Transcription
If I stand here and tell you I'm a follower of Christ, and then you watch me go out and womanize after I finish speaking, I think there's a lot of biblical evidence that points to the fact that I'm not a true follower of Christ. I'm a hypocrite. But obviously, followers of Christ sin. The question is, are they genuinely sorry for that sin, or are they not?
I can say I'm a follower of Christ, and Jesus was the first Republican. Well, obviously Jesus was not the first Republican. He wasn't the first Democrat either. Now, I don't think that someone who makes that statement is necessarily rejecting Christ, but I obviously think they're perverting Christ.
How much, how how far do you go with, yeah, the picture in my church about Jesus is Jesus the dude with blonde hair and blue eyes and lily white skin? And the reason I have that picture of Jesus hanging in my room is because it makes me feel better about my race, my ethnic heritage. Well, obviously Jesus did not have blonde hair and blue eyes and lily white skin. So how far can you twist Jesus and still be a follower of Jesus? That's a very difficult question, and I'm very grateful that I'm not going to have to make that judgment call. You and I will stand before the all-knowing God, and he will judge us for the way we have created God in our own image, instead of for the way we have responded to all the truth that God has revealed about himself.
Was Jesus a capitalist? Obviously not. Was Jesus a socialist or a communist? Obviously not. Obviously, Jesus taught that the way to solve the world's problems was not through the conservative agenda or through the liberal agenda. Jesus did not say, "Seek first Karl Marx's path or Adam Smith's path." Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you."
As, well, the promise is that we will have eternal life if we accept Jesus. Yes, correct. Uh, but there are the passages in the Gospels which I'm, I know you're totally familiar with, uh, where Jesus talks about, uh, some of the people that are listening to him at that time will be alive when he returns. Uh, and apparently then Jesus came back later and told Paul something similar, because Paul's telling people, "Hey, it's going to happen so soon, don't even bother to get married," or "You shouldn't get married because this is going to happen soon." Yet, 80 generations of people who believe this have died believing Jesus is going to come back soon, and he didn't. So the obvious question is, if, uh, if Jesus, who supposedly a perfect, infallible, all-knowing, uh, all-powerful being, is telling us that he's going to come back while some of the people that are alive there that day, you know, are still going to be alive, and he's then telling that to Paul either in visitations or when Paul goes up to heaven, why should we trust this?
Good question. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says, "Some of you who are right here will see the kingdom of God come in its glory." And those verses are right before the Transfiguration of Christ, when Peter, James, and John see Jesus transfigured, taking on a glorified form. Second passage in Matthew, chapter 24, Jesus says, "Those of you, this generation will not pass away until these things occur." And so the question is, what does he mean? My take on those verses is the generation that sees these signs that are going to precede the return of Christ, that generation is going to receive the return of Christ. Obviously, I'm convinced that those signs have not yet occurred.
So you take it as he was not talking about the people who were listening to him, correct? But some other generation, those related to these signs, right? Thirdly, Paul, you're right. Paul lived with an expectation that Christ was coming back again real soon. And guess what, sir? That's the way I'm supposed to live my life as a follower of Christ. I'm to live my life as if Jesus could return tonight.
Well, is there possibly one other alternative? And this is admittedly a slim alternative, based on on limited evidence from, uh, the New Testament. Uh, Jesus did come back in a sense after he died, because he came back and saw the apostles, and there were at least physical visitations, and some or some of them are presented as physical, and some of them as perhaps maybe not physical. As you go on through, uh, there's one of the Gospels at least that I recall that talks about, uh, after Jesus dies, the, the graves and tombs in Jerusalem open up, and the dead in very gruesome form, uh, are walking around. Given the, uh, given the expectations of what would happen when Jesus comes back, on the Judgment Day, that the dead would rise and be judged, isn't it also reasonable to say that there's some evidence in the Gospels for the fact that Jesus already did come back, and that whatever he meant by the kingdom of God, either did not happen, or it's something, this is it, in some sense, that we don't understand?
