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From Doubt to Faith | SLP 343 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:08
SPEAKER_01: Hello, welcome to the Speak Love Podcast.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: My name is Glenn Scrivener.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining us.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Today we talk about how you go from doubt to faith, and we talk about it with the help of the world's most famous doubter, that is Thomas.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes, he was the original doubter of the resurrection who was turned to faith in the risen Jesus.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: And you gotta ask the question: what was it that made Thomas turn from doubt to faith?
0:32
SPEAKER_01: That is a key question if you're investigating Christianity, and it's a key question if you want to speak fruitfully to your friends and neighbors and family members who are not yet believers.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: How do you go from doubt to faith?
0:46
SPEAKER_01: And what is it that might convince someone of the resurrection?
0:50
SPEAKER_01: Actually, in my talk and then later in QA, I'll give a bit of a hard time to some apologetic roots towards proving the resurrection.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: There are some ways of going about it that I don't think are particularly helpful.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but what ways are particularly helpful?
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, I give uh my account of the three H's that might help you move from doubt to faith.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Listen in for what those three H's are.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: But before we get to that talk, I just wonder if you could do us a favor on the podcast.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: If you're not subscribed to us already, please do subscribe to us on your favorite podcatcher.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: And could you give us a rating and a five-star review?
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Um that would really help us get seen by more and more people.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: And uh if you have any questions about what it is that I uh say in this podcast or what we say on any of our podcasts, we'd love to uh continue the conversation.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Info at speaklife.org.uk, info at speaklife.org.uk.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: And there's also a lively conversation on our Facebook page, which is SpeakLifeuk.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: That's right, SpeakLife UK on the Facebook.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: But without further ado, here is my uh talk on John chapter 20 and how Thomas goes from doubt to faith.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: And following straight on from that, uh, there is a time of QA where I answer questions that are largely from Christians who are trying to share their faith, and uh I try to get into some of the the ministry philosophy, some of the theology behind uh why it is that I reach out in the way that I reach out, why it is that I speak in the way that I speak, and hopefully that is interesting for you as well.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: But without further ado, here's my talk on faith in a time of coronavirus.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, my topic is faith in a time of pandemic.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: And I wonder what it is that would make you believe.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: What would make you believe in God?
2:50
SPEAKER_01: I asked that question to an atheist friend of mine, and he'd clearly been asked that question before because he had his answer on a hair trigger.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: I said, What would make you believe in God?
3:01
SPEAKER_01: He said, if God rearranged the stars in the sky to spell out the Ten Commandments, then I would believe.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: I wonder how you would respond to that.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, as he said that, I actually had two thoughts all at once, which is very extraordinary for me.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I usually average about two thoughts per month, but um, I've had my third coffee by then.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: And uh I I thought of taking the conversation in two different directions.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: One direction I could have gone in was to say to him, okay, you have raised the bar of faith up to galactic heights.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay, fine.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Have you considered the current arrangement of the stars?
3:44
SPEAKER_01: Have you considered that you are already in a miraculous harmony called the universe?
3:51
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that there are stars in any kind of arrangement and that you are there to observe them is a miracle, orders of magnitude more improbable than anything the religions of the world have ever propositioned.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: I thought of going down that route, but then I thought better of it.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: I had this second thought, and this is this is the response that I voiced.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: He said, I'd believe in God if God spelt out the Ten Commandments in the sky.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: And I just asked him, Would you like such a God?
4:22
SPEAKER_01: And his uh response was instant.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: No, I could never like God.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: But if he proved his existence in that sense, then I guess I would have to submit.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: Um that's the way that he thought.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: And at that point we had great common ground because neither of us liked the God he disbelieved in.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: If you think God is the sort of God to pull a cosmic parlor trick and exert almighty power just to tell you thou shalt not, I don't like that God either.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: But thankfully, that's that's not the God of the Bible, and that's not the God that I want to talk to you about today.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, I've got a Bible here, and I'd love to read to you a story about a famous doubter who came to faith.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I want to see, as I read out this story, uh you should have some John's Gospels with you wherever I go.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: I always insist that people have John's Gospels in front of them so you can crack open the Bible and get a look at it for yourself.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: So please do open that up to John chapter 20, verse 24.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna look at a famous unbeliever who became a believer.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: And as I read this, I want you to ask yourself, what is it that made doubting Thomas believe?
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And what is it that's meant to make us believe?
5:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's have a look.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh John chapter 20.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has risen from the dead on Easter Sunday.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: This is one week later.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: Thomas doesn't buy the story, he's not believing it.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: And this is how it unfolds.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: John 20, verse 24.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Now Thomas, called Didymus, one of the twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: So the other disciples told him, We've seen the Lord.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: But he said to them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here, see my hands, reach out your hand and put it into my side.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: Stop doubting and believe.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: Now, did you notice what it was that Thomas was demanding?
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay, he he had a standard of belief.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: He thought that there was an evidential bar that Jesus had to get over.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, he wanted to put his hands into the side, the wounded side of the crucified Jesus, which is kind of an extraordinary thing to want to do.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if I'm ever in hospital um and I tell you that I'm ill, please just believe me.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Please don't say to me, unless I put my hand into your wounded side, I will not believe.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Please just believe me.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: Bring the grapes.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: That's all I want.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't want you to do a Thomas on me.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: But what is Thomas doing here?
7:50
SPEAKER_01: Thomas, he wants to know that the one who has beaten death is the one who has gone through death and come out the other side.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: It's actually amazing.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: Thomas does not want to look to the stars in order to believe.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: He actually wants to look to the scars in order to believe.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: The scars of Jesus will make him believe.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: Now, isn't that different?
8:18
SPEAKER_01: That's totally different from my atheist friend.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: He wanted the stars to rearrange in order to spell out the Ten Commandments, an assertion of power and control from on high, because that's the kind of God he thought we're talking about.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: Thomas knew better.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Thomas knew Jesus.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Thomas knew he would encounter true divinity, not by looking to the stars, but by looking to the scars.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: The scars of Jesus, these battle wounds, these pledges that Jesus has gone to hell and back for us.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: These marks that Jesus has walked through the valley of the shadow of death and has come out the other side.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: It's when Thomas sees the scars that he starts to believe.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: We're thinking about faith in a time of pandemic, and you might think there's no way I could believe in a good God when there's a pandemic out there.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: There's a pandemic out there, people are dying.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: How can anyone believe in a good God?
9:20
SPEAKER_01: That's a really good question.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: But I think the only way you can believe in a good God within this suffering world is to believe in this God, the God who has joined us in our valley of the shadow of death.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we need to know that there is something on the other side of this veil of tears.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: We need to know that there is a feasting joy at the end of all things.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: But first we need to know that there is love that has come down, that it accompanies us, that befriends us, that walks with us.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: Thomas sees the scars, and in seeing the scars, he says, verse 28, My Lord and my God.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: It's this mountaintop moment of biblical faith.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: And what is Thomas looking at?
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Wounds, battle scars.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: There's a great writer of the 20th century called John Stott.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh he wrote over over 40 books, uh, biblical commentary, cultural commentary, and perhaps his greatest work was called The Cross of Christ.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: And in it he talks about how he can believe in a good God in this suffering world.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: And the only way he can believe in a good God in this suffering world is because of the cross, because Jesus endured hell for us.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: He says, I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: The only God I could believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as God on the cross.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: In the real world of pain, how could one worship a god who was immune to it?
11:16
SPEAKER_01: I have entered many Buddhist temples in different ancient countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost the ghost of a smile playing around his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: But each time after a while I've had to turn away.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: And in my imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged into Godforsaken darkness.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: That is the God for me.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: How can you have faith in a time of pandemic?
12:08
SPEAKER_01: You need to know that there is a God who has experienced our suffering and a God who has come through to the far side.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: You need both.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: You need the compassion and you need the conquest.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: You need to know he's been with you, and you need to know there is hope beyond this veil of tears.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: And Thomas looks to Jesus who has conquered death but still bears the marks of his crucifixion.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Still bears the marks of the God who has gone to hell and back for us.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And he says, My Lord and my God.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: That's what did it for Thomas.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: I wonder what might do it for you.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: What would convince you that Jesus is Lord?
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, in the Bible, Jesus is Lord.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: It sounds very religious language, and it is.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: Um it sounds quite technical, but let me let me boil it down.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: According to the Bible, unless Jesus is Lord, death is Lord.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
13:13
SPEAKER_01: Unless Jesus is Lord, death is Lord.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that is uh do you ever play computer games?
13:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, the you know, the basic kind of platform computer game is you go through a level, you get to the end of level one, and you face a boss, right?
13:29
SPEAKER_01: And you gotta defeat the boss somehow, okay?
