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Jesus—The Solution to the Human Dilemma (Selected Scriptures) John MacArthur · THE BELIEVER'S CHURCH | Let’s Build Our Faith Together

0:01
Speaker 1: Well, those of you who are a part of Grace Church,
0:03
Speaker 1: you know that I've been in a rut for years,
0:06
Speaker 1: and I just keep teaching the Bible week after week
0:12
Speaker 1: after week, verse by verse. But every Christmas I try
0:15
Speaker 1: to do something different. It's like variety time for me.
0:18
Speaker 1: And so I thought, what could I do this Christmas
0:22
Speaker 1: to share with you some things on my heart that
0:24
Speaker 1: might be a fresh look at some things we probably
0:27
Speaker 1: ought to understand? From time to time I'm invited to
0:31
Speaker 1: speak on university campuses, college campuses, or to groups of
0:35
Speaker 1: people who are detached from a church setting. And usually
0:41
Speaker 1: you can't just go diving in at the point of
0:44
Speaker 1: chapter and verse because they need to be kind of
0:47
Speaker 1: convinced that they need to even look at the Bible
0:50
Speaker 1: because there might be something important there. And so I thought, well,
0:53
Speaker 1: maybe that's what we ought to do this time. And
0:55
Speaker 1: so I want to share with you what I think
0:57
Speaker 1: is simply a very simple picture of the human dilemma.
1:03
Speaker 1: And then I want to offer to you the solution
1:05
Speaker 1: that comes in Jesus Christ. You know, I'm fully convinced.
1:11
Speaker 1: I guess I get more cynical every Christmas as I
1:13
Speaker 1: get older. And I'm very young. I want you to
1:15
Speaker 1: know that. But as I get older, I get cynical
1:20
Speaker 1: about Christmas. But I'm fully convinced this year that Even
1:24
Speaker 1: if Jesus was invited, He wouldn't come to the birthday
1:28
Speaker 1: party the world is currently throwing for Him. You see,
1:33
Speaker 1: it isn't honest, very hypocritical. They don't really care about Jesus.
1:40
Speaker 1: It's very tongue-in-cheek. It's very patronizing. It lacks two things
1:46
Speaker 1: that I think everything ought to have and that is
1:48
Speaker 1: honesty and integrity. And frankly, I don't even like to
1:53
Speaker 1: attend it, but I don't know how to get out
1:54
Speaker 1: of this world to avoid it. It seems to be everywhere,
2:02
Speaker 1: and it's a party I'd just as soon not be at.
2:03
Speaker 1: It reminds me when I was in high school one time,
2:06
Speaker 1: a friend and I went to a party. We didn't
2:08
Speaker 1: know what kind of party it was, but there was
2:10
Speaker 1: a girl there that my friend liked. I didn't particularly
2:14
Speaker 1: care for girls for a while after that. Football was
2:17
Speaker 1: what I worshipped, but I grew out of that eventually.
2:23
Speaker 1: But anyway, there was a girl he wanted to see
2:26
Speaker 1: or be with, so we went to this party. And,
2:28
Speaker 1: of course, I was raised in a sheltered pastor's home
2:32
Speaker 1: and got to this party. And it was very dark,
2:35
Speaker 1: and there was music playing very slow. And we used
2:40
Speaker 1: to call it necking music in that day. And these
2:44
Speaker 1: couples were sitting in the corners, and the people were
2:46
Speaker 1: dancing real slow. And I said, this is no fun
2:50
Speaker 1: at all. This kind of party. So he said, yeah,
2:55
Speaker 1: this is no good. What do you want to do?
2:56
Speaker 1: I said, let's change the complexion of the party. So
3:00
Speaker 1: we said, all right. So we took and we blew
3:04
Speaker 1: out the fuses so they couldn't have the records or
3:08
Speaker 1: the lights or anything in that whole part of the house.
3:12
Speaker 1: We put pennies in the fuse boxes. And, of course,
3:15
Speaker 1: everybody was upset. Nobody ever knew what happened. And we
3:17
Speaker 1: came in and said, hey, let's go in the living.
3:19
Speaker 1: We got a terrific idea. We had all these games ready.
3:22
Speaker 1: We had a great time. We played games and had
3:24
Speaker 1: a wonderful time. They didn't know what they were missing. See?
3:30
Speaker 1: You know, and I thought of that because I get
3:32
Speaker 1: that feeling at Christmas. I'd like to blow the fuse
3:35
Speaker 1: on the whole deal. You know, I mean, I just
3:39
Speaker 1: would like to blow the fuse and then say, hey,
3:41
Speaker 1: I got a better kind of party. You want to see?
3:44
Speaker 1: Let me show you how Christmas ought to be celebrated.
3:50
Speaker 1: And I don't know, hypocrisy is a hard thing to
3:52
Speaker 1: deal with and it gets down into my heart the
3:54
Speaker 1: fact that these people are running around feverishly trying to
3:58
Speaker 1: celebrate the birthday of the one they totally reject. That
4:03
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. They don't want Jesus in their life.
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Speaker 1: They don't want Jesus Christ to make any claims. They
4:10
Speaker 1: don't even want to acknowledge the reality of who He is.
4:13
Speaker 1: They just want to have a birthday party so they
4:15
Speaker 1: can have an excuse for all the things they want
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Speaker 1: to do. And it's at His expense. And I think
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Speaker 1: it salves the conscience of the world into thinking it's Christian.
4:25
Speaker 1: What a paradox. Jesus said so beautifully, so simply, so fully,
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Speaker 1: I am come that they might have what? life and
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Speaker 1: that they might have it more abundantly. And then Jesus
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Speaker 1: said so pensively, so tragically, you will not come to
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Speaker 1: me that you might have life. I'm come that you
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Speaker 1: might have it, but you won't come and take it.
4:52
Speaker 1: And John sums it up when he says, he came
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Speaker 1: unto his own and his own received him not. And
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Speaker 1: men still reject the source of life. They still reject
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Speaker 1: the only hope. and frantically celebrate that He was born
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Speaker 1: and couldn't care less. And for the most part, wish
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Speaker 1: He wasn't. I'd like to take a good look at
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Speaker 1: a life without Christ, at a world without Christ, to
5:19
Speaker 1: see what is really there or isn't there. Now we
5:23
Speaker 1: live in a fantastic world. If ever anybody could have
5:25
Speaker 1: life and be happy, it ought to be 20th century
5:28
Speaker 1: man in Western culture. I mean, we have got everything.
5:32
Speaker 1: Creature comforts beyond belief. There aren't any limits to what
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Speaker 1: we can have to fill up our lives. Take, for example,
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Speaker 1: the fact of information. We have solved so many problems.
