CRAZY




CHRIST






The evidence shows that Buddha was a fraud. Also that Mohammed was a mental case that claimed his hallucinations were visions from God.

Focus on the feeling you had when I said that. I'm sure you felt at least resistance, and maybe even outrage. Why? Because to negate those two respected men means making ALL Buddhism or Islam a lie.

Have you ever heard critics of Christianity call Jesus a fraud? Ever hear Jesus characterized as a mental case? Why not? Same reason why those terms aren't used in connection with Buddha or Mohammed or Confucius. The work and teachings of these men is so well respected worldwide that such detractions aren't taken seriously. People will immeiately counter that those millions of Buddhists, who have helped many people, can't be acting on some fraudulent belief system. or they might just punch your nose.

I've not seen or heard anyone try to refute Jesus existence. I've heard some say that there's no concrete evidence, but they don't go so far as to demand that Jesus never lived. Of course this opinion is reached by excluding the Bible as an historically viable record. Most all detractors of Jesus will concede his existence.

Well, given his existence, was Jesus a man, or an android? Was he just an ape with body-shave? Jesus was a male aw-dahm; the Hebrew word for human being.

Once historically established, Jesus becomes, indeed must become a Good and Wise teacher. We must ignore MOST of what he said. I guess you know that Jesus had more to say than his "sermon on the mount." When you collect the body of Jesus' sayings, you'll find a large majority of the statements above and beyond the call of humanity. We generally reject people whose talk smacks of the supernatural. We're sure that humans can only guess at the eternal and supernatural. "Nobody really knows what Heaven is like," is an apt remark.

What are our sources for Jesus' life; his sayings and actions? There aren't many. The Bible, of course. The Dead Sea Scrolls. Josephus, the first century historian. There's even the hypothetical "Q Document" which scholars say is a now-lost list of Jesus' sayings taken down by perhaps Matthew. That's about it.

Whatever the source, we find Jesus saying and doing pretty much the same things. But what we must keep firmly in mind for later is that ALL the detractors of Jesus will be found using those same sources. Parts of them. The parts that suit their arguments.

It is very important that we understand the reality of ALL of what Jesus said. We aren't to at any time give some kind of spiritual or symbolic meaning to some of Jesus statements. When He's not telling a parable and obviously speaking in symbol, we must take his statements at face value: no matter our feeling of their implausibility. When he says that he knows or has seen what goes on in heaven, we must conclude that he's been there.

We must NOT conclude that he's speaking symbolically of some spiritual state of mind to be attained by following his teaching or whatever.

That leads to some of the other things Jesus said that are hard for us to hear, from a mere human. What would you think of someone who told you that they really were over two thousand years old? How about if that person said that they saw the supreme devil, Satan, fired from his heavenly job?

Oh sure, you might allow some very special people to say that they had visions of such things, but not the actual experience. Neither would we let anyone persuade us that he or she had the authority to let us off of our bad behavior; including lying, theft, adultery, even murder. Even a Supreme Court Justice would be impeached if, based solely on his own authority, he pronounced some "forgiven" of such high crimes.

Mere humans don't have the right to forgive people's misuse of others.

Well, there's more. Jesus went as far as to tell us that he was the center of the religious universe. No forgiveness of impropriety, no fulfillment of our spiritual longing, no chance of gaining the immortality for which the human race has always sought could be had without his involvement. He went on about how the Father had put him in charge of saving the world. "I, am the: Way, Truth, Light, Rest, and Much More. He sounded like Caruso warming up; me, me, me, me, me, me, me. He even said that his death would be enough to fix all the things that were wrong with humanity. Anyone basing his life on such sayings would have to be as complete a fool as the one making the statements; given that the statements were made by a human being.

Well, that's not the end of it. We might, by some stretch of the imagination allow someone to say those things. What can it hurt? Let him babble on. Were that same one to proclaim that he indeed was going to be killed, and that three days later would come back to life and you could come and see him, I'm sure you and all humans would entertain at the least doubts if not open derision of that person. But that's precisely what Jesus said. Come onl Listen to this Nut!

You see, when a proper study of Jesus is done, and all of his sayings digested, one finds more irrational talk than rational. He was always spouting supernatural stuff; and that, like we speak of our daily routine. When we talk about the place we live, we have a certain aire of authority that pervades our speech. We talk like someone who KNOWS. We're not uncertain about the color of that chair in the front room.

Now let's contrast Jesus with the founders of Buddhism, etc. Remember these are respected men whose followers have accomplished very positive things in history. Not until centuries after he said he was nothing did the followers of Buddha make him Divine, claiming that he must have been divine to have said such things. No mere person could display such spiritual enlightenment. Buddha made no claims about his worth or spiritual condition.

Same thing with Mohammed. He based his teachings on visions only. He never claimed to have the inside track to God. And Confucius only offered a logically deduced method of dealing with this physical life and didn't want even to be asked about the next. Certainly Confucius never took the Divine stance that Jesus took.

