The Pagan Invasion is an explosive new 13-part video series providing a
thorough behind-the-scenes examination of today's New Age movement and neo-pagan
revival. Each superbly produced volume features rare footage from around the
world along with expert analysis by noted Christian leaders and authors. For
more information contact your local Christian bookstore or call 1-800-828-2290.
California residents call 1-800-633-0869.
Hello, I'm Chuck Smith. And I'm Carol Matricciana. Welcome to this edition of
The Pagan Invasion. Today we will be talking about the major religions and
philosophies of the world and contrast them with Christianity. We will be
comparing the legitimacy of other sacred writings with the authenticity of the
Holy Bible and we will be examining the claims of some well-known religious
leaders and measure them against the claims of the historic person of Jesus
Christ. A person's worldview affects the way they live and the decisions they
make. Therefore it is imperative that each of us know what we believe and why
we believe it. Today the fastest growing world religion is Islam. In the last 50
years it has grown at a rate of 500%. Hinduism, the religion of India, has
grown at a rate of about 150%, whereas Christianity presently has the
slowest growth rate of all major worldviews. These statistics will become
all the more shocking as we begin to examine the foundations of each of these
belief systems.
Seventy percent of young people who have been raised in the church will reject
their Christian faith during their high school and college years. That seventy
percent evangelicals, that's Bible-believing young people. If the
Christian faith is not true then the rejection is as natural as coming to
understand the truth about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. However, if their
Christian worldview is true then they have departed from the truth into error
and confusion. Our objective is to show that there are sound intellectual
reasons for the faith our young people have made a commitment to. We want to
stimulate them to think through their faith and to know what they believe and
why. The Bible states that the heavens declare the glory of God and the
firmament shows his handiwork. Yet the popular view from the academic
community is, I'm a confirmed atheist because as an educator and science
teacher I find no rational basis for believing in God. Well what about that? Is
there a rational basis for believing in God? Before we answer that question we
have to decide what kind of God we're talking about. There are three major
views that are being promoted today. Atheism is the belief that no God
exists. The universe is all there is. Though he claims to be an agnostic,
Carl Sagan, the astronomer and popular host of the PBS series Cosmos, would be a
good example of one who promotes an atheistic worldview. For him the Cosmos
is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Atheism and its offshoot secular
humanism recognize man as the highest form of life that has evolved on earth.
Man then becomes the replacement for God in this belief system. If man worships
anything else it would be the Cosmos. Pantheism is the belief that God is
everything and everything is God. God is not personal but rather a power or
universal energy of which everything is a part.
While pantheism is primarily the basic theology of the religions of the East,
today it's being enthusiastically packaged and promoted to appeal to the
Judeo-Christian West.
The concept of the force in the Star Wars films, for example, presents a pantheistic
view of God. Theism, which is the view of traditional Judaism, Islam, and
Christianity, sees God as the Creator. He's infinite and personal. He's
transcendent, meaning that he created the universe but is not part of it. A rough
example that might clarify how a theistic God relates to the universe
would be that of a painter to a painting. As C.S. Lewis has stated, God invented
and made the universe like a man making a picture. A painter is not a picture and
he does not die if his picture is destroyed. You may say he's put a lot of
himself into it but you only mean that all its beauty and interest has come out
of his head. So back to the question posed earlier about the possibility of a
rational basis for believing in God. The God we will be arguing for is the
theistic God of the Bible. I don't care what names or labels the different
religions call it. The only thing out there is the universe and it's always
been around. Anything that has always been around doesn't need a cause. That's
one of the major objections atheists throw at theists. Now remember, we're
going to use the term theist for those who believe in a personal God who
created the universe. So what about the atheist objection? It makes sense that if
the universe has always been around, then a creator God is sort of excess baggage.
But has the universe always been around? Is there any scientific evidence that
would pull a rug out from under that idea? The second law of thermodynamics
indicates that just as this candle is burning down, the universe is doing
likewise. The universe is like a giant vat of actual energy that is being used
up and not being replaced. It's being transformed into unusable heat. Now if
the universe is winding down, it can't very well be eternal. Eternal means
without beginning or end. And if it's ending, it's reasonable to conclude that
it had a beginning.