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Speaker 1: We provide so much in terms of information. You can
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Speaker 1: learn about so many things. You can expand your horizons.
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Speaker 1: The end of adventure has never been seen. You can
5:56
Speaker 1: read and fill your mind and find exciting things and
6:00
Speaker 1: find and discover cures for this and for that and
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Speaker 1: solutions to this and to that. And now we've got
6:05
Speaker 1: incredible technology. I mean, we have everything conceivable, and it's
6:10
Speaker 1: even mushrooming, folks. Ten years from now, we won't even
6:12
Speaker 1: believe the kind of world we're living in. We'll have
6:15
Speaker 1: so much. Do you realize 3,000 pages are published every second?
6:20
Speaker 1: That's a lot of information cranking out. They can't even
6:22
Speaker 1: store it anymore. Books are hopelessly cumbersome. We have to
6:25
Speaker 1: store things on microfilm. I received a deal in the
6:29
Speaker 1: mail about a certain thing that was soliciting. They have
6:32
Speaker 1: a pastor's library. I think it's 5,000 volumes. It comes
6:36
Speaker 1: in a little can like this. And you have this
6:38
Speaker 1: huge machine. You read it. Well, that's the only way
6:42
Speaker 1: we can store the volume of material we have. And
6:44
Speaker 1: that's too cumbersome. Microfilm is too big. Now we have
6:47
Speaker 1: what's called laser storage. They store information on crystals and
6:50
Speaker 1: they shoot a laser beam at one of the edges
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Speaker 1: of the crystal and it refracts onto a screen and
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Speaker 1: they can read it. There'll be a day when you
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Speaker 1: go to school, in college you'll have a bag of crystals.
7:00
Speaker 1: Have you got your science crystal, you know? But that's
7:07
Speaker 1: too bulky. They've now developed what's called molecular storage. They
7:12
Speaker 1: can now store information on molecules. And they've developed a
7:16
Speaker 1: technique whereby it's claimed they could store the entire Library
7:19
Speaker 1: of Congress on an object the size of a sugar cube.
7:23
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Information. Astounding 60 million pages a year of
7:33
Speaker 1: scientific and technical literature are published. The advances are unbelievable.
7:39
Speaker 1: A thousand books a day are published. If you took
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Speaker 1: all of the information that man learned from his beginning
7:46
Speaker 1: to 1845, it would be one inch in the little
7:51
Speaker 1: analogy we're going to do, from zero, from man's historical
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Speaker 1: beginning to 1845. If all that information equals one inch,
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Speaker 1: from 1845 to 1945 equals three inches, from 1945 to
8:06
Speaker 1: 1975 equals the height of the Washington Monument. We have
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Speaker 1: learned an awful lot, folks. We are in the midst
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Speaker 1: of an information explosion that's unrivaled. Part of the Last Times,
8:16
Speaker 1: I believe, Daniel 12, verse 4 says that knowledge will
8:19
Speaker 1: increase in the last times. It's going so fast right
8:23
Speaker 1: now we're going to kill ourselves if the Lord doesn't
8:24
Speaker 1: do something. But we have everything conceivable to occupy a
8:28
Speaker 1: man's mind. to fill up his life. And the technological
8:34
Speaker 1: advances are incredible. I was reading a magazine put out
8:36
Speaker 1: by Pacific Telephone in which they were predicting the things
8:39
Speaker 1: that they're working on right now that should be in
8:41
Speaker 1: by 1990. Some of them right away, some of them
8:44
Speaker 1: as late as 1990. For example, video education in the home.
8:49
Speaker 1: No more going to school. Members of the family will
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Speaker 1: observe the instructor, hear questions of other students, and even
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Speaker 1: ask questions all through their picture telephone at home. Worldwide
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Speaker 1: satellite stations will make education exciting beyond anything we experience now.
9:03
Speaker 1: You can take your education from anybody at any place
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Speaker 1: in the world. Never leave your house. Such picture phones
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Speaker 1: will be set up so that you can touch a
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Speaker 1: button and tune in any course you want. Another thing
9:16
Speaker 1: that was interesting is they said, touch a few more
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Speaker 1: buttons and you will be able to turn the pages
9:20
Speaker 1: in the books of a foreign library. Another one, shopping
9:24
Speaker 1: by phone. Deliver us. Listen to how this works. Of course,
9:34
Speaker 1: there is a consolation, you can just pull a cord.
9:38
Speaker 1: Shopping by phone. If you want to order several items
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Speaker 1: from a store, you dial the store number, you dial
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Speaker 1: a series of item numbers, you insert your card into
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Speaker 1: the slot in your own home phone, press a button
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Speaker 1: and hang up. The order is recorded and the price
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Speaker 1: is paid. Portable telephones will replace public phones because of
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Speaker 1: the destruction problem. They can't maintain them. All the city
10:00
Speaker 1: will be full of little jacks and you will have
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Speaker 1: a little tiny phone like a Dick Tracy-sized watch telephone.
10:05
Speaker 1: You'll go up to make a phone call. Just plug
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Speaker 1: it into one of these little jacks. It will record
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Speaker 1: the number and you'll make your call. I don't know
10:13
Speaker 1: if you've studied holography. This is the most fascinating thing.
10:15
Speaker 1: I saw a complete demonstration of it one day when
10:18
Speaker 1: I was speaking to a civic club and it was incredible.
10:20
Speaker 1: It will beam into your home a TV picture that
10:23
Speaker 1: is 360 degrees so that if you want to know
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Speaker 1: who's sneaking up on the good guy, you just walk
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Speaker 1: around behind and see. That's only the beginning. We are
10:38
Speaker 1: developing the ability to select the sex of the newborn,
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Speaker 1: to create life in a test tube, the growth of
10:43
Speaker 1: fetuses and artificial wombs, genetic control and microsurgery by radiation
10:47
Speaker 1: and laser beams, development of ova and sperm banks, control
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Speaker 1: of the aging process with a life expectancy of 100 years,
10:54
Speaker 1: elimination of tooth decay by welding enamel on teeth with
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Speaker 1: laser beams. Spot welding of the retina of the eye.
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Speaker 1: Extended use of the bloodless knife in surgery. Extended use
11:04
Speaker 1: of artificial organs such as plastic corneas for the eye,
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Speaker 1: metallic bones, Dacron arteries, artificial hearts, and computerized electronic muscles.
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Speaker 1: This is a bionic man. Development of synthetic foods. Development
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Speaker 1: of ocean farming and possibly undersea cities. Experiments in human hibernation.
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Speaker 1: You got problems? We'll put you to sleep for 20 years. Development,
11:29
Speaker 1: or at least four until your teenagers get into their twenties. Four.