Well, when you read Mark chapter 24, no, excuse me, Matthew chapter 24, Mark chapter 13, Luke chapter 21, it becomes real clear that Jesus talked about his second coming when there would be a day of judgment, when there would be eternal life. So, no, to argue that Jesus Christ has come back now, in light of his description of his second coming, that every eye would see him, no, he hasn't returned yet. When he returns a second time, human history will come to a close. There will be a day of judgment. There'll be a real heaven and a real hell, and that does not yet exist.
Well, but there, there is some evidence that that some of the people at least who were writing back then may have thought that that that that had happened then. And in terms of, uh, the graves opening and the dead rising, and Thomas being able to place his hands, uh, in the wounds of Jesus, Jesus being talked about as the first fruits of the, of the resurrection of the, uh, and coming judgment, and understanding, of course, Paul talks about the new body, that that you mentioned. If, if the dead arising in Jerusalem in in fairly gruesome form, if Thomas is placing his hands in the wounds of the dead Jesus, obviously we're not talking about perfect bodies for either the first, you know, fruits of this or this other evidence of people, you know, walking around dead. Doesn't that present at least a contradiction that maybe either Paul had it wrong, or that Jesus is somehow not the first fruits, or that the dead really weren't, uh, getting up out of their graves, uh, in their gruesome forms in Jerusalem, as if it were kind of Judgment Day?
Well, Jesus raised Lazarus to life. The problem for Lazarus was he had to do his dying a second time. Those guys who came out of the graves when Jesus was crucified, the problem for them was they had to die a second time. When Jesus rose from the dead, he did not die a second time. He rose. He's alive today. He has eternal life.
But do not the wounds suggest that, uh, there's no perfect, uh, body involved either physical or spiritual necessarily, since he is should be the perfect example of of those first fruits of that kind of event?
No, to argue that because Thomas could see the nail prints in Christ's hands and the spirit in his side, therefore Christ didn't have a perfect resurrection body, is to define perfect resurrection body obviously in a way that Christ did.
Well, sounds, sounds contradictory to me. No, there's no contradiction, none whatsoever.
What do it say, Christian, um, philosophy, that Jesus actually said that he was God? Because some places said that he said he was the Son of God, and Muslims believe that he was a prophet, sir, not a son. So it say in the Bible that I am God? You say that? How does that work, exactly?
Good question. In John 8:58, Jesus looks into the face of monotheistic Jews and he says, "Before Abraham was born, I am." The Jews did not call God G-O-D. They called him Yahweh, Jehovah, which is the Hebrew verb "to be." Moses, in Exodus 3, stands at the burning bush. God tells him to go back into Egypt and lead the Jewish slaves out. And Moses asks, "What's your name? Who should I say sent me?" And God responds from the burning bush, "I am who I am. Tell them I am has sent you." Very deliberately, Jesus took the name of the eternal, pre-existent God, "I am," and applied it to himself in John 8:58. There was no misunderstanding with his listeners. They picked up stones to stone him for blaspheming.
Now, I, the way it could be interpreted is that person, any person would be a part of God in that sense. He could be a part, but not necessarily God, right? Like trees are part of God. Like you are part of God, and you can say, "I am." I mean, I don't know if you get this. This is Sufi philosophy. But I'm just saying that just because a person says, "I am," you could be saying, "I am a part."
Good. You're absolutely right. I could stand out here and say, "I am part of God." You are part of God. The tree is part of God. But let's be real clear and honest with each other. If I say that, I am not a follower of monotheism that the Torah teaches. If I say that I'm not a follower of Jesus Christ, who repeated the Shema of Israel in Mark 12 when he said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." If I stand out here and say, "The tree is part of God, I'm part of God, and you're part of God," then I have brought into monism, the oneness of God, that everything is one, everything is part of God. That is the foundation of Hinduism. But that monism is in stark contradiction to monotheism, which teaches there is one God. That monism contradicts Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, for that monism teaches that everything is part of God, and that's obviously the bedrock for Hinduism and a lot of the Eastern religions.