If everything that exists had a cause, then God must have had a cause. Who or
what caused God? Let's back up a moment. Some atheists claim that the universe
had no beginning, that it's eternal. The only thing out there is the universe and
it's always been around. And things that have always been around don't need a
cause. We agree that anything that's always been around doesn't need a cause.
And we pretty well covered the evidence that the universe did indeed have a
beginning. But what about God? Since God is not part of the universe, He is not
running down. Hence He had no beginning, and so He needs no cause. I'm a confirmed
atheist because as an educator and science teacher, I find no rational basis
for believing in God. That's what we already considered. Is there a rational
basis for believing in God? And we came up with the following. Number one,
everything that has a beginning has a cause. Number two, the universe had a
beginning. Therefore, number three, the universe must have had a cause. So
atheists must believe nothing caused the universe. Theists believe something, God
caused the universe. Which of these two is more rational? Further, the universe
contains living things which possess highly complex information and exhibit
very complex design. But the only scientifically known cause for complex
information and design is an intelligent creator and designer. Atheists believe
it all happened by chance. But science isn't based on chance. It's based on
knowing a regular connection over and over again. Which of the two is more
rational? The famous German atheist, Friedrich Nietzsche, best underscores the
problem in his statement, we deny God as God. If one were to prove this God of the
Christians to us, we should be even less able to believe in Him. According to his
biographer, Nietzsche spent the last 10 years of his life in an insane asylum and
anguish over such beliefs. In the book of Romans, it says that all men, without
exception, know about God. Yet they suppress the truth in unrighteousness
because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it
evident to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes,
his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood
through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Since the evidence is
clear, and many of the atheists mentioned are brilliant men, it becomes obvious
that atheism does not result from any lack of evidence, that there is a God
there. It's not a mental dilemma, but a moral one. Not a matter of the head, but a
matter of the heart. The psalmist put his finger on the problem when he said, the
fool has said in his heart, there is no God.
But there are other views of God, besides the theistic one. What about the
pantheistic or polytheistic views? I'm into yoga and meditation, so I read a lot
in the Eastern religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and I believe God is
the all, and everything is God, and God is everything. Since pantheists believe
that everything is part of God, and everything is God, all is one, all is
divine, they would also say that all parts, no matter how different or how
contradictory they may seem, lead to the same God, or the same goal in the end.
Biblical Christianity alone stands outside Hinduism's attempt to draw all
religious beliefs to itself, especially because Jesus himself said that he alone
was the only way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes unto the Father
except through him. Pantheists believe that God is an impersonal force, and
everything is part of the force. If that's true, then everything that's good
is part of God, and so is everything that's evil, like disease, depravity, and
death. But pantheists, especially of the Christian science variety, protest that
disease, sin, are only the consequence of wrong thinking. Nevertheless, no pantheist
has been successful to the extent of never getting old and living forever.
Pantheists say that the whole of the material universe is not real. It's an
illusion, like an imaginary oasis appears to a dehydrated man crawling through the
burning desert. Nevertheless, a pantheist who drives his car into someone else's
car ends up with more than a smashed illusion, and a good deal more than his
imagination broken. Pantheists claim that man is really God, but his problem is
that he just hasn't realized it yet. However, pantheists also claim that God
is the unchanging absolute. However, if man has to change from not knowing he is
God to realizing his own godhood, how can he be the unchanging God? It's not
reasonable. Pantheists pride themselves in not being rational. They believe
mystical experience is the only basis for knowing God. Reason is part of the
illusion that keeps one from knowing God. Yet, if you cast off reason, how can you
decide whether the mystical experience is real or an illusion? The pantheists
claim that man is God has another problem. How did the pantheists ever come
to such a conclusion without reasoning to it?