11:37
Speaker 1: Development of effective appetite and weight control program. I was
11:42
Speaker 1: reading the other day that they're developing food that's made
11:44
Speaker 1: out of wood that is 100 percent non-digestible so you
11:47
Speaker 1: can eat anything you want. And since it's wood, it
11:48
Speaker 1: just goes right through your system, you have no value
11:50
Speaker 1: at all. But you can eat nice, good taste, flavor
11:52
Speaker 1: and everything. Development of fantastic cities. What are you having
11:57
Speaker 1: for dinner, oak or ash? Anyway, myself, I prefer birch.
12:03
Speaker 1: But anyway, in the year, Herman Kahn says in the
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Speaker 1: year 2000, this is interesting, that there will be cities
12:10
Speaker 1: of 50 to 100 million people. He calls them megalopolises.
12:14
Speaker 1: And he says it will be so big, for example,
12:17
Speaker 1: one will stretch from Boston to Washington, be called Boswash.
12:21
Speaker 1: The other one from Chicago to Pittsburgh he calls Chickapits.
12:25
Speaker 1: And from San Francisco to San Diego will be San-San.
12:29
Speaker 1: Now these are incredible things to think about. 1984 predictions
12:33
Speaker 1: are that we'll have household robots. And it just goes
12:36
Speaker 1: on and on. It is incredible what man is filling
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Speaker 1: up his life with, the science and the technology and
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Speaker 1: the information. It would seem that if ever there would
12:46
Speaker 1: be a day when man would be happy, he has
12:48
Speaker 1: created a veritable worldwide Disneyland. And he can play all
12:53
Speaker 1: day long. Listen, do you realize how many stores there
12:57
Speaker 1: are that sell things that nobody needs? Nobody needs them.
13:04
Speaker 1: They don't do anything except you play with them. Man
13:12
Speaker 1: is filling up his life, but you know what happens?
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Speaker 1: It's tragic. And I think maybe it's just the fact
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Speaker 1: that man has to face the reality that the more
13:19
Speaker 1: stuff he has, the more he has to face the
13:22
Speaker 1: fact that it never satisfies. And that's what the Bible
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Speaker 1: means in Luke 12 when it says that the life
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Speaker 1: of a man consists not in the abundance of the
13:30
Speaker 1: things which he possesses. Whether it's information or whether it's
13:34
Speaker 1: technology or whether it's goodies, whatever it is, life doesn't
13:38
Speaker 1: find itself in those things. And so today we have
13:41
Speaker 1: alcoholism and we have drugs and we have sex and
13:43
Speaker 1: we have all these other things as people try to
13:45
Speaker 1: fill the gnawing void that can't be filled with all
13:47
Speaker 1: this other stuff. And then, of course, there's a backlash
13:50
Speaker 1: to all that technology. And we've got the other people
13:53
Speaker 1: who want to go natural. And so right up next
13:55
Speaker 1: to the computer store is the, you know, the natural
13:58
Speaker 1: food store. And you can go in there and it's
14:01
Speaker 1: all very natural. We want to run back to nature.
14:05
Speaker 1: We don't like it so complicated. You know why? Because
14:07
Speaker 1: it didn't solve our problem. The frustration of man, now
14:11
Speaker 1: he's going in a circle. He can do anything he
14:12
Speaker 1: wants and he thinks that he wants something, but when
14:14
Speaker 1: he gets it, he doesn't want it, so he goes
14:16
Speaker 1: back in his circle to where he started again. Illustration,
14:19
Speaker 1: Arthur Clarke, a science fiction writer and a futurist, described
14:22
Speaker 1: his idea of the ultimate city vehicle. And he was
14:26
Speaker 1: looking into the future and what would man need as
14:27
Speaker 1: an ultimate city vehicle. Obviously, we can't be driving around
14:31
Speaker 1: Belch Fire 8s for all the rest of history running
14:34
Speaker 1: into each other and killing off our population. So something's
14:36
Speaker 1: going to change, polluting our society. So his thing was this.
14:38
Speaker 1: He drew up seven principles that should govern whatever this
14:41
Speaker 1: vehicle is. One, simple to produce with a minimum of
14:43
Speaker 1: tool uptime, hence inexpensive. Two, self-repairing. That would be great. Three, stylish. Four,
14:50
Speaker 1: good passenger visibility unobstructed. Five, computer equipped to aid in
14:55
Speaker 1: driving so that the vehicle actually can think in the process.
14:58
Speaker 1: Top speed 20 miles an hour so there aren't any
15:00
Speaker 1: fatal crashes. The next one, number seven, the byproducts of
15:04
Speaker 1: this should be non-toxic and biodegradable. And with all of
15:07
Speaker 1: those conclusions, his suggestion is that the ultimate transportation for
15:10
Speaker 1: a city dweller is a horse. You know, we have
15:20
Speaker 1: so much. We have developed so much. We have invented
15:25
Speaker 1: so much. We have created so much. And there's always
15:29
Speaker 1: that total emptiness when you get to the end of
15:32
Speaker 1: the line. We still kill each other. We still curse
15:38
Speaker 1: each other. We still slander each other. We still sue
15:42
Speaker 1: each other. We still fight each other. There's more crime,
15:45
Speaker 1: more suicide than ever. I read an article in the paper, sad.
15:50
Speaker 1: Little children under 10, 200 of them committed suicide last year. Sad.
15:56
Speaker 1: You say, how could it be? It's despair, people. It's despair.
16:02
Speaker 1: Raising a child at a technological age isn't any different
16:05
Speaker 1: than raising him in the age of the horse or
16:06
Speaker 1: anything else if he doesn't have anything on the inside.
16:13
Speaker 1: Time magazine says, America is like an unloved child, smothered
16:16
Speaker 1: in candy, we're fat and full of pimples and still
16:18
Speaker 1: crying for more. Well, what is the answer to a
16:23
Speaker 1: society with everything and yet facing the reality that it
16:26
Speaker 1: has nothing? And it just, it comes off so hypocritical.
16:31
Speaker 1: What's the answer? Well, some people say education. We could
16:33
Speaker 1: be happy if we could just educate people. We've got
16:36
Speaker 1: to educate them not to do this and not to
16:38
Speaker 1: pollute and not to do this. B.F. Skinner comes along
16:40
Speaker 1: and says, what we've really got to do is control
16:42
Speaker 1: their brains. We've got to get little zappers in there
16:44
Speaker 1: and block out part of their brain. We'll block out
16:47
Speaker 1: the criminal part and we'll block out the having too
16:49
Speaker 1: many babies part and we'll block out the pollution part
16:53
Speaker 1: and we'll control everybody. And we'll have an elite group
16:57
Speaker 1: of people who run this little blockout factory and we'll
16:59
Speaker 1: move in and put the little zappers on there and
17:01
Speaker 1: do it to them. And other people say, well, it
17:06
Speaker 1: isn't that tough. All we need to do is train them.