Jesus acts and sayings are most like those we'd expect from a charlatan; or a demon. And there were those Pharisees that said Jesus WAS an instrument of Satan. It's interesting how we might not be totally incredulous if someone calling themselves a devil were to make claims like the ones Jesus made. We're ready to believe in the darker magic while denying the magic of Light. Why even Jesus family, after many miracles, sought to lay hands on Jesus, thinking him insane.

Jesus must have been insane. He claimed that he would come back to life. Of all the improbable things he said, this was the least hearable by us. We know for sure that coming back to life after seventy-two hours is humanly impossible. Rave on, Lord!

Most folks have the idea that real deep research or study isn't necessary when it comes to spiritual matters. Most things spiritual are right inside us and we don't have to verify our insides. We just feel the rightness. And fail to take into account that we are capable of making mistakes. Folks who are very careful and prudent in other areas of life have come to believe that they can get along trusting their eternal souls to some come-and-go feeling they had. Who ever would buy a house or car on appearance alone; or how it made them feel? Wouldn't you at least want to kick the tires?

The erroneous conclusion that evidential research is unnecessary, leads people to assume that our physical laws can found Jesus' life, as well as our own. Therefore there can't be any real evidence upholding the claim of Jesus' resurrection. With that attitude, one would hardly be exposed to the considerable evidence available.

That leaves people with the choice of accepting Jesus' claims or making sure they don't give them any credence by calling Jesus some kind of above average teacher or prophet, etc. They will allow everything but Jesus supernatural side. I ask you, how can you divide up a person like that. Did he only have the truth when it came to the meek inheriting the earth? Can one really be the final judge of what was or was not truth in Jesus' sayings? Of course not.

He was a really rotten teacher if any part of his lesson was false. In fact you can't call him teacher at all. You can't even call him good; just in case some may want to class him in with the good-intentioned feeble-minded.

Let's take a common sense look at the facts. We'll only consider some universally accepted facts of history. For instance, I've never heard anyone try to refute the beginning of the Christian belief system back in 33 AD. Christianity is a world religion, isn't it? Of course, it had a beginning. I told you these were going to be universally accepted facts. We don't want to leave room for ambiguity, and therefore personal interpretation.

We also know with surety that the Christian message of Jesus was preached over a wide expanse of the globe by a special handful of men who were personally with Jesus for three-plus

years before his death. From Paul in England to Thomas in India, the story of Christ's resurrection went across the globe.

Christianity is somewhat unique in that way compared to other world religions. Confucianism, Buddhism, and Islam never asaulted the world with missionaries. Christianity could track someone down better than the Mafia; they went everywhere, there was no escape. There's even evidence that many Palestinian Jews who fled the persecution of 70 AD came to north America and settled in the Appalachian mountains. It's certainly possible that some of those immigrants were Christian Jews. The word got around is the point.

Next point. The Word stayed around for the last two thousand years. Hardly a flash-in-the-pan belief system. Not many religions can claim that kind of longevity. Hard to invalidate such a long lived religion.

We also must take account of the thousands of converts to the Way. People converted in droves. People over the intervening 2000 years have continued to swell the ranks of Christianity. They're everywhere.

Let's get back to the Apostles; those who started the ball rolling after Jesus' death. Again, the irrefutable fact is that they endured persecution for what they preached. Two facts. They preached, and they got beat up.

Some, it can be inferred, went through drastic psycological changes. Peter's impulsive behavior was missing when he addressed a mocking crowd on the day of Pentacost, when 3000 conversions gave birth to the Church. Thomas, who is characterized as the Doubter has enough certainty of mind to tackle the high philosophy of India, with their millions of Gods.

Another preacher that has historical acceptance is Paul. No one doubts his existence, or the fact that he switched sides just when the battle of the Jews against the Christians was heating up, with himself at the forefront.

Not only did he convert to Christianity, he became the ONE voice that seemed to influence the world most. He even wrote a majority of the New Testament.

That doesn't exhaust the list of historical facts, but let's pause to consider what we've got already. We have a world-class religion, one with staying power in the face of terrible, constant, global persecution. They're hard headed these Christians. In the microcosm we've got folks whose lives were changed so radically that they became the main source of Spiritual food to billions of people over the course of 2000 years.

Does that sound to you like a construct unfounded in truth? Is it really possible for the adherents of some man to continue his ideas so actively and for so long a period of time after his death? How many people today have even heard of Madame Blavotsky? I think the size and longevity of a belief system are directly proportional to the Real power contained in the system. And that power, of course, is the systems' truth. The Buddhists didn't get so big or last so long because Buddha was good looking and could talked pretty. There must be strong underpinning truth in Buddhism. Same with Christianity. That's why people can't call Christianity a sham; even though they deny it's supernatural aspects.