Polytheism is the belief in many gods. Egypt was known for its many gods. Here at
the pyramids and in the surrounding areas, there were temples and gods in
multitudes. These are the gods that the Bible says that the plagues of Egypt
came upon. The gods of the river, the gods of the sky, the gods of frogs.
Actually, polytheism is not simply an ancient belief, but polytheism has
resurrected in the 20th century and is now coming from east to west and is
practiced even in the United States.
Polytheists don't believe in an infinite God beyond the universe. Their gods are
limited in power and operate in certain domains of the natural world, usually
associated with natural phenomena such as the God of rain or the Sun God. Some
are also believed to be overlords of many aspects of life from fertility to
war to beauty to love. Some are made to cover whatever may be the problem of the
day. Religions that worship more than one God may seem like a throwback to ancient
times with little relevance to our modern Western culture, but actually
polytheism is a thriving belief system. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, also known as Mormonism, has over 5 million members. They believe that God
the Father and Jesus Christ are two separate gods and that numerous Mormon
males will someday each become a god the father of their own world. Many within
the ecological movement believe that the only way mankind will be motivated not
to destroy the natural environment we live in is to return to worshiping the
gods of nature. Many within the women's liberation movement have turned back to
the female deities and goddesses of the past to underscore their total rejection
of anything smacking of dependence upon a male figure, most particularly a
chauvinistic father God.
Occultism, which is growing at an alarming rate today, utilizes the idols
of the gods and goddesses of past civilizations as points of contact with
the entities of the spiritual realm. In many cults that are popular in the
Western world there's a polytheistic belief in an ascending masters of wisdom.
There's also a renewed interest today among kids for godlike characters which
we find in games like Dungeons & Dragons with its underworld deities and
popular toys such as He-Man and She-Ra, god and goddess of the masters of the
universe. So what's the problem with polytheism? Well you've got lots of gods
and lots of confusion. Some are supposed to be good and others evil. Some are a
mixture of both. Some are more powerful than others yet no one seems to be in
charge of the entire universe. So while you certainly have diversity you have no
real unity. No one's in charge of the whole show so there's no assurance that
anything good will ever come about. In fact as their stories indicate most of
the time the gods are the real problem. Life is one continual cat and dog fight
among the goddesses and gods and between mankind and the gods. This is about as
beneficial as worshiping a cast of today's popular soap opera. Another
difference between polytheism and theism is that theism's truth claims are based
on rational evidence that can be historically and scientifically verified.
Polytheism on the other hand has no historic evidence to support it and
therefore has to be accepted on the basis of a blind leap of faith. So although
there are many ideas about God if they are contradictory they can't all be true.
Choosing a view of God that is false whether in passive ignorance or an active
rebellion leads to destruction and death. The sobering consequences are clearly
articulated in the first chapter of the book of Romans. They exchanged the truth
of God for a lie. So it was that when they gave God up and would not even
acknowledge Him, God gave them up to doing everything their evil minds could
think of. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness and sin, of
greed and hate, envy, murder, fighting, lying, bitterness, and gossip. They were
fully aware of God's penalty for these crimes yet they went right ahead and did
them anyway and encouraged others to do so too.
Hank Hanegraaff is the president of the Christian Research Institute based in
Southern California. I recently asked him to discuss the differences between
Christianity and other major world religions. Well all of the major world
religions, in fact all world religions and all cults, if you boil them down to
their irreducible minimum, are always man's attempt to reach up and become
acceptable to God through their own goodness. It is man's attempt as a limited
individual to understand the unlimited, the infinite. That is what religion is
based on. Relationship or Christianity is completely different. It is based on
revelation, God revealing Himself to us. Christianity is based on a relationship,
an intimate personal relationship that we can have with the Lord of the universe,
the very one who spoke and the galaxies leapt into existence. Christianity says
that we can know God not as simply the creator of the universe but we can have
fellowship with Him, that we can know Him not only for time but also for
eternity. Christianity is based on a relationship with a living creator who
has come to this planet, who has lived the perfect life which we could never
live and who offers us His perfection in exchange for our sin as an absolutely
free gift. This is the great exchange over which all of the scriptures were
written. We can't earn it or deserve it. Jesus Christ became perfection for us.