17:08
Speaker 1: So we'll develop daycare centers and we'll take children out
17:10
Speaker 1: of the home. And there was a bill in Congress
17:11
Speaker 1: to this effect three years ago. We'll take babies out
17:14
Speaker 1: of the home at six months, train them until they're five,
17:16
Speaker 1: and then put them in the public school system. And
17:18
Speaker 1: by that time, we'll have them educated out of those areas.
17:22
Speaker 1: Congress voted it down, incidentally. They may not always. And
17:27
Speaker 1: other people say, well, it's higher education. We've got to
17:29
Speaker 1: develop an elite group of people who have solved the
17:31
Speaker 1: problems of the world by higher education. Higher education hadn't
17:36
Speaker 1: solved much of anything in terms of what's in man's heart.
17:41
Speaker 1: Kafka's great story of the defiant fisherman is the best
17:43
Speaker 1: picture of higher education I've ever seen. He pictures a
17:47
Speaker 1: city that is totally bombed out. It's just been devastated.
17:50
Speaker 1: It is flat. And the bombing has just occurred so
17:53
Speaker 1: that every single building in the city is down except
17:56
Speaker 1: one building. And there's one beautiful, pristine, white, clean building
18:01
Speaker 1: without a mark on it, sitting right in the middle
18:03
Speaker 1: of a bombed-out city, smoke and smoldering and burning and
18:07
Speaker 1: bleeding people and bodies everywhere and death everywhere. There's one
18:11
Speaker 1: solitary man walking through the rubble. He paces through the rubble.
18:16
Speaker 1: He comes to this building. He ascends the stairs. He
18:18
Speaker 1: goes in. He goes up and up and up and
18:21
Speaker 1: up until he reaches the top floor. Down at the
18:23
Speaker 1: end of a long, dark hall, he sees a light.
18:26
Speaker 1: He walks down the hall. Sure enough, it's a bathroom.
18:30
Speaker 1: He walks in and he sees a man sitting there
18:33
Speaker 1: fishing in the bathtub. He looks and says, you're not
18:39
Speaker 1: going to catch anything. He says, I know, and keeps
18:42
Speaker 1: on fishing. There aren't any fish, I know, and keeps
18:48
Speaker 1: on fishing. There isn't even any water, I know, and
18:51
Speaker 1: keeps on fishing. Kafka says that is higher education. What's
19:00
Speaker 1: he saying? He's saying higher education is somebody up somewhere
19:03
Speaker 1: looking for something that isn't there while the world's dying
19:07
Speaker 1: because it isn't dealing with real problems. It doesn't do
19:10
Speaker 1: any good to change a man's mind. It's like Polius
19:13
Speaker 1: at USC said, all you do when you take a
19:15
Speaker 1: man's mind and give it high impact and do nothing
19:18
Speaker 1: for his soul, all you do is create a monster.
19:23
Speaker 1: Technologically trained but small of soul and all you've done
19:26
Speaker 1: is get a problem on your hands. The answer is
19:28
Speaker 1: not in education because it's just one man educating another
19:35
Speaker 1: man and none of them have been able to solve
19:37
Speaker 1: the problem. Some people say, well, of course, the answer
19:42
Speaker 1: is in rationalism. The human mind can solve everything. You know,
19:46
Speaker 1: I'm the master of my feet, I'm the captain of
19:48
Speaker 1: my soul, I will solve all the problems. of society.
19:51
Speaker 1: Funny joke. We can't solve any of them. Rationalism didn't work.
19:57
Speaker 1: You know, the German rationalists came along a few hundred
19:59
Speaker 1: years ago and they said, we will only accept what
20:01
Speaker 1: the mind of man can understand. The mind is ultimate.
20:06
Speaker 1: And so a bunch of them decided to attack the
20:07
Speaker 1: Bible because in those days, the Bible kind of reigned
20:09
Speaker 1: supreme in European society, and they were a very absolute,
20:12
Speaker 1: objective people who believed in objective truth. There was a
20:17
Speaker 1: right and a wrong. And they said, we've got to
20:19
Speaker 1: get rid of the Bible. So they went through the Bible,
20:21
Speaker 1: Graf Wellhausen, Bauer, Strauss, Renan, some of these people, and
20:24
Speaker 1: they said, let's take all that isn't able to fit
20:26
Speaker 1: into the mind of man out, all the miracles, anything supernatural.
20:29
Speaker 1: They took it out. One of them came up with
20:32
Speaker 1: 27 verses that he felt were still valid. 27 verses
20:37
Speaker 1: in the whole Bible. You know, they were, and over
20:39
Speaker 1: there there was a mountain, and down there there was
20:41
Speaker 1: a valley. You know, I mean, that was it. But
20:44
Speaker 1: you know what happened? It didn't take very long to
20:46
Speaker 1: realize that when they had done that, they had just
20:47
Speaker 1: crucified their souls, because if there wasn't any supernatural, then
20:51
Speaker 1: there wasn't any God. And that gnawing, longing in the
20:55
Speaker 1: heart of a man that says there's a God somewhere
20:57
Speaker 1: could never be satisfied. And they were in agony, absolute agony.
21:03
Speaker 1: And so there was a movement in Europe known as Neo-Orthodoxy.
21:06
Speaker 1: And Karl Barth, a German theologian, decided, we've just killed ourselves, guys.
21:09
Speaker 1: We've got to put some miracles back in. So Karl
21:12
Speaker 1: Barth came along and started grabbing the miracles and chucking
21:14
Speaker 1: them back into the Bible. And he got them in there.
21:18
Speaker 1: And so you'd say to him, hey, Karl, terrific. You
21:20
Speaker 1: put all the miracles back? Yeah. You believe in the
21:23
Speaker 1: virgin birth? Oh, yeah. You believe Christ died? Yes. You
21:26
Speaker 1: believe rose from the dead? Yes. Do you believe that
21:27
Speaker 1: He's coming again? Do you believe He walked on water? Oh, yes.
21:30
Speaker 1: Do you believe that happened in actual history? No. Well,
21:34
Speaker 1: where did it happen? Well, it happened in Heilige Schichtelichte,
21:37
Speaker 1: super-duper history. You say, what's that, Carl? See, he wanted
21:43
Speaker 1: the miracles, but he didn't want them enough to put
21:45
Speaker 1: them back where they belonged. He had them up in
21:47
Speaker 1: the fog. And that's why when he came to the
21:49
Speaker 1: end of his life, he never did explain what he meant.