So how, how's it contrast? I mean, you can say that there's one God and everything is a part of it, right? And why would there be a contrast to that?
Okay, the Bible, the Torah, the Old Testament teaches that God is the Creator, and you and I and the trees are part of the creation, which means you and I are not the Creator. We are part of the, uh, creation. God is transcended. The Bible teaches God is separate from you and from me. Now, Hinduism teaches, "No, everything is part of God. You're part of God, I'm part of God." But the Torah and the New Testament teach, uh-uh, God is a separate being who actually loves you and loves me, not because we're part of him. We have our own unique individuality. You are you, I am me. I am not part of you, you're not part of me, and I'm not part of God. God is a separate being who actually loves you and loves me and created us to live in relationship with him.
But if you form a relationship with him, then we become a part, in a way. I'm not saying in a literal way, but in a prayerful way, we can say that. Okay, you and I are having a conversation now because you and I are conversing. Am I part of you? Are you part of me? No, right? Because we're human beings. When I mean there's a higher power, then you can connect with it on on that level to say you're a part of that thing, achieve oneness with the thing, but still be separate. You know, if there's a drop that you put in the river, then it becomes the river. There's no drop.
Good point. If a drop falls into a river, it becomes part of the river. That's a great definition of nirvana, where we become absorbed with everything. But you see, in heaven, according to the New Testament, you will have a new body. I will have a new body. You will retain your uniqueness. I will retain my uniqueness, and we will continue to get to know God better and to get to know each other better. That's one of the contradictions between Nirvana and Heaven, two different, uh, worldviews.
Yes, sir. God is, uh, a loving God who wants us to be with him in heaven. Why is it that he made the way to get to heaven only through Jesus? Why did he make it so narrow? And instead of just saying, well, as long as you place your faith in any religion and are earnestly seeking after it, you can be with him?
Great question. This gentleman asks, if God really does love us so much, if he really does want us to live eternity with him in heaven, then why has he given us such a narrow way through Jesus Christ to heaven? Why not just believe in any religion, and if you just sort of honestly believe in any religion, that's cool?
First point, if God were to have allowed for a hundred ways to heaven, I'd be looking for the 101st way. If God would have provided a thousand ways to heaven, I would be looking for the thousand and one first way. What's enough? Now, Jesus Christ revealed that God is real, and because he's real, he communicates that there are false prophets, there's error. And God has revealed the truth about himself by becoming man in Jesus. Now, what Jesus points out in the Gospel of John is that if I look at Jesus and don't like what I see, the one in essence I got a problem with is God. And Jesus communicated that it was his death on the cross that is the vehicle through which God offers me forgiveness. Now, maybe I don't think I need forgiveness. Maybe I think I can atone for my own sin by piling up brownie points with God. But Jesus points out, you can't. Cliff, you can never make up for your sin. It takes a perfect sacrifice, and that's what Jesus claimed to be. So the reason that Jesus is the only way to God is because of his death on a cross, where he lays down his life to pay the penalty for sin. Jesus himself warned, "Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves." Obviously, the terrorists who flew those jetliner airliners into the World Trade Center on September 11th believed in God. Obviously, they had a very sincere belief. They wouldn't have committed suicide if they weren't very sincere. But I'm afraid they were sincerely wrong. Which means the test for the validity of faith is not its sincerity. The test for the validity of faith is the credibility, the reliability of the object you put your faith in. Let's say that you got a ton of faith, and you put your ton of faith in thin ice. You walk out on that ice, and I don't care how sincere your faith is, you're going to fall through into the water. Let's say you got a little bit of faith in thick ice. When you walk out on that thick ice, you're not going to fall through. You see, the ultimate test for one's faith is not, "Are you sincere or not?" Rather, the ultimate test of your faith is, is the object of your faith, whoever or whatever you're trusting in, reliable or not?