Religion, we're trying to become perfect through our own efforts. We are trying to
reach up, become acceptable to God. God says the only way you'll ever be
acceptable to me is to be perfect even as your Heavenly Father is perfect. We
can't be perfect so there's got to be another way and that way is found in a
relationship. It's not a denomination, it's not a creed, it's not a set of do's
and don'ts, it's not a world religion, it's not a cult, it's a relationship and
that relationship is established because God came to earth so that we could know
Him, fellowship with Him and live with Him for all eternity. What about some of
the claims of the major world religions holy books or scriptures versus the
authenticity of the Bible? Well the Bible is utterly unique. The Bible
demonstrates that it's the Word of God through the manuscript evidence, through
the archaeological evidence, through predictive prophecy and also through
statistical probability. Now predictive prophecy, every single city for example
within a thousand miles of Jerusalem had its entire history foretold in the most
minute of all details. For example there were prophecies concerning Tyre and
Sidon and Babylon and Nineveh, on and on. All of these cities were prophesied
about in meticulous detail. For example, interestingly enough, for years the
skeptics laughed because the Bible talked about the Assyrians and about
their great King Sargon and about Nineveh and then a young man was digging
along the Tigris River and he uncovered a brick and on the brick was the name
Sargon and he sent it to the Paris Museum. It was forthwith declared a
fraud. Well Layard, the great Assyriologist began digging along the
Tigris River and he uncovered the entire city of Nineveh and he found that the
Assyrians were an actual race of people. Now everybody believes in the Assyrians
so with every turn of the archaeologists spade we have more evidence for the fact
that the Bible is indeed the Word of God. Now that's only one of over 2,000
examples that could be given, all of which collectively bear testimony to the
fact that God has spoken and that God has indeed preserved His Word. We don't
accept the Bible as the Word of God through blind faith but through faith in
evidence. The Bible is evidential and historical. In addition to that, what is
the statistical probability of 40 different people writing over 1,600 years
on hundreds, even thousands of different subjects in three different languages
on three different continents and yet with one central storyline, God's
redemptive plan for mankind. How is it possible that this could have happened
unless God inspired these men? So the the statistics, the whole science of
statistical probability demonstrates that the Bible has to be the Word of God and
of course the Bible is unique in the fact that it claims to be God's words. No
other religious writings claims in the same way that the Bible does to be the
words of God. Over and over again the Bible says, the Lord put His words on my
tongue and I did speak. The Holy Bible is comprised of 66 books written over a
period of almost 1,600 years and was authored by 40 different persons. It is
divided into two sections, the Old Testament which is a collection of laws
given to the Jewish people, their history, poetry, and writings by their prophets,
and the New Testament which records the life of Jesus Christ, His miracles, His
death, His resurrection, and the beginnings of the Christian Church. To
date not one archaeological find has ever contradicted a biblical reference.