13:31
SPEAKER_01: You laser guns and everything.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: And if you get through this bad boss, you get to level two.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of level two, there's another boss, and he's a bit bigger and a bit stronger, right?
13:41
SPEAKER_01: And then you get to level three, level four, level five.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: By level ten, he's like nuclear powered, and you know, you cannot defeat him, and whatever you throw at this big bad boss, he is undefeatable.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: And yet, if you're going to win the computer game, you need to defeat the big bad boss.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: According to the Bible, in life, there is a big bad boss, and its name is Death.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: And it has never lost a battle.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Ever.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: It's the undisputed champion of the world.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: It defeats not only people and kings, but empires.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: It swallows us whole.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: No one has ever defeated it.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus comes along and he claims to be resurrection.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: He claims to be anti-death.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: He claims to be the one who can conquer the big, the big bad boss.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: And you think, oh, I'm not sure I could believe that.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: How could I possibly believe that Jesus is bigger than death?
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, you might have noticed that at the end of uh our little passage, it says Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, but these ones are written down so that you may believe that Jesus is this death-conquering Messiah.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: Could you possibly believe that?
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you three reasons why I think you can believe that Jesus is indeed Lord.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here are the three reasons.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: They all begin with H.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: You can believe in this death-conquering Lord because of the heavens, because of history, and because of Him.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: The heavens, history, and Him.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: And as I point to the heavens, what I'm really saying is we already live in a life from the Dead kind of a world.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, it's not such a big leap to believe in a life from the dead Lord.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: We already believe in a life from the dead world.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: It's not such a huge leap to believe in a life from the dead lord.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Think of the heavens, and let me point to four different aspects of creation that are preaching to you about a life from the dead kind of Lord.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: First fact about the heavens.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: We've had everything from nothing.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: That's extraordinary.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: What an extraordinary miracle.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: Everything from nothing.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I happen to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: This would be the virgin birth of the cosmos.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: And without a virgin, that's some going, isn't it?
16:14
SPEAKER_01: That's some going.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: Everything from nothing.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's the ultimate magic trick, isn't it?
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Nothing up the sleeve, no sleeve, no magician, just pure magic out of nowhere for no reason.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: Everything has come from nothing.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: Don't we already live in a life from the dead kind of a world?
16:31
SPEAKER_01: Everything's come from nothing.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Order has come from chaos.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
16:35
SPEAKER_01: If we've come from a grand explosion, this is the most finely tuned explosion I've ever seen.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: When your mother told you to clean up your room because it looks like a bomb has hit it, she was not commending you on the finely tuned ordering of your room.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, she was telling you that it's chaos.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: How has an explosion led to this finely tuned order?
17:00
SPEAKER_01: How have we got order out of chaos?
17:02
SPEAKER_01: You might want to press into issues like the fine-tuning of the universe.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: But as you're looking into them, you're basically discovering that this is a life from the dead kind of a world.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: An extraordinary and improbable life from the dead kind of a world.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: So we've got everything's come from nothing, order's come from chaos, life has come from non-life.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: I, as a Christian, I happen to believe that on Easter Sunday, the non-living Jesus came to life, right?
17:33
SPEAKER_01: On Easter Sunday, the that one in the tomb rose again from the dead.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: The non-living Jesus became living.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: But listen to the story that is told of our human origins, the story that is told of the origins of life on earth is that everything has emerged from non-life.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: All life has emerged from non-life.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
17:57
SPEAKER_01: You think I believe in a miracle?
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: We already believe in a miracle that is orders of magnitude more improbable than anything that Christians are saying.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: I just happen to believe that one figure has emerged from the dead, and I believe in a God of resurrection to pull off the miracle.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: You see, a lot of atheists say to me, I could never believe the Christian story.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: The atheist story is far more improbable.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: It's not just that one figure came to life from non-life, it's that all life came to life from non-life and without a God of resurrection to work the miracle.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we already live in a life from the dead kind of a world.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: We already do.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: We've got everything from nothing, order from chaos, life from non-life, and we've got minds from mindless matter, consciousness from mindless matter.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, the atheist philosopher David Chalmers, who is Australian as well, he says, look, to get from brains to minds is miraculous.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: How do you go from the water of the brain to the wine of consciousness?
19:00
SPEAKER_01: It's called the hard problem of consciousness for a reason.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: It's miraculous.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: How do you do it without a miraculous God?
