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.
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. For more information contact your local
Christian leaders and authors. For more information contact your local Christian bookstore or call 1-800-633-0869.
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. For more information contact your local
Christian leaders and authors. For more information contact your local Christian bookstore or call 1-800-633-0869.
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.
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's 70% 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, that 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,
just 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 ten 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 and 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,
the 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 five 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 is a polytheistic belief
in an ascending masters of wisdom. There is also a renewed interest today among kids for
godlike characters which we find in games like Dungeons and Dragons with its underworld
deities and popular toys such as He-Man and She-Ra, the 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 in 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. 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? 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. Then a young man was digging along the Tigris
River and he uncovered a brick. 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 archaeologist's 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? 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 Muslim's 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 have 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 A.D., 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 eleven
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. And one of the reasons for this is that some of the Old Testament was written
before a thousand B.C., but the earliest major manuscripts of the Old Testament came from
a thousand A.D. So we have two thousand years gap, and they say 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 did not 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 has 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.
No other 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 pallet. 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 a 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 life, 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.
1-800-633-0869.