21:52
Speaker 1: At the end of his life, somebody said, what's the
21:53
Speaker 1: greatest thing you ever knew? The only thing he could
21:55
Speaker 1: say is, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the
21:56
Speaker 1: Bible tells me so. You see, they all found out
22:01
Speaker 1: that rationalism didn't work. I mean... It didn't work not
22:04
Speaker 1: to have any God. It didn't work not to have
22:06
Speaker 1: any miracles. It didn't work. You couldn't answer the hunger
22:08
Speaker 1: of a man's heart for an eternal hook to hang
22:11
Speaker 1: his destiny on. And even when they put him halfway
22:15
Speaker 1: back in, that didn't work either because they had to
22:20
Speaker 1: create an unreal environment. And, of course, then there were
22:24
Speaker 1: the people who came along and said, oh, the answer
22:26
Speaker 1: is in religion. We've got to get all the way
22:29
Speaker 1: back to religion. And so we've had it all, mysticism, cultism,
22:34
Speaker 1: Eastern religions, legalism, all kinds and conceivable areas of Christianity.
22:41
Speaker 1: There's no end to religion. Of religions, there is no end.
22:44
Speaker 1: Believe me, folks. I can't even keep up with them.
22:47
Speaker 1: People say, have you heard about this one? About it
22:48
Speaker 1: once a week. I hear about a new one. Timothy
22:51
Speaker 1: Leary used to say before he stopped saying things, he
22:53
Speaker 1: used to say, what you should do, they put him
22:56
Speaker 1: in places where he didn't say too much, but he
22:58
Speaker 1: used to say, what we all should do is start
23:00
Speaker 1: our own religion. And everybody had a religion. And you
23:03
Speaker 1: know what? Religion doesn't make it. Religion is man inventing God.
23:07
Speaker 1: That is backwards, people. That is backwards. Religion says, and
23:14
Speaker 1: man created God in his own image. People reached out.
23:19
Speaker 1: They tried to get God, so they created God. They
23:22
Speaker 1: didn't want the God of the Bible because He's too demanding, see?
23:24
Speaker 1: They didn't want the standards that He set, so they
23:27
Speaker 1: made their own. And Kierkegaard called it a leap of faith.
23:30
Speaker 1: You just develop your own thing and leap out there, friends.
23:34
Speaker 1: And you would ask a liberal theologian, well, what was
23:36
Speaker 1: your leap? Oh, it's something you don't talk about. It's
23:40
Speaker 1: my first order experience. I've had contact with the Holy Other.
23:44
Speaker 1: I've touched the ground of being. Does that confuse you?
23:47
Speaker 1: It's hopeless. Because, you see, these people are just jumping
23:51
Speaker 1: into a contentless experience. Oh, yes, I believe in God. Oh, yeah,
23:58
Speaker 1: I've touched God. You know, you even hear it today
24:00
Speaker 1: on a layman's level, but a philosophical level, they were
24:02
Speaker 1: leaping all over everywhere, saying there's something out there. I've
24:05
Speaker 1: touched the ground of being. I've, you know, whatever. And
24:09
Speaker 1: once the philosophers started leaping, everybody was off and leaping.
24:13
Speaker 1: Pretty soon the artists started leaping into their own contentless experiences.
24:16
Speaker 1: It used to be you go to an art museum, oh,
24:18
Speaker 1: it's a lovely painting. There's a lady and there's a man,
24:19
Speaker 1: a little kid, and a horse and a mountain. Now
24:21
Speaker 1: you go and pew, you know. You don't even know
24:23
Speaker 1: what it is. And it happens in music. Play some
24:27
Speaker 1: of John Cage's music sometime. It sounds like two garbage
24:30
Speaker 1: trucks collided. It doesn't make any sense, but that's his leap.
24:39
Speaker 1: Leave him alone. He has a right. And, of course,
24:45
Speaker 1: here is all of this philosophical openness to any kind
24:48
Speaker 1: of religious experience. And what happens? In comes the occult.
24:51
Speaker 1: In comes Eastern mysticism and captivates the minds of people.
24:54
Speaker 1: In comes TM, transcendental meditation, and scoops up these people
24:57
Speaker 1: who are sitting around just open to anything that comes along. But,
25:03
Speaker 1: you know, after all is said and done, they can
25:04
Speaker 1: try it in all those areas. They can look for
25:06
Speaker 1: it in education or rationalism or religion, and they always
25:09
Speaker 1: come up empty, and there's despair there. Sartre has written
25:16
Speaker 1: a novel, which is his comment on life. He calls
25:18
Speaker 1: it nausea. I'll give you a little idea of his
25:21
Speaker 1: view of things. He was a sad man, sad pessimist.
25:26
Speaker 1: This is the opening of the book. The main character, Rocantin,
25:29
Speaker 1: says this, quote, Nothing happens. There are no beginnings. Days
25:33
Speaker 1: are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason. An interminable,
25:37
Speaker 1: monotonous addition. There is nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing,
25:43
Speaker 1: end quote. And so here's this man who's concluded there
25:46
Speaker 1: is nothing and no reason to live. And he says,
25:48
Speaker 1: now I'm going to go out and see if I
25:49
Speaker 1: can't find something. So he says, first I'll look in
25:52
Speaker 1: science and education, just what we were talking about. And
25:54
Speaker 1: he looks in science and education and he says, this
25:57
Speaker 1: doesn't make it because it only explains the mechanics, not
26:00
Speaker 1: the meaning. I can put it in the test tube
26:05
Speaker 1: and oh yeah, that happens. But it doesn't say why.
26:12
Speaker 1: That doesn't make it. He says, I know what, I'll
26:14
Speaker 1: have my own leap. I'm going to live for experience.
26:17
Speaker 1: And he goes all the way from thrills to theology
26:19
Speaker 1: and every experience in between. He goes all the way,
26:22
Speaker 1: even masochism and any kind of an experience. And when
26:27
Speaker 1: he sums it all up, he says this, if my
26:28
Speaker 1: own life existence is meaningless, then every experience I have
26:31
Speaker 1: is also meaningless because I'm the only one who can
26:35
Speaker 1: authenticate my experience. And he says, I know, I'll try humanism.
26:40
Speaker 1: I'll lose myself with people. I'll give myself to people.
