Public opinion is warped

2. Public opinion is warped • All historians accept the Jesus existed • Agree that He was martyred for radical and controversial teachings • Most do not agree on what He taught • Interpretations of person and teachings have evolved to differing

3. What have others said? Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the Child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His Divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. He was turned over to His enemies.

4. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a Cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying—and that was His coat. When He was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Such was His human life—He rises from the dead. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the Centrepiece of the human race and the Leader of the column of progress.

5. On our calendars His birth divides history into two eras. One day of every week is set aside in remembrance of Him. And our two most important holidays celebrate His birth and resurrection. On church steeples around the world, His cross has become the symbol of victory over sin and death. This one Man’s life has furnished the theme for more songs, books, poems and paintings than any other person or event in history. Thousands of colleges, hospitals, orphanages and other institutions have been founded in honour of this One who gave His life for us.

6. I am within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life. --James C. Hefley

7. What have others said? I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him. –Napoleon Bonaparte

8. What have others said? Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander the Great, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning, he shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of school, he spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, he set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times. –Philip Schaff

9. What have others said? “He who says, Jesus, also says history.” - Stephen Neil “I’m a historian. I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very centre of hi story. Jesus Christ i s easily the most dominant figure in all of history.” - H G Wells

10. Through the Ages • Calendar • Years before Jesus was born are BC • After His birth AD (in the year of our Lord) • Birth marks the pivotal point in the history of the calendar • Christmas and Easter are two most important holiday dates in the world.

11. Through the Ages • Christianity was adopted as a State religion because of its influence and the lives of its followers • Adoption of Orphaned and abandoned Children • The early church got the revelation that Jesus was adopted by Joseph and God adopted us • Most people that adopt children are Christians

12. Through the Ages • Elevated the status of women in Society • He taught them – contrary to standard practice • He allowed them to minister • Education • Was only for the elite • Christians worked to educate young so they could read scriptures • Most schools originated in church buildings • In USA the first 123 universities started by Christians

13. Through the Ages • Health • In Roman times – hospitals for soldiers only • Jesus called the Great Physician • Inspired others that healing available to all • Council of Nicea(circa 325) decreed that hospitals be built wherever there was a church • Many mission hospitals • Red Cross – founded by Henri Dunant

14. Through the Ages • Law and Economics • Ten commandments the basis for every legal system • Property rights upheld in the Bible • Architecture • Building of churches became more important than castles • Founding fathers in America built churches before anything else

15. Through the Ages • Music and the Arts • Probably more songs, hymns, symphonies, rock songs about Jesus and the Father than any other being • Many famous works of Art depict Biblical scenes.

16. Through the Ages • War • Most wars fought with religion being an element • Crusades vs Muslims • Northern Ireland – Catholic vs Protestant • Vietnam and Korea – vs Communism • World War 1 – Serbs being taxed on churches • World War 2 – Holocaust – Bonhoeffer – Corrie Ten Boom

17. Through the Ages • War – however • Christianity blamed for almost all wars • Stalin killed 40million people • Hitler – 6 million Jews & about 10 million Christians • Mao - 70 million Chinese • More than 1 billion aborted in 20th Century • Approximately 17 million killed by professing Christians in last 20 centuries

18. Science • Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) • Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627) • Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) • Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) • Rene Descartes (1596-1650) • Isaac Newton (1642-1727) • Robert Boyle (1791-1867) • Michael Faraday (1791-1867 • Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) • William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907) • Max Planck (1858-1947) • George Washington Carver(1864-1943) • Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

19. Science • Many scientists out there to prove Bible a myth • The more they try the more they lose Ps 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork

20. Science “We cant understand the universe in any clear way without the supernatural - Alan Sandage, astronomer .

21. Science “The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation … His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection” Albert Einstein

22. Science “The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of masses of the proton and the electron … The remarkable fact is that the value of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life” Stephen Hawking

23. Science “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to be so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” Sir Fred Hoyle - astrophysicist

24. Science “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries” Robert Jastrow - astronomer

25. Science About the human cell…. “The statistical probability of forming a single enzyme, the building block of the gene, which is in turn the building block of the cell, is 1 in 10 to the power of 40,000. The translation of that figure is that it would require is that it would require more attempts for the formation of one enzyme that there are atoms in all the stars of all the galaxies in the entire known universe.” Dr Chandra Wickramasinge – Buddhist and professor of applied mathematics at the University of Cardiff

26. Science “So impossible is this event that it is almost a miracle” Francis Crick – Nobel Prize winning scientist who helped cracked the code of human DNA

27. Phil 2:5-11 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.