I'm, I'm, I'm not an atheist, but I'm not, I don't believe in God. So it's like, am I not me? Can I not love? Can I not be free?
Ma'am, I'm convinced that you love. I'm convinced that you have free will. But if you say, Cliff, I believe there is no God, then you're really in a jam. Because if there is no God, what you call love and what you call free will does not exist.
But who are you to say that? I mean, it's not me saying it. It's a question of thinking it through logically. If there is no God, there's no spirit. If there is no God, there are no intangible values like love floating around.
Yes, but why? Why? Because if there is no God, reality is simple matter and energy. It's a simple issue of defining reality. What is real? Well, go to your biology class, find out what's real. Matter, energy are real. Have you ever seen a foot of justice? Have you ever measured a pound of love? I doubt it. Which means if you're going to define reality as no God, no spiritual being, no Creator, evolving, evolving, evolving, and then we have Homo sapiens by accident. All Homo sapiens is, man is matter and energy evolved to a higher order. That's all we are. So don't talk to me about spirit, soul, free will, love. Talk to me about sex drive, a biological drive. Talk to me about a drive to preserve the genetic pool. You know, like birds take care of their little babies because they want to preserve the bird species.
Yes, but I believe they also take care of their little babies because they genuinely love them. They might not love them on a scale that we love people, but I mean, it's not like the babies are the mothers are like, okay, I have little babies and that's about it. You know, they protect their babies. You know, the father protects their babies. They feed for the. What is love? You can't explain that. No one can explain what love is. But I generally, I mean, I, I felt love before, but I don't necessarily believe in God. So does that mean I haven't felt love?
No, everybody feels love. The point though is, if you're an atheist, you're up a creek without a paddle when it comes to explaining what is this thing called love. Because if you're an atheist, look, look, think what the atheist is saying. The atheist is saying, "I know the universe so well that I know there is no God." Excuse me, I certainly don't know the universe that well that I know that somewhere out there there's not something or someone. But an atheist is someone who is limiting reality. An atheist is someone who says, "I know that reality does not include God." There's no God. Fine. Then what does reality include? Matter and energy, right? I mean, do you want to deny matter? Do you want to deny energy? I doubt it. I think you'd be laughed off this university campus. So you can't deny matter and energy. But you've already said there is no God. So what is love? What is justice? What is kindness? It's some form of matter and energy, that's all it is.
But why is God necessarily the Creator, the end all of everything? Like, okay, you see, if there's a God, it means there's a personal being with personality, with character. There's a living being who creates you and gives you a certain wiring, gifts, free will, the ability to love, a conscience, the ability to distinguish between good and evil. But you see, if you wipe God out of the picture, you reduce reality to matter and energy, and all you've got is complex combinations of matter and energy. If you're an atheist, you're reducing reality to matter and energy. So what is love? What is free will? What is justice? Now, I'm sorry, my experience is you're not a machine. My experience is you have a free will. That's why if you slap him in the face, I'm going to look you in the face and say, "You should not have done that." And if you turn to me and say, "I'm sorry, I had to slap him," I'm going to look you in the face and say, "No, you did not have to slap the guy. You chose to slap him."
Let me give you one more example. I hopefully this will clarify it. I was having this exact discussion with a guy right out here three years ago. The guy said, "I'm an atheist." I said, "Fine. Reality is matter and energy." He said, "You bet." I said, "Fine. Morality is relative." He said, "You bet. There are no moral absolutes." I said, "Fine. Is date rape ever permissible?" He said, "Absolutely yes." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because, because I have a very, very strong sex drive, and because I have a stronger sex drive than you do, Cliff, I date rape." And see, he's being consistent. He's saying, "Reality's matter and energy. You have your own matter and energy that have given you a sex drive. That's cool. You express it one way. Cliff, I have to date rape because my biochemical makeup is such that I have this incredibly strong, strong sex drive, and I just have to date rape." Okay. I looked the guy in the face and said, "No, I disagree with you totally. You might have a very strong sex drive, but you don't have to date rape. You can exercise your free will and say, 'I choose not to express my strong sex drive that way. I choose to respect a woman and not rape her.'" Do you see the two different worldviews?