19:08
SPEAKER_01: See, these four facts of the heavens, these four facts of creation are telling you we already live in a life from the dead world.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: It's not such a leap to believe in a life from the dead God.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: I could press into this more, but time is flying.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: The heavens tell you we live in a life from the dead world.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: History tells you we're living in a life from the dead world.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, here are some facts about first century history.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was at times wildly popular, wildly unpopular.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: He was put to death by the Jews on account of blasphemy, but executed by the Romans on account of treason.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: He died on that cross.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: He was placed in a tomb.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: The whereabouts of that tomb was known.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Three days later, that tomb was empty.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: And his followers all had experiences of the risen Jesus, like Thomas had here.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: They all had experiences of the risen Jesus, which went on for another 40 days and then stopped when Christians say Christ Jesus returned to heaven.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: And the story continued, the body was never found, and all the eyewitnesses stuck to their story even on pain of death.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: Those are the historical facts.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: How do you explain them?
20:19
SPEAKER_01: And different people have different explanations for them.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: But I think the most rational explanation for all those facts is that Jesus did indeed rise just as he said he did.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, it would be extraordinary if Jesus didn't rise, given who he is.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: But I don't just point to the history of the first century, I point to history since the first century, because history since the first century has seen an extraordinary growth of the Jesus movement, which is extraordinary when you consider the source of it.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, through human eyes, is merely a penniless preacher, homeless, shooting his mouth off around some backwater of a long-dead empire.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: He's surrounded by total losers and no hopers, like Thomas.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Thomas is meant to be one of his chief spokesmen.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: Not even Thomas believes in him.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is crucified in ignominy, age 33 years old.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: And he's the most famous man who ever walked the planet.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: He has built the world that you live in.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: You might want to ask me questions about that, but he has.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: He has built the world you live in more than you know.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And again, we've got this miraculous thing going on, this water into wine kind of miracle.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, water into wine is a miracle I already believe in, but how do you explain going from a crucifixion to world domination?
21:48
SPEAKER_01: History is teaching to you a life from the dead thing.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: It is, it already is, right?
21:56
SPEAKER_01: You know how we inferred a big bang?
21:59
SPEAKER_01: We inferred a big bang.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Because we observed an expanding universe and we just hit the rewind button until you get to the zero point, right?
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Look at the expanding universe of the church, the expanding universe of Christianity.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: There are more Christians today than there were yesterday, and there'll be more again the next day, and then more again the next day.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we are this expanding universe.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Wind back the clock, and you get to this point on Easter Sunday.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: Something was unleashed.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: There's been incredible spiritual power that has been unleashed, and you can trace it in human history.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: You can trace it in the heavens, you can trace it in history.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: But finally, if you want to believe that Jesus is Lord, look at him.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: That's what our passage is really encouraging us to do.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: These things are written so that you may believe.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: And look, this is this is what happened to me.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: I was reading through the Gospels myself, and I was looking at this the towering personality of Jesus and his stooping love.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: And I saw in Jesus someone just so incredible.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: I remember getting halfway through Luke's Gospel, there's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and this third biography of Jesus.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: And I saw the way that Jesus joins us in the valley of the shadow of death.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: He is not the God who yells down commandments from on high.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: He's the God who joins you in your suffering to be with you, to be for you, to befriend you, to love you.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: And I just saw this incredible conflation of might and mercy in Jesus.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: And I remember just thinking to myself, he's great, he's tops, he's number one, he's numero uno, he is he is Lord.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: He is Lord.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: And at some point, when you look at the character of Jesus, you do this calculation.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: You think to yourself, I know death is powerful.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: I know death always wins, but I think death has met its match in Jesus.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: You know how kids they do that some superhero game, you know, they're gonna who would win in a fight between Batman and Spider-Man, or who would win in a fight between the Iron Giants?
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And they they they think, you know, well, this guy's got all the technology, but this guy's got all the magic powers.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: And you you think about who would win.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's do it.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Let's do that with Jesus.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Pick up a gospel.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: You've got these John John's Gospels in your hands, these are our gift to you.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: I want you to take these.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: I want you to take it away and read it.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: Open up, shoot up a prayer and say, Jesus, show yourself.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: It's a no-lose proposition.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: If he's not there, he's not gonna show himself.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: But if he is there, I want you to pray.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Show me that you are Lord.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Show me if you indeed are bigger than death.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: And as you read through, you will encounter this towering personality.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to think, I know that the pandemic is raging.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: I know this is a suffering world, I know death always wins, but maybe this one.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this one, he's the fulfillment of the heavens.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this one, he's the fulfillment of history.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this one really is Lord.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Will you do that?