In fact, over 25,000 archaeological sites have unearthed evidence supporting
the Old Testament references alone. It is much more difficult to authenticate
sacred writings of other world religions. For example, Mormon and non-Mormon
archaeologists alike have failed to produce one piece of archaeological
evidence to support the Book of Mormon. In fact, archaeologists frequently
discover proof which contradicts the claims of these so-called sacred
scriptures. Hindu scriptures insist that the moon is 50,000 leagues higher than
the Sun and shines with its own light, a notion that has obviously been disproved
today. It also claims that the earth is flat and triangular, has seas of honey,
sugar, and wine, and is carried on the backs of elephants who when they shake
cause earthquakes. Even the Muslims' Quran is rife with chronological and
historical inconsistencies. The Bible claims to be the Word of God. No other
avowed sacred writings have dared to make such a presumptuous claim, and none of
withstood the constant test of aggressive critics and survived faultless through
the ages as has the Bible. Out of all ancient literature, the New Testament is
the most well-authenticated document. There are more manuscripts of the New
Testament, plus earlier and more reliable copies of original manuscripts or
autographs of the New Testament than of any other work from ancient times. Some
copies or portions of the New Testament can be dated as little as a hundred years
from the date the autographs were composed. The New Testament survives in
over 5,300 hand-copied manuscripts, while most other classical works survive in
fewer than two dozen. Even if the biblical texts are accurate and reliable,
that doesn't prove that what's in it is anything more than the drivel of some
deluded holy men. It's pure mythology as far as I'm concerned. Men such as American
founding father Thomas Paine and British mathematician and philosopher Bertram
Russell and even the famous missionary Albert Schweitzer all argued that the
historical Jesus never existed. Some critics believe that the events could
have been mythologized, yet that would have been difficult because the New
Testament writers were contemporaries of Jesus, which means that there were plenty
of eyewitnesses around to object to any distortions of the facts. Although Thomas
Paine and Bertram Russell and Albert Schweitzer were brilliant men, it seems
that history was not their best subject. Early first century historians abound
with references to Jesus of Nazareth, who is called the Christ. Tacitus, a Roman
historian, wrote, Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius
Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius. The Jewish historian Josephus
wrote, at this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was
good, was known to be virtuous. Many people from among the Jews and other
nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die,
and those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They
reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that
he was alive. These secular historians wrote at the very time that Christ
lived. Even the Christian writer Justin Martyr, who lived in the second century
AD, referred to secular historical documents to support the historical acts
of Jesus. He wrote, and that he did those things you can learn from the acts of
Pontius Pilate. In actual fact, if we lost the very New Testament documents, it
could all be reconstructed except for 11 verses from the manuscripts of early
writers. So what can we conclude? Well, if you reject the historical basis of the
New Testament, then you're going to have to throw out all of classical history.
The New Testament is the best attested historical and biographical work we
have of any classical period, event, or person.
Skeptics say the Bible cannot be trusted. One of the reasons for this is that some
of the Old Testament was written before a thousand BC, but the earliest major
manuscripts of the Old Testament came from a thousand AD. So we have two
thousand years gap, and they say in during those two thousand years many
corruptions and changes occur, so the Bible we have in our hand today can't be
trusted. Well, back in the 1940s in these caves behind me here were found fragments
of manuscripts of every book in the Old Testament except Esther. Some whole books
like the book of Isaiah were discovered. Scholars decipher these manuscripts, and
here's what they discovered. The Bible we have today has been accurately copied
down through the thousands of years, because after a thousand years of
copying they found in Isaiah 53, for example, that there was only one word
different, the word light, that didn't change the meaning of the chapter at all.
The skeptics were wrong. Highly respected archaeologist Nelson Glick made the
following claim. It may be stated categorically that no archaeological
discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference. Scores of
archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact
detail historical statements in the Bible. There are no other books of other
religions that compare with the Bible with regard to historical substantiation
of its miraculous claims. In fact, most religious books have little historical
basis whatsoever. I still say that the writers of the accounts of Jesus
concocted the whole thing. They put in just enough historical information to
make it sell. One of the problems with the idea that the gospel writers
perpetrated fraud in what they wrote is that among those early recipients of the
Gospels were actual eyewitnesses of many of the events of the Gospels with all
their detail. It hardly seems reasonable that such writings would have been
accepted by the hundreds of eyewitnesses, many of whom no doubt subsequently held
leadership positions in the early church. In other words, the New Testament would
never have gotten off the ground if either historical inaccuracies or
significant inconsistencies were found in the text. Given then that the Gospels
are historically accurate, their detractors argue that what is claimed by
Christians is not supported by the evidence found in the New Testament. Some
objections would be that Christ did not actually die on the cross, that He never
claimed to be God in the flesh, etc. However, the documentation of the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ as detailed in the four Gospels contains enough
evidence to convince any actual court in the land. Even if I can see that what's
in the Gospels is everything you tell me and everything sort of makes sense, you
still haven't convinced me that the writers, the Apostles, and even the so
called eyewitnesses didn't conspire to sell this hoax to the gullible of their
times. Either they were self-deluded or they did it for the same reasons people
propagate religions today. Prestige, power, and money. Both history and tradition tell
us that those leaders who might have had something to gain in promoting a lie
live lives that were mostly impoverished. They were imprisoned, scourged, banished,
and persecuted while maintaining their so-called deception. All but one of the
Apostles, tradition says, died a martyr's death. They were either so incredibly
deluded by their own lie as to continue the charade through the worst of
consequences without one of them breaking ranks and denying it, or they
were telling the truth.