Just because someone doesn't believe in God doesn't mean that they don't have compassion. I didn't, did not mean to communicate that. My atheist friends will hold the hands of dying people and comfort them. In fact, all of my atheist friends happen to be people of great compassion. So that was not my point. I'm sorry, I miscommunicated. My point was, all of my compassionate atheist friends, if they're consistent in their thinking regarding atheism, have to face the despair of life. There's no hope for life beyond the grave. Which means when a child dies, that's it. And if you think about that, that means despair. Let me repeat, all of my atheist friends are very compassionate people. So that was not my point. I'm sorry, I miscommunicated. My point was, all of my compassionate atheist friends, if they're consistent in their thinking regarding atheism, have to face the despair of life. There's no hope for life beyond the grave. Which means if you get cancer as a child and die, that's it. There's no future for you. So let's just be honest now. If that's true, I want to face that. What I find amazing is how many of my atheist friends, when they are confronted by the death of a child, get real sentimental and all of a sudden they start talking about, "Well, we're going to see each other one day." Whoo, time out. If there is no God, we are not going to see each other again. One day when we die, we become fertilizer. That's it. And all I want you to do, my atheist friends, is face reality. If that's your understanding of reality. See, my point is this. I say I'm a follower of Christ. You watch me go out and womanize. You'll point your finger at me and say, "Cliff, you are one hypocrite." And you'd be right. You'd be absolutely right. If I say that I'm a follower of Christ and I'll go out and womanize, what an incredible hypocrite I am. I say I believe one thing and then I live the opposite. I'm just doing the same thing to you atheists. I'm saying, if you're going to tell me there is no God, that that's what you believe, then don't go on and tell me that you're going to see your dead loved ones one day. Uh-uh. You're being an intellectual hypocrite. If there is no God, if you're atheist, then face the logical conclusion. When we die, we all become fertilizer. So don't throw this sentimental slop around at some funeral service about, "Oh boy, we're going to see you one day again," and "Boy, you know, we're going to play golf together again one day." Bud, no, we ain't playing golf ever. We're dead.
Thanks for raising that issue. Thought my study going into the fact that there could be afterlife, uh, based on like really like physical, like scientific, like phenomena. It's like energy. You can't just destroy energy. And the mind is like an energy force. Therefore, when you do, like, when you die, like your mind still like goes on. Like you can't just, you can't just like destroy energy. It just changes form. That like your personal self could go on. So I'm just like, want to say like, it's not necessarily like nothing. Like I just want to throw that out.
Okay, fine. I think that's a possibility. The idea is I have energy, and when I die, the energy goes somewhere else. Fine. But I'm convinced that this conversation that I've had with you today, that I really enjoyed and I really appreciate the way you've talked to me and respected me, and I thank you. I'm, to tell you the truth, really interested in spending eternity with you and getting to know you better, because I've not had the privilege to get to know you very well. And if your afterlife is energy, meaning by that, fertilizer that helps a flower grow, I ain't too interested in that. I'm interested in you. Be honest with you. I like you.
That's what I'm saying. Like, like your energy goes on, like as like, like how, like you can say, like you have, like you're saying, yesterday I was like listening, like you can prove, like the existence of your brain. It's hard to prove, like the existence of like the mind, like that's separate. Saying like that separate energy is you, is what goes on, just like energy that make, make, all right.
But I agree with Solomon when he writes in Ecclesiastes 3:11, "God has set eternity in the hearts of men." So I think you two gentlemen have a longing, as I do, to live eternal life. If there is no God, is there really a soul? Is there a me? Uh-uh.
I'd like to invite you to Grace Community Church, located at 365 Elwood Road in New Canaan, Connecticut. Our services are at 9:30 AM and 5:30 PM on Sundays. Hope you can join us.