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Will you take up John's gospel?
25:07
SPEAKER_01: Will you keep on reading?
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Will you shoot up that prayer?
25:10
SPEAKER_01: Because we all have to walk through the valley of the shadow.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Don't do it alone.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: Do it with the God who joins you.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: Do it with the God who has war wounds, battle scars.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: He's gone to hell and back for you.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: He can get you through this pandemic.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: He can get you through this veil of tears, he can get you to the feasting joy because he is Lord.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: I just want to take 30 seconds to tell you about the Speak Life Foundry.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: It's an exciting internship opportunity with Speak Life.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: From September to June, we study together, do mission together, and create gospel-rich media together to bless the church and reach the world.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: It would particularly suit school or university leavers, but we've had interns in their teens and interns in their thirties.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: Why not check out speaklifefoundry.com and see if it's for you.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: And if it's not for you, it might well be for a friend or family member.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: So please consider who in your life might benefit from a 10-month internship with Speak Life.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: We love having the interns and they love being with us.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps you could join us for the ride.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: Go to speaklifefoundry.com to find out more.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Glenn, thanks so much for that.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: That was so helpful.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, we've got lots of questions, um, some of them as if they're not Christians, uh, but some of them clearly uh thinking about how we can prepare talks better.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Um so hopefully they'll come up on the screen.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: You can see them too.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Um so winning, Glenn.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think they like your talk.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: I want to believe all over again.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: I've always said actually, the mark of a good evangelistic talk is if you're sitting there as a Christian thinking, I wish they could become a Christian again, then they may have done something right.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: You can, Michael.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: You can be a Christian today, Michael.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, but what is the key?
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh what is the key in enabling you?
27:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, is it heart captured by God?
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Is it practice?
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Is it opportunity?
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Is it time spent with unbelievers?
27:05
SPEAKER_00: So, so how does that what really helps you as an evangelist?
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps the one thing that helps me more than anything else is to believe in the uh compelling attractiveness of Jesus himself.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: And then to open up the scriptures is to reveal him to people.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: And and therefore my job is to open up the scriptures, and these things are written so that you may believe.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've got you know, here's here's a big help, right?
27:34
SPEAKER_01: These things are written so that you might believe.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: They are written about Jesus, and as I point biblically to Christ, God is speaking to people.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: And I I believe that in the core of my bones, that what preaching is, it is the third form of the word of God, as Karl Barth and and um Martin Luther would would say, you know, there is Christ is the eternal word, the scriptures are the written word, but proclamation is the third form of the word.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: And to the degree that my proclamation is scriptural, pointing to Jesus, that I'm speaking God's words to you.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: So I think you need to believe that in your bones.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: And and if you believe that in your bones, then you you crack open the Bible and you get everybody else to crack open the Bible and you get excited about Jesus and you just point and you say, Look, look, do you see him?
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Do you see him?
28:24
SPEAKER_01: He's offered to you.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Do you want him?
28:26
SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's the essence of evangelism for me.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: That's really helpful.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, we'll get to the next question.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, so this is um someone uh saying, as a Muslim, I cannot trust a God who can be wounded.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather trust a God who's untouched by suffering, who is strong when I am not.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a better God?
28:50
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell a story that Nabil Qureshi um often tells about that.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: He he was a Muslim who came to faith in Jesus later in life, but he he would often say to his Muslim friends to explain the difference with Jesus, he said, Imagine on Friday prayers, um you're looking your best and you're you're on your way to the mosque, and you find in a canal there is a little girl seven years old and she's drowning.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Um you don't want to get messy, you don't want to get dirty, you know.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: It's you're you're you're looking your finest.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: What would people think if you'd show up to the mosque looking messy, looking dirty?
29:25
SPEAKER_01: So of course you would let her drown in the canal, would you?
29:28
SPEAKER_01: And of course they said, no, of course we wouldn't let her drown in the canal.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: You would jump into that canal, and the messier you got, the more you would look like a hero when you arrived at the mosque, right?
29:40
SPEAKER_01: And the glory, your glory would be greater, would be increased by the fact that you dive down into that mess in order to save and in order to redeem.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: And then Nabil Kureshi would ask the question you know, what what what has your God done for you?