26:44
Speaker 1: Love your neighbor. Love your brother. Help other folks. And
26:48
Speaker 1: I did, but I found out people for the most
26:50
Speaker 1: part are evil or selfish or bigoted or hateful or
26:53
Speaker 1: even murderous. And I didn't care for that. And then
27:00
Speaker 1: he says, there's only one other thing I'll try, and
27:02
Speaker 1: that's love. And so he chases after love, but the
27:06
Speaker 1: only kind of love he ever can come up with
27:07
Speaker 1: is sexual. And every time he gets into a sexual relationship,
27:10
Speaker 1: he destroys the object that he tried to love because
27:14
Speaker 1: love for him is only lust. And finally, he says
27:18
Speaker 1: at the end, I dreamed of killing myself to wipe
27:21
Speaker 1: out at least one of these superfluous lives. Nothing. There's
27:32
Speaker 1: a lot of despair in the world. And maybe I've
27:35
Speaker 1: unmasked a little of it, but maybe you're saying, but
27:38
Speaker 1: I don't see all of this. You know, people cover
27:41
Speaker 1: it up. You can't just walk around saying, I'm in despair.
27:44
Speaker 1: You can't walk around like that all your life, so
27:46
Speaker 1: you cover it up. You buy a new car. You
27:49
Speaker 1: buy a CB radio so you don't ever have to think.
27:52
Speaker 1: If it isn't music, you can talk to some jerk
27:54
Speaker 1: who's got something to say on another line and you
27:56
Speaker 1: can say that strange language and, you know... I'm sure
28:02
Speaker 1: there are some good things maybe talked about, I don't know.
28:06
Speaker 1: But you could fill up your whole life. You can
28:07
Speaker 1: go home, turn the TV on loud, go to bed,
28:09
Speaker 1: listen to the radio till you fall asleep, get up,
28:11
Speaker 1: turn on the radio. You can fill your life. Or
28:14
Speaker 1: you can just buy things all the time. Just keep
28:17
Speaker 1: buying things so you always have something that makes you
28:20
Speaker 1: feel good. Or you can have your hobby or your
28:26
Speaker 1: sport or you can just drink booze and dull your
28:31
Speaker 1: senses or take drugs. Or you could just do what's
28:34
Speaker 1: totally absurd. You know, some people do that. They just
28:37
Speaker 1: flip out. Some of you noticed a movie that was
28:40
Speaker 1: on television a few weeks ago called Catch-22. That is
28:45
Speaker 1: one of the greatest philosophical comments on the human dilemma
28:48
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. Very, very clear. Listen, here are these guys,
28:52
Speaker 1: and I think it was World War II, and they
28:54
Speaker 1: were on this island and they were flying missions for
28:57
Speaker 1: the Air Force. flying these missions, and they were, you know,
29:00
Speaker 1: stupid missions, very dangerous, and the guys hated the duty.
29:03
Speaker 1: And the only hope they had was when they hit
29:05
Speaker 1: 25 missions, they could get out. So they got a
29:08
Speaker 1: new colonel who came in. As soon as they hit 25,
29:10
Speaker 1: he raised it to 30. They hit 30, he raised
29:13
Speaker 1: it to 35. They hit 35, he raised it to 40.
29:15
Speaker 1: And on a no way out, there is the human dilemma.
29:20
Speaker 1: That's a metaphor of the human dilemma. There's no way out.
29:23
Speaker 1: You're trapped on an island in a stupid existence doing
29:27
Speaker 1: meaningless things and there isn't any way out. Now there
29:30
Speaker 1: was only one way you could get out of that duty.
29:33
Speaker 1: Those of you who saw that picture remember what it was.
29:36
Speaker 1: The only way you could get out of that duty
29:37
Speaker 1: was to be insane because they didn't want insane people
29:40
Speaker 1: flying those missions. But you had to turn yourself in
29:44
Speaker 1: for being insane. And if you're smart enough to turn
29:47
Speaker 1: yourself in for being insane, you're not insane. And that
29:51
Speaker 1: was catch 22. The only intelligent people in the human
29:57
Speaker 1: dilemma are the ones that are nuts. who flipped out.
30:04
Speaker 1: It's like a kid told me one time who was
30:06
Speaker 1: totally spaced out. He says, man, I may not know
30:09
Speaker 1: any answers but I sure don't have to mess with
30:10
Speaker 1: the questions anymore. And so the guy finally decides there's
30:19
Speaker 1: only one thing left to do, build a raft and
30:22
Speaker 1: paddle to Sweden. That is not intelligent. That is stupid.
30:27
Speaker 1: You can't build a raft in the middle of the
30:29
Speaker 1: Mediterranean and paddle to Sweden. But don't you see what
30:33
Speaker 1: the point is? When man has all of his rational
30:35
Speaker 1: options closed out, he does what is irrational, absurd, because
30:38
Speaker 1: he has no other choice. You want to know why
30:41
Speaker 1: people do the strange, irrational, bizarre things they do? It's
30:45
Speaker 1: the despair. You say, well, John, why does man feel
30:52
Speaker 1: this despair? That was the introduction. Why does man, just
30:58
Speaker 1: so you'll know where you are, Why does man feel
31:02
Speaker 1: the despair? I think there are three things basically that
31:06
Speaker 1: we could use to sum up his pressure points. This
31:10
Speaker 1: is where man feels the drill. Number one is the
31:14
Speaker 1: area of sin and guilt. Man lives with a sense
31:18
Speaker 1: of his sinfulness and the guilt that comes behind that sin.
31:23
Speaker 1: And he is forever trying to deal with that issue.
31:27
Speaker 1: Sin is a reality. Look with me at Romans chapter
31:30
Speaker 1: 3 for a moment. And I want to call your
31:32
Speaker 1: attention to a very simple passage here that helps us
31:35
Speaker 1: to see the human dilemma in terms of sin and guilt.
31:39
Speaker 1: In Romans chapter 3, and this is where the Bible
31:42
Speaker 1: enters in, see, and the Bible is saying, look, we
31:44
Speaker 1: know what's going on. You want to know what the
31:48
Speaker 1: human dilemma is all about, the Scripture will tell you precisely.
31:52
Speaker 1: The Bible speaks to man. Now, what you have in
31:55
Speaker 1: Romans 3 verse 10 is this, as it is written,
31:57
Speaker 1: there is none righteous, no, not one. We begin by
31:59
Speaker 1: recognizing that God says there aren't righteous people, there are
32:02
Speaker 1: only unrighteous ones. There is none that understands, there is
32:06
Speaker 1: none that seeketh after God. You know, when Adam sinned,
32:10
Speaker 1: what's the first thing he did? He ran and hid
32:12
Speaker 1: and men have been running and hiding from God ever since.
32:19
Speaker 1: They don't seek God. They're all gone out of the way.
32:21
Speaker 1: They are together become unprofitable. It's a word in the
32:24
Speaker 1: Greek that means to go sour like milk. They've gone sour.