There have been many religious leaders of major world religions. How do they
compare with the leader of Christianity, Jesus Christ? All of these leaders of
world religions point to a way to God. Jesus Christ said he was the way. He used
the definite article. In fact, he went beyond that. He said, I am God. He said, I
and the Father are one. That is the most important distinctive. But he backed up
his claims through the immutable fact of the resurrection. Jesus Christ demonstrated
that he was God because he had the power to lay down his life and to take it up
again. In fact, the resurrection is the singular doctrine which elevated
Christianity above all of the pagan religions of the Mediterranean world. It
is the very capstone in the arch of Christianity. When it is removed, all else
crumbles. Through the resurrection, Jesus Christ demonstrated that he does not
stand in a line of peers with Baha'i, or Buddha, or Laodicea, or Confucius, or
Zoroaster, or any other religious leaders. He demonstrated through the
resurrection that he was, in fact, God. Jesus Christ not only died to be our
Savior, he lives to be our Lord, and he demonstrated that he was Lord through the
undeniable fact of the resurrection. The resurrection is the most well-attested
fact of ancient history. In fact, Dr. Simon Greenleaf was an atheist and a Jew.
He denied the resurrection. He didn't believe that Jesus Christ was even a
historical being. One of his students at Harvard goaded him into looking at the
evidence for the resurrection. They said, Dr. Greenleaf, you are the greatest
authority who's ever lived in the history of the world when it comes to
legal evidences, those evidences admissible in a court of law, yet you
deny the resurrection. Wouldn't it be more intelligent for you to first look
at the evidence and then accept it or reject it based on what you find? Thus
goaded, Dr. Simon Greenleaf began to look at all of the evidence for the
resurrection, and after an exhaustive study, Dr. Greenleaf said this, there is
not a single unbiased jury in the world who would look at the evidence and ever
deny it. It is incontrovertible, and Dr. Simon Greenleaf became a Christian. The
Bible says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your
heart, God raised him from the dead, you will in fact be saved. And the two steps
it takes to be saved boil down to this. Number one, repentance means a u-turn on
the road of life. It means no longer living by the dictates of your own will,
but turning and following Jesus Christ, making him the Lord and Savior of your
life. It means repentance. Jesus Christ himself when he walked this earth said,
repent and believe the good news. Now to demonstrate that you believe means that
you are willing to receive. It means more than having knowledge in your head. It
means more than agreeing that the knowledge you have is accurate. It means
to trust and depend in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Let me make that
tangible. You could be sick and have a medicine in your hand. You could believe
that that medicine could cure you. In fact, you could know it could cure you. You
could agree it's cured other people, but until you take it, it won't do you any
good. In comparing world religions, we should also compare their leaders. A look
at religious leaders show that all were ordinary men with many flaws. All lived
and died and left their dead bodies behind. Jesus Christ, however, claimed to
be God in the flesh. During his public life, he was constantly under heavy
scrutiny and was ultimately found to be a man without fault. During his life, death,
and resurrection, Jesus fulfilled 333 prophecies, many of them made hundreds of
years prior to his birth. No religious leader before or since Jesus died for
the love of his people. No one voluntarily suffered cruel agony to
forgive the sins of their followers or ever claimed that they had the power to
do it. Nor the religious leader performed the quality or the quantity of miracles
that Jesus performed. And yet by far his most astounding and significant miracle
was that of his resurrection. There were numerous prophecies in the Bible which
were fulfilled in the life of Christ, which show that he was the Messiah, the
Son of God. In order to blunt the force of this supernatural fulfillment of
prophecy, critics have said that Jesus force-fulfilled or manipulated events in
order to fulfill these prophecies. This view was popularized in a book by
Schoenfield entitled The Passover Plot. Just to show how ridiculous critics can
get, let me point out that there were a number of things that Jesus could not
possibly have manipulated. Right behind me is a classic example. The old town of
Bethlehem. Micah 5 2 said that Jesus would be born in this town. Now how do
you force-fulfill or manipulate where you're going to be born? So the event of
Christ's birth was not manipulated. It was a divine confirmation of his claim
to be the Son of God. Along the shores of Galilee, Jesus entered into the city of
Capernaum. There he entered into a house and a throng of people had followed him
to the house. In this house he made one of his claims to be God. On this occasion,
Jesus looked at a man whom they had let down through the roof because they
couldn't get in for the crowd and he said, your sins be forgiven you. The
scribes who were standing around said, who can forgive sins but God only?