29:56
SPEAKER_01: And when we look at a world that is very messy, it is not less glorious to dive in and rescue, it is more glorious.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: I think I tell that kind of story.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember Nabil sharing that story, actually.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: It was so powerful.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was doing a debate once in, I think it was a university in Manchester uh with a Muslim Imam, and he made that very kind of statement, the question that we've just had, and I told that story back, and you could just see in the eyes of everyone in the room, yeah, like of course that is the case.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: And so appealing to that response in our own hearts uh shows that actually that's where we see real true beauty and true power.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Um that's really helpful.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, next question.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm quite reluctant to use the Bible in an evangelistic talk, but you did it really well.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, can you give me tips on how we can do this?
30:46
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for your honesty.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Um also thank you.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Um that's a good question because sometimes we kind of feel like, oh, like people are so far back, you know, is it a bit of a jump to maybe come to the Bible?
30:58
SPEAKER_00: So um, you've obviously done it well.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: Talk about how you use the Bible in evangelism.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course you use the Bible in evangelism, of course you do.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you might think, well, but they don't believe in the power of the Bible.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you do.
31:15
unknown: Right?
31:16
SPEAKER_01: If someone holds up a bank and they they they decide, I'm gonna hold up a bank, but I'm not gonna bring a gun with me because maybe the others won't believe in the power of my gun.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: You're just like, well, do you believe in the power of your gun?
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Do you believe in the power of your weapon?
31:31
SPEAKER_01: Do you believe that God's word um really addresses people with divine power and authority?
31:37
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not to say that this bit of technology is the word of God in in the sense that, right, um I can I can tell I can memorize John chapter 20, and I can tell you that story, and that is as much the word of God as if I refer to this paper copy that I've got in front of me.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: So let's not get too hung up on the technology of it.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so yeah, you don't you don't necessarily have to have a visible, tangible Bible in your hand, but I don't know why you wouldn't um tell the biblical stories in the in the way that the spirit has chosen to author those stories, because that that's where the power is.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not I'm not saying that you always have to have a Bible in your hand.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: I I quite often have nothing in my hand, and I I find that you know that it's like a hire wire act.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you've got nothing in your hands, if you've got nothing in front of you as a speaker, you will stumble, you will fall, but everyone will watch even closer because they kind of want you to fall, right?
32:38
SPEAKER_01: And if you go without a net, okay, everyone's like, oh my goodness, he has no net.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: And you that that doesn't mean that you know your script perfectly.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that you even got a script necessarily.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm I'm not saying you definitely have to have something in your hand, you'd have to have a Bible in your hand, but I I don't like if if there is this, I think it's true, this threefold word of God.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: I think there is Christ the eternal word, the scriptures the written word, and proclamation, the um the contemporary proclaimed word.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: Um that is only powerful to the degree that it scripturally points to Jesus.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: So you've got to figure out the technology and the way in which it happens.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: But let me let me also raise a banner for buy a box of gospels, get everyone in the room to have a copy of the gospels because then it leads to what I was able to do.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was able to have the conclusion to my talk that I was able to have because everyone has God's word.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: And and I think people then have a tangible way of taking things forward.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, hope that helps.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: That's really helpful.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: And and that is excellent practice for any student events, well, any events uh evangelistically, um, to make sure that we've got gospels that we can get into people's hands, get people actually looking at it.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: It's so much easier then uh to encourage people to take it further.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: And the follow-up has already begun as you've got people opening uh a gospel themselves.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, the next question comes up says, You said the only way we can believe in a good God is when God came down to us.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, but so were Jews in the Old Testament.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh, sorry, but so were Jews in the Old Testament not able to believe in a good God.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Um Jesus is the very fulfillment of those Jewish scriptures, and you'll notice that I used very Old Testament phraseology at times.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: I talked about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, which um you might recognize from the Old Testament.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the most famous psalms, that book of uh um right in the middle of the Bible, 150 songs, and the entirety of the Old Testament is telling this very story about that there is a God who would be wounded in order to save us.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's on page three of the Bible, right?
34:49
SPEAKER_01: Like literally, as soon as there is suffering in this world, God promises that he will come, he will enter into our humanity, and he will be struck in order to bring the death blow to death, right?
35:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, so this is an entirely Old Testament idea.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: And the Old Testament is pointing forward to the time in which God the Son really will join the human race and actually affect all this, but they're on tiptoes looking ahead, they're believing this stuff, they're singing songs about how we believe in a God who is with us in the valley.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, it's it's it's it's a very old, very ancient idea.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that's new about the New Testament is finally Jesus arrives to actually do the thing that's been promised all along.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: But Old Testament believers, New Testament believers, we're both looking back at the same God who enters into that valley.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: So helpful.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, next question.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, this is fresh and speaking of authority.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us about your prayer life and how it leads you to be used by the spirit in this powerful way?