32:29
Speaker 1: There's none that does good, no, not one. Their throat
32:31
Speaker 1: is an open grave. Their tongues use deceit. The poison
32:35
Speaker 1: of snakes is under their lips. Their mouth is full
32:37
Speaker 1: of cursing. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction
32:39
Speaker 1: and misery are in their way and the way of
32:41
Speaker 1: peace have they not known and there is no fear
32:42
Speaker 1: of God before their eyes. Now there you have a
32:44
Speaker 1: summation of man's sinfulness. It's in His mouth, it's in
32:48
Speaker 1: His feet, it's in His hands, it's in everything that
32:51
Speaker 1: He does. Because man is a sinner and the result
32:59
Speaker 1: of it is he feels guilt. Verse 19 talks about
33:01
Speaker 1: the fact at the end of the verse that all
33:02
Speaker 1: the world has become guilty before God. Sin has consequence.
33:06
Speaker 1: You can't sin and not feel the results. It's like pain.
33:10
Speaker 1: When you inflict harm on your body, your body sends
33:13
Speaker 1: impulses that tell you you've done that. And your conscience
33:17
Speaker 1: and your soul will respond to sin with impulses of guilt.
33:20
Speaker 1: And people run like mad to cover that up. They drink.
33:24
Speaker 1: They take drugs. They sleep. They go to the psychiatrist
33:29
Speaker 1: and they want him so badly to tell them, it
33:31
Speaker 1: isn't your fault that you're the way you are. Your
33:33
Speaker 1: mother shouldn't have locked you in the closet when you
33:35
Speaker 1: were a kid or always given you the smallest banana,
33:40
Speaker 1: you know, when your sister got the biggest one or whatever.
33:47
Speaker 1: People want to abandon themselves to sin and then they
33:50
Speaker 1: want to get out of the consequence but they can't
33:52
Speaker 1: get out. And so they try to escape in areas
33:55
Speaker 1: that don't really do anything but magnify the reality of
33:58
Speaker 1: their sin. They justify. Today, you know, the latest ploy
34:02
Speaker 1: to alleviate guilt is to justify it. We've lost our
34:06
Speaker 1: morality so you can do that. Now all of a
34:08
Speaker 1: sudden sin is macho, right? Or sin is cool, not
34:15
Speaker 1: hung up, see? I flow, baby. Whatever is going, man,
34:20
Speaker 1: I'm in it. Or I like... sin is natural, it's only natural, man,
34:25
Speaker 1: it's just biological. Or it's liberating. We were under all
34:32
Speaker 1: that bondage, now we've been liberated. All of these are
34:36
Speaker 1: ploys to deal with guilt but it's a hypocritical thing,
34:39
Speaker 1: never really solves a problem. There's always, I believe, gnawing
34:45
Speaker 1: in the heart of a man and a woman. a
34:47
Speaker 1: sense of retribution, someday I'm going to pay. There's got
34:50
Speaker 1: to be payment. And the reason I believe that is
34:53
Speaker 1: because I believe God has given that consciousness of sin
34:55
Speaker 1: to every man to drive him to the knowledge of
34:58
Speaker 1: God Himself. Man has been running and hiding, and he
35:03
Speaker 1: tries to find all different trees to hide from, and
35:05
Speaker 1: pretty soon he gets exposed and he runs for another tree.
35:09
Speaker 1: And God seeks, and man hides because of sin and guilt.
35:15
Speaker 1: And there's a second pressure point in the human dilemma,
35:18
Speaker 1: and that's lust and desire. Like Oscar Wilde said, and
35:22
Speaker 1: I agree, lust is a cruel master. It's a terrible
35:24
Speaker 1: thing to be driven totally by your own lust and desire.
35:28
Speaker 1: If ever there was a lusting society, it's 20th century America.
35:31
Speaker 1: It is incredible. I mean, you just drive down any
35:34
Speaker 1: street and it is just loaded with things that tander
35:37
Speaker 1: lust and evil desire. I mean, now you can go
35:40
Speaker 1: to a massage parlor and use your Master Charge, your
35:42
Speaker 1: Bank of America card, dirty bookstores over here, great big
35:45
Speaker 1: billboards with half-dressed people on it, solicitation to go to
35:48
Speaker 1: certain movies. Billy Graham said the movies are like the
35:50
Speaker 1: drippings from a broken sewer, and he's right. And there's
35:53
Speaker 1: no end to it all, just pandering and pandering and pandering.
35:56
Speaker 1: What is the most responsive part of a man? That
35:58
Speaker 1: is his lust. And the family has died because everybody's
36:06
Speaker 1: out on the street looking at the billboards to see
36:09
Speaker 1: where they want to put their lust to work. Everybody
36:12
Speaker 1: left home. And they've traded lust for love and sensuality
36:16
Speaker 1: for security, and so the family died. And when the
36:20
Speaker 1: family dies, everything is gone. There's no warmth, there's no acceptance,
36:27
Speaker 1: and there's no fulfillment. So we have despair. In Ephesians
36:32
Speaker 1: chapter 2, look with me at verse 3. Paul chronicles
36:35
Speaker 1: a little of this. When he says in verse 2,
36:39
Speaker 1: you were guided by Satan, the prince of the power
36:41
Speaker 1: of the air. And then in 3, among whom also
36:43
Speaker 1: we all had our manner of life in times past
36:46
Speaker 1: in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of
36:50
Speaker 1: the flesh and of the mind, or the thoughts. So
36:53
Speaker 1: we have a thought, we desire out of the flesh
36:56
Speaker 1: and we fulfill it. That's pretty much man and we
37:01
Speaker 1: become really the children of wrath. In other words, we
37:05
Speaker 1: begin to feel God's retribution, God's judgment. And so man
37:11
Speaker 1: suffers from the pressure of sin and guilt, lust and desire.
37:14
Speaker 1: Can't ever get out of it. He can't ever get
37:15
Speaker 1: himself divorced from this driving force that destroys him, destroys
37:19
Speaker 1: his family, destroys his society. There's a third thing. I
37:25
Speaker 1: think the third pressure point that man faces, and I'm
37:27
Speaker 1: trying to analyze these as I see people and as
37:29
Speaker 1: I feel in my own heart and as I look
37:30
Speaker 1: at the scope of the Scripture. The third one is
37:32
Speaker 1: purposelessness and meaninglessness. It seems to me that the worst
37:36
Speaker 1: of all is not to have any reason to be.
37:39
Speaker 1: Like Edna St. Vincent Millay said, life must go on.
37:42
Speaker 1: I forget why. Or like Arthur Miller in his play
37:48
Speaker 1: has a woman and her husband sitting at the breakfast table.
37:51
Speaker 1: They never talk. She sits there with her hair all
37:52
Speaker 1: done up and things and she's got that old ratty
37:55
Speaker 1: bathrobe and... She looks like yesterday's breakfast and he sits
38:00
Speaker 1: across the table and he's down in the mouth and
38:02
Speaker 1: he reads the paper and she says, you never talk
38:04
Speaker 1: to me. Life has deteriorated to how many miles we
38:07
Speaker 1: get on our Volkswagen. Pretty sad when life gets to
38:11
Speaker 1: that level, but it is for a lot of people.