Recognizing his claim to be God. Perceiving that they had said this, Jesus
said, which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or arise and walk? In order
that you may know that I'm the Son of Man, I'm going to say to the man arise
and walk. He did and the man walked away with his palette. Jesus claimed to be God
but he proved it by performing supernatural acts.
Jesus Christ did rise from the dead and he left overwhelming evidence. In fact,
the New Testament records that over 500 people saw Jesus Christ after the
resurrection. He showed them his hands with the scars. He showed them his side.
He said, give me fish and I can eat. Jesus Christ proved himself alive by many
infallible proofs. The scriptures tell us that he was the Son of God that he
claimed to be. Some years ago I was sharing with the skeptic and he didn't
believe that God existed and so I gave him a brief argument for the existence
of God that if the universe had a beginning it must have a beginner. If the
universe showed design it must have a designer. Being convinced that there was
some kind of God and therefore that miracles were possible, I gave him a book
by a converted skeptic named Frank Morrison, Who Moved the Stone. The author
narrates how he started out to disprove Christianity but in the process of doing
it he wrote a book in confirmation of the resurrection of Christ. I shared this
with my friend and he read the book and as I talked to him again I said, what do
you think of the evidence for the resurrection of Christ? He said, I think
it's very convincing and we bowed our heads together and prayed and he
received Christ as his living Lord and Savior. Some years later he visited this
very tomb. He was overcome with emotion and broke out in tears of rejoicing that
Jesus Christ had risen from the dead and who vacated the tomb permanently on
Easter morning.
It is really difficult to classify true Christianity as a religion. For in
religions you have man's endeavor to reach God. You have man starting with an
earth base trying to reach up to the infinite God and starting with an earth
base it's impossible to reach to the infinite. In Christianity you have the
infinite God reaching down to the finite man for God so loved the world he gave
his only begotten son. Where I can see the absolute impossibility of reaching
from the finite to the infinite I can see where it would be no problem at all
for the infinite to reach to the finite and so we have in Christianity God
reaching down to touch lost man in order that he might redeem him in order that he
might bring him into fellowship with the living eternal God. Christianity is a
relationship rather than a religion and the question is do you have a meaningful
relationship with God today? This is only possible through Christianity and Jesus
Christ. He said I am the way the truth and the light and no man cometh to the
Father but by me. We pray that you might find the way to God through Jesus Christ.
Within all of us there is a God-shaped vacuum. Throughout the ages man has
attempted to fill that void with the things of the world but it is only
through a relationship with our Creator that we can be truly satisfied. His holy
scriptures reveal the way in which we can be reconciled to God and that is
through the provisions of his son Jesus Christ. I'm Chuck Smith and I'm Carol
Matriciana. Join us again for another edition of The Pagan Invasion.
The Pagan Invasion is an explosive new 13-part video series providing a thorough
behind-the-scenes examination of today's New Age movement and neo-pagan revival.
Each superbly produced volume features rare footage from around the world along
with expert analysis by noted Christian leaders and authors. For more information
contact your local Christian bookstore or call 1-800-828-2290. California
residents call 1-800-633-0869.