32! That means to call Jesus as Lord is to acknowledge Him as Yahweh or God.
And there’s more to acknowledging Jesus as God. I like how The Message version goes: “Say the welcoming word to God—‘Jesus is my Master’—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not ‘doing’ anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation.” To call Jesus Lord is to declare Him our Master and that we are no longer the boss of our lives. And so we are faced with the last two options, either we accept the Lord Jesus as Savior or to reject Him. It is my prayer that you would put your faith in Him.
Let us pray…
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[1]From http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/october/46.110.html.
[2]Ibid.
[3]As quoted in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_a_Christian_Nation.
[4]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dawkins/coming-out-against-religi_b_5137.html.
[5]http://straightfrompastor.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-take-on-golden-compass-issue.html.
[6] Unless otherwise noted, all Bible verses are from the New International Version.
[7]Jude 1:3, CEV.
[8]David Smith, “Believe it or not: the skeptics beat God in bestseller battle” (Guardian Unlimited). http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2147152,00.html
[9]Ibid.
[10]Matthew 22:37
[11]As quoted in Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that Demands a Verdict.”
[12]Ibid.
[13]Contemporary English Version
[14]John 8:46
[15]As quoted by McDowell
[16]Ibid.
[17]From “Mere Christianity,” as quoted by McDowell.