35:57
SPEAKER_00: Slightly personal question.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what's my prayer life?
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I I I I have a scatter brain, um, and so I really need to center myself when I pray.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: I really need to take myself in hand, and I do that in a number of different ways.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: I I use the Lord's Prayer very, very much as the sort of the guide rails for my prayer life.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you know, the way that you do it, you know, our Father.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: Let's meditate on the Fatherhood of God in heaven.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Ah, you know, the majesty, the transcendence, hallowed be your name.
36:30
SPEAKER_01: May your name be hallowed in my heart.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: And so you you so I I use that, I use other centering techniques, you know, the Jesus prayer and things like that to quiet myself down.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: I use an app, um daily prayer.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: Um Church of England's, you know, you you get all the lectionary readings for the day and some great um some great prayers to pray along um with that.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: And I guess, I guess uh as I give advice on prayer, I never want to make prayer seem like a thing.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, because I can imagine there are people right now, they're writing down, oh, here are the things to do, like do that, oh tick this off, tick this off, you know, and and I don't want you to feel like prayer is I need to do this, and as long as I've done this, I can feel righteous about myself.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: I can walk into the day knowing I've had my quiet time, I've done my devotional tick.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's again, it's it's the personality.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: I believe about that with preaching.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: Preaching is I don't want there to be a talk in between me and you.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: I want to just deliver the person of Jesus to you.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: And in prayer, I don't want there to be this thing called prayer that I tweak and fine-tune.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's about enjoying Jesus.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: And and so I have a very strong belief in the priesthood of Christ, which means I don't have to yell up to heaven to be heard.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm already in Jesus, whispering in the Father's ear, the Spirit filling me with our Father.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: And and it's yeah, you've you've got to enjoy God.
37:57
SPEAKER_01: And and maybe maybe that's my my bit of advice, really, is don't don't try to be a better prayer.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: God forbid.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, enjoy God more, right?
38:09
SPEAKER_01: Don't try to be a better prayer, enjoy God more.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: That's that's my advice.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: Fantastic, really, really helpful.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, what I've found often as an evangelist is it's so helpful to pray through my talk uh before I give it.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, particularly if I'm repeating a talk that I might have done on another occasion or doing something quite similar.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: That says, when you've done a talk, you put it in the freezer, and then you need to defrost it through prayer so that it becomes alive again in your own heart.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: And I found that has often got me excited afresh as I've prayed through the truths that I'm going to be communicating to others that say.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: Good advice, good advice.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: Um preparation question.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: What guided your decision to not unpack the classic alternative explanations for the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, etc.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: So your way of kind of going to the resurrection was quite different, maybe to the way that um people would normally kind of unpack a talk on the resurrection.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, so how did you come to the way of doing it that you did?
39:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, time is one consideration.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I could have gone more into alternative explanations, but I I'm not a big fan of you know you'll you'll notice that when I do an argument for the resurrection, the whole, you know, the five minimal historical facts was a tiny portion of it.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't find it very convincing.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: I don't know many people who find it very convincing.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: It is only one part of a much bigger, um uh much bigger proclamation.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: Because if someone doesn't believe in a life from the dead kind of God, then any explanation of those five minimal facts is preferable to the Christian one.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: And they are right to resist.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay, if there is no God of resurrection, they are entirely right to resist your telling of those five minimal facts and your explanation for them.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: What can they do except resist those, you know?
40:00
SPEAKER_01: So if you if you lean just on the five minimal facts of, you know, there was he he died, he definitely died, you know, he was laid in the tomb, the whereabouts were known about, the tomb was empty, they had post-resurrection experiences, those resurrection experiences stopped, you know, the body was never discovered.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: If you if you if you lean on that, it will break apart in your hands.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: I I urge you not to lean simply on the five um historical facts.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: I you know, may maybe maybe in your maybe in your life um that helped you in your Christian journey quite a lot, and you lean on it.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it helps very many people, actually.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, which is why I major on the heavens, I major on him, and I major on the the second part of the history point.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: I think the second part of the history point is so much more difficult to account for.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: How do you go from a crucifixion to world domination?