38:15
Speaker 1: You know what the psalmist said? He said, the ungodly
38:19
Speaker 1: are like the chaff, which what? The wind drives away.
38:24
Speaker 1: You know, when they harvest the wheat and they put
38:25
Speaker 1: the grain in those little baskets, they'd go and they'd
38:27
Speaker 1: throw that in the air. And the grain was heavy
38:31
Speaker 1: enough to fall back into the basket. The wind would
38:33
Speaker 1: blow the chaff away and that's how they would separate
38:35
Speaker 1: it because it was useless. It was worthless. And I
38:39
Speaker 1: think that's what God is saying about man, that man
38:43
Speaker 1: is useless apart from Him. And man has that feeling
38:47
Speaker 1: of uselessness. purposelessness. He has no eternal hook to hang
38:52
Speaker 1: His life on and say, hey, I belong here. This
38:55
Speaker 1: is where I hang. He has no sense of eternal continuity.
38:59
Speaker 1: You know, one of the greatest statements ever penned in
39:01
Speaker 1: the whole Bible is this, your fruit shall remain. Remember
39:04
Speaker 1: when Jesus said that in John 15, you shall bear
39:06
Speaker 1: much fruit and your fruit shall remain? Listen, it's one
39:08
Speaker 1: of the most exciting things in the world to know
39:10
Speaker 1: that your life can have an eternal continuity. It's incredible
39:14
Speaker 1: to think of that. You're not just plopped in, gone, ashes, forgotten.
39:18
Speaker 1: If you're a Christian, you have a part of God's
39:20
Speaker 1: eternal plan. You are in the flow of destiny with God.
39:24
Speaker 1: And if you don't know Christ, you're just gone. And
39:29
Speaker 1: you have voided the purpose for your being. Time Magazine
39:34
Speaker 1: recently introduced, and so did Newsweek I think as I remember,
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Speaker 1: a new philosophy that's pretty much sweeping the country. Tens
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Speaker 1: of thousands of people are in it. It's called EST
39:42
Speaker 1: or EST. You've seen it probably. Werner Erhard, which is
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Speaker 1: a pseudonym for a guy who was an ex-used car
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Speaker 1: salesman somewhere and just took on that fancy name and
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Speaker 1: developed this thing. But what happens is people go and
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Speaker 1: they go for a couple of weeks and what it is,
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Speaker 1: it's a brainwashing technique. He goes in there, they have
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Speaker 1: a couple of weeks of this intense, painful, concentrated mental smashing.
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Speaker 1: I mean, they are battered and smashed and beaten verbally
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Speaker 1: and captivated. They can't even leave to go to the bathroom.
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Speaker 1: They keep them there. They're on the floor sweating and writhing,
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Speaker 1: and he just literally destroys them and drains them and
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Speaker 1: smashes their ego. And, I mean, I can't imagine all
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Speaker 1: that's involved in it. When it's all over and you've
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Speaker 1: been through the whole thing and it's done with, he
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Speaker 1: gets up and this is the last, this is the
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Speaker 1: closing statement he makes. Well, you've got it now because
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Speaker 1: there's nothing to get. Obviously, the truth is what's so.
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Speaker 1: Not so obviously, it's so what. What is is, so what.
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Speaker 1: and he leaves. Well, that is something. All that and
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Speaker 1: all you know is that, so what? Yeah, well, he's
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Speaker 1: got the handle on the problem of man, so what?
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Speaker 1: So what? Meaninglessness. There's got to be a There's got
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Speaker 1: to be a point of reference in the universe. There's
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Speaker 1: got to be a hook to hang your life on,
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Speaker 1: a rock, a standard, a source of abundant life. There's
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Speaker 1: got to be meaning somewhere. If the deist comes up
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Speaker 1: and says, God is a cosmic force up there somewhere, well,
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Speaker 1: that's nice to know but that doesn't touch me. The
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Speaker 1: fatalist says God is just a practical joker and the
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Speaker 1: religious hedonist says He's a glorified grandfather and the pantheist
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Speaker 1: says He's everything. Somebody else says he's a cosmic party pooper,
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Speaker 1: and only Christianity comes down to the reality that he's
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Speaker 1: a loving, sovereign, holy, righteous God. And he's the hook
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Speaker 1: to hang your life on. And he has come into
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Speaker 1: this world, and he was born as a man, as
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Speaker 1: a babe in Bethlehem, and that's Christmas. And I dare
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Speaker 1: say that if you are having a party without a
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Speaker 1: reality of Christ, your party is a sham. I'd like
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Speaker 1: to break your party up. if I could, and offer
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Speaker 1: you a real party, a real celebration. Jesus is God.
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Speaker 1: God wanted us to hang our lives on Him, and
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Speaker 1: so He came down and said, here's how. Through my Son,
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, who lived and died and rose to give
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Speaker 1: you life. Christmas has no more meaning to people without
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Speaker 1: Christ than any other day in their life. But with Christ,
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Speaker 1: every day has as much meaning as Christmas, right? Every day.
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Speaker 1: Christmas is, and the Word became, what? Flesh, and dwelt
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Speaker 1: among us. And we beheld His glory. What glory? The
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Speaker 1: glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full
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Speaker 1: of grace and truth. We saw that it was God
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Speaker 1: and we gave Him our lives. That's Christmas. And Christmas
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Speaker 1: is nothing but that. Let's pray. Our Father, we do
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Speaker 1: acknowledge that Apart from you, we have only sin and
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Speaker 1: guilt to pay for out of the past, lust and
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Speaker 1: desire to experience in the present, meaninglessness and purposelessness for
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Speaker 1: all the future. And that's no way to live. You
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Speaker 1: never meant that. You've been reaching down to touch us
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Speaker 1: since Adam. You've been looking for us among the trees
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Speaker 1: of our own making as we hide. May we be
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Speaker 1: honest and open enough to come out and say, God,
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Speaker 1: I guess I need you. I want the Christ of Christmas,
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Speaker 1: the Lord Jesus Christ, the living God in human flesh
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Speaker 1: who died and rose again that I might have life.
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Speaker 1: I want the abundant life you've given. I take the gift. Father,
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Speaker 1: it's my prayer for the folks that are here who
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Speaker 1: know you, that they might this morning freshly commit themselves
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Speaker 1: to you. For those who don't, that this might be
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Speaker 1: the first real Christmas when Christ is born in them. Amen.
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Speaker 1: You've been listening to John MacArthur, Bible teacher with Grace
44:40
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44:44
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44:47
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44:54
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