We've yet to address the maior historical facts that need to be included in our evidence. All the Apostles , save one, were martyred. We've got to get out of our spiritual gears here. We've got to feel that martyrdom. Remember all those movies about burning people at the stake? Remember seeing the enemies being dragged through the streets? How about if the times we witnessed the criminal getting his just lashes they continued the scene until they had slowly removed all his skin with the whip?

I know that a case can be made for some individual, or even a fair sized group, to labor under a false belief. The suicide pilots of World War Two have always been admired, but not for the belief that motivated their self-destruction. But how many millions of Christians have been martyred down through history? Were they ALL deluded? Are all the Christians of today deluded? That they are, just doesn't make any common sense at all.

We're not through with the Apostles. Going back to the days when they started will be very instructive. For this scenario, we're going to take the position that most detractors of Jesus and Christianity take. Jesus was a man. Men don't raise from the dead.

Here's what that indicates. The Apostles, for whatever reason, pumped up they're story to the point that they declared that Jesus had raised from the dead; even sailed off into heaven.

Now we'll go off stage and construct a scene, like drama students sometimes do to give themselves a workable background for their character. We won't include any dialogue, though.

The scene opens with the Apostles sitting around in a curtained room,soon after the tomb of Jesus was found empty. They are cowed; probably by the fear of the mob mentality pervasive in Jerusalem. They know that association with Jesus was more than frowned upon. Their talk mainly centers around how to escape the same fate of their missing teacher. Stay? Get away? What? They decide to lay low for a few weeks to let things cool down. These are troubled times and the people will soon forget. Then maybe they can get back to fishing. That would be a likely scenario if they really didn't know what happened to the body. Of course, as soon as the "cool down" period was over, forty-nine days, they went out and confronted a jeering mob. So, that scenario breaks down in a hurry.

Let's try a different scene. This is the scene right before the day of Pentacost. Again, the Apostles are hunched around a table in that curtained room. However, this time they are firing questions at one another, critiquing the answers as they go. Finally, they settle on an implausible but irrefutable story. Because in seven weeks no one has been able to come up with the body of Jesus, the Apostles decide to say that he fulfilled some of his vague remarks about raising from the dead. They would further cover their story by claiming that Jesus had ascended to heaven and unfortunately would not be able to be addressed in person. Further, they would stress, to appease the crowds, that he would return "soon." Very tidy, even if almost totally unbelievable. But the movie doesn't end there. It goes on to show how these same frauds, one of whom quickly denied all ties to Jesus three times, would be beat, imprisoned, and would die horrible deaths. They even went through their martyrdom alone, widely separated from each other.

How can any thinking person attribute fraud or delusion to such actions? Or to the mere existence of Christianity? The presentation of such solid evidence in almost any other context would produce a psychological certainty. However implausible or impossible the conclusion might seem, the only reasonable and logical explanation is that the Apostles told the truth.

You see, in the end, we have only to look in one place to confirm the resurrection of Jesus. And the resurrection is the ONLY fact we need ascertain. Once we've decided that Jesus indeed raised from the dead, all the other "crazy" stuff about him, and God, and the Bible, and how we benefit thereby, is easy to believe in comparison. That's why you'll hear that all Christianity is based on the resurrection.

Where is the place to find the truth of the resurrection? In the Apostles. We need only to find out if they lied or told the truth. It's just that simple. A long, hard study may be necessary, but the path is simple, and not at all mysterious.

If you take the position that Jesus was just a man, however great a man he may have been, you are forced to the position that the Apostles lied. That's not a pleasant corner to be in. People won't let you get away with calling Buddha a liar. or Mohammed a crackpot. And yet they, indeed, were only human men. and, unlike Jesus, acted and spoke like men.
If you take the position the that Apostles told the truth, then you are forced to elevate Jesus above "humanhood." You must accept his other claims as well. You must accept the fundamentals of the Apostle's teaching.

When Paul dins into us that we are saved by faithing and not by some stuff that we can accomplish on our own, we have to act that out in our lives.

When Jesus says that he's gone to create a special place for those who believe, and will take them there someday, our earthbound brains have to stretch out and grasp that incredible statement.

The Bible says, "I'll never leave you or forsake you." If you can believe Christ raised, you can try pretending that his Spirit is always at hand.

The Good News is not that God is alive, but that He's made us a way back to Him. He changed the rules, starting with Jesus, that if we'll trust what He's said, he'll honor what Jesus did and count our trust like his. When God acknowledged Jesus' trust, He put His Spirit back into Jesus' body and Jesus woke up. He was saved from death.

That's another impossible claim of the Bible. We who are faithers get to live forever. Heavy.

Jesus is right there with you. If he was raised from death by God, and given rule over the whole creation, he's certainly able to maintain a presence right at your side.

God is real, and to fulfill His Word to Aw-dahm, He faithfully supplied Jesus and His Spirit to carry out His plan of saving Aw-dahm (you and me). He's Real, you can trust Him and He's there for you.







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