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, the events of the first century history explain that, but let's look at history since then.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I I don't go too much into the five minimal facts.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: I I think it's helpful as one part of a much bigger proclamation of Jesus.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: That's that's really helpful and very thought-provoking as we think about how we um go to the resurrection.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Because obviously, if you look through the book of Acts, every apostolic sermon proclaims the resurrection.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, but maybe we need to think more creatively about how we can then come to that in our own evangelistic preaching ourselves.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: Can I just say on that?
41:26
SPEAKER_01: On Acts 17, you know, Jesus Paul in Acts 17 proclaims that Jesus rose from the dead, and that is the proof that God will judge the world through the man he has appointed.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: He's given proof of this to all people by raising him from the dead.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: Resurrection is the proof.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: Paul offers no proof for the resurrection, he proclaims the resurrection.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection is proof for judgment.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: He offers no proof for the resurrection, he proclaims it, and he trusts that him, the power of the risen Lord Jesus, will you know, because that's the proof.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: The proof of the resurrection is that Jesus is alive now and confronting me with living power right now.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess he did not rot in that Jerusalem tomb after all.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: That's the proof of the resurrection.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: So declare it.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: Great.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, so here's a question, picking up on that, uh, that we might be asked more by a skeptic.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, if the universe is evidence of a life from death, God, why has he made a world where all life ends in death?
42:22
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: And that is the nature of suffering.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: And the nature of death and the nature of what Christians call the fall, um, is that you have life and it decays.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: And every experience you have of suffering is there's disease.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a healthy operation of a of a biosystem and it kind of breaks down.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: Or you have relational breakdown, you have the good thing that then falls apart, which actually doesn't tell the atheistic story.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: That tells the Christian story.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: Every experience of suffering you have, including death, tells the Christian story.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: The Christian story is you have an original life-giving good and that then decays, that then falls.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: What what is um what is really inexplicable is how you get death, death, death, death, you know, non-living, non-living, non-living, non-living, living.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: That that is bonkers.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: That is that is the nuts thing.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: So the evidence of death all around us points to I I once um debated the um uh chief executive of the British Humanist Association, Andrew Cobson, and um, and his entire speech was about parasites.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: He said, You we can't worship God because parasites, and he just listed off all these horrible nasties that do terrible things.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: And in the rebuttals, what was my response to to parasites?
43:41
SPEAKER_01: I was like, brilliant, that's a fantastic explanation of the Christian story.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: Because let's press into parasites.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: What do you have?
43:48
SPEAKER_01: You have an original life-giving good, and then you have this secondary thing that latches onto it and sucks the life out of it and twists it and perverts it.
43:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that is everybody's experience that you can't think of an experience of suffering that is not there is something good that then goes wrong.
44:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, as soon as you tell that story, you're telling the Christian story, you're not telling the atheist story at all.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: Every experience of suffering actually tells the Christian story.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so helpful.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: Um I think this is our last question uh that we've got time for.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, would you lead people in prayer at the end of some of your talks?
44:21
SPEAKER_00: And if so, how would you do that?
44:23
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very often.
44:25
SPEAKER_01: Um and one thing I I would always do is um tell people, look, this is not magic, this is not a magic trick.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: And I'd probably do this because I I gave my life to Jesus a thousand times in my teenage years, and I thought there was a technique to doing it.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Um but but um I so I will I will try and clear away a magical understanding of what's about to happen and just say to you, look, if if you've come to the position where where Thomas is, you've looked at Jesus, you really think he might be the one.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: You should tell him.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: Thomas told him.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna do this weird thing called prayer, and um not everyone in this room is gonna be ready for it.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I beg your indulgence.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: Can you just stare at your shoes for 30 seconds if this is not for you?
45:12
SPEAKER_01: You can you can stare at your shoes.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: But for some people, you know that Jesus is Lord, and you want to tell him, and you want to say, Jesus, will you walk with me through this dark valley?
45:24
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just gonna offer that opportunity now, and then I'll sort of lead in a prayer.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then at the end of the prayer, I'll I'll I'll say to people, listen, if you if you have prayed that Christianity is not a solo sport, it's a team sport.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: Do tell somebody.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: Tell tell the person you came with, have a chat with me.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we do this thing together.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: That's how I do it.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Great.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Glenn.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: That's been really helpful.
45:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, that'll do us on the Speak Life Podcast for this week.
45:53
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45:55
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46:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, that'll do us for this episode.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: See you next time on the Speak Life Podcast.