Join us as we navigate through the complexities of declining religious belief, drawing inspiration from both historical theological discourses and personal introspection. This episode encourages a refreshing rediscovery of Jesus Christ by stripping away societal distractions to discover His words anew. Whether questioning faith or seeking reaffirmation, this discussion invites listeners to explore the self-authenticating nature of the Bible and the undeniable peace and certainty found in the words of Jesus. Engage with us in this enriching journey towards rekindled faith.
I’m going to digress for this program from the Book of Romans and just to tell you something that has been on my mind. I think it was yesterday that I read across, came across an article that said that over the last 30 years or so, I think it was, the The population, shall we say, the number of believers in the Christian faith has dropped from 92% to 42%. It was a startling figure. I didn’t know the statistics before then, but I had heard rumor of the decline in Christian faith over the decades. And I wonder where you are in this regard. Is your faith declining? Well, you know, I want to say this impression came to me. Have you seen – we’re all familiar with Google Earth, right? We’ve either made use of it ourselves or we’ve seen it on YouTube. You know, that situation where – that technology where you see the Earth from outer space, the blue planet as it’s sometimes called, and then you can zoom in to your country and And then you can zoom in further to your state, and then you can zoom in even further to your town, and even to your village, and even to your street. It’s a remarkable bit of technology. And it made me think of the gospel and of the decline of Christian belief in this way. You see, we can look at the earth and we can look at it with the broad, large picture and we say, oh goodness, Christianity is declining in this country or that hemisphere or this state or whatever. Well, how do we know whether Christianity is declining or not? How do you know in your heart whether Christianity, whether faith in Jesus is declining? And here I come to the point when I said faith in Jesus. Coming to faith or reviving one’s faith in Jesus is like looking at the globe, the Christian globe, looking at Google Earth and moving in to the country, to the state, to the city, to the street, and to the town or the village where Jesus was born, and taking again a very close look at Jesus. Do not determine whether Christianity or your Christianity is declining by whether you go to church or not, or by whether you’re satisfied with that church or not, or whether you’re uplifted by the music or depressed by the solemnity of it all, or whether the preaching is good or not. Don’t determine any of it by that. but rather do a sort of Christian Google Earth and zoom in and zoom in closer and zoom in and zoom in and zoom in until you come across Jesus Christ and examine what he said. Now, there are theologians throughout the world and in past centuries and this century who themselves have had struggles and doubts about Jesus. And they examine these faithful theologians. They examine what he said. There were, a century or so ago, theologians who tried to separate Jesus from his miracles because they thought that was a bit of fantasy and probably added later. But let’s just find out what Jesus says with his words. But decades of study by those theologians brought them to the conclusion that they could not separate Jesus from his miracles. They could not separate Jesus from the feeding of the 5,000. He was all of that. And what has so often puzzled theologians is that Jesus either was truthful to what he was saying about himself, I am the light of the world, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to God but by me, I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, all of these things, I am the Son of God. He was either true in what he said, or he was a perfect maniac, because no man in his right mind would say the things that Jesus said unless they were true. It’s only somebody in his crazy mind that could say those things if they were not true. And so how do we determine whether they are true or not? Well, of course, we do have the backup of his life, that he wasn’t some crazy idiot running around naked and screaming and yelling, that he was a gentle, loving soul, that he loved and cared for people, that he performed miracles, and that he, in those miracles, he revealed the heart of God, that he was a humble man, that he pointed always to his heavenly Father. and that he finally demonstrated the truthfulness of himself and the love that he expressed by sacrificing himself on the cross. That sacrifice he could have avoided by no longer telling the things that he told, by no longer claiming who he was. But he calmly went forward and claimed them, those things about himself, and it incensed the leaders of the day, the religious leaders, to such an extent that they determined to kill him, to execute him. And his death on the cross was unique in the world. He thought of others, John, behold your mother, father, forgive them for they know not what they do, and he died a death that made a Roman soldier even say, no man spoke like this man. Now what I’m getting at is this, that if you doubt, if you have come to lose your Christian faith, don’t look at the church, Don’t look at which church is more suitable to you. Don’t look at whether it has good social programs or not for your kids. Don’t determine whether it’s good based upon the preacher or not. Don’t determine it by whether you like the music or not. Don’t determine it by whether it’s a large church, what do they call them, megachurches, or whether it’s a small community of 20 or 30. Go home, rather. Take your Bible. Open, let’s say, to the book of John, or you could open to the book of Mark or Matthew. But let’s say you open to the book of John, and you begin to read as if you had never read these words ever before. Let them simply rest in your mind. Let them be self-authenticating. They authenticate who Jesus is. You cannot go half measures with Jesus. He was either a crackpot or he was the Son of God. And the way we conclude that he was the Son of God is the authentication, the self-authentication of the words themselves, as well as the authentication of his miracles, and the way he lived for his Father humbly, without fanaticism, and died for the love of the world. I think, for instance, of John chapter 9, in verse 35, Do you believe in the Son of God? He said, Who did he say that to? He said that to the blind man whom he had healed and who didn’t really know who he was. The Pharisee said, Who did this to you? I don’t know. I don’t know his name. But Jesus came across him later and said, Do you believe in the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. Now those words are not hyperbolic. They are not exaggerated fanaticism. They are not crackpot yelling. They are just a calm statement. He didn’t say, Let me prove it to you. Let me do this and do that and do the other. He simply spoke to the man, looked into his new eyes, and said, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. Now I say to you, if you have noticed that your Christian faith is declining, return to the Word. Return to the words of Jesus. Let the words of Jesus be like Google Earth zeroing in from all the claptrap around, all the noise of Christianity, all the noise of other religions, all the noise of hymns and all kinds of community services that the Christian church provides. Let it zoom in. Beyond that, and zoom in further, to a certain location in the world, in Israel, in Nazareth, in Bethlehem, in Jerusalem, and get into the words of this man who spoke like no other man who ever lived, and you will be faced with a dilemma. The dilemma of… How can I possibly reject these words of Jesus who came across as such a sensible human being and a caring human being who brought peace to the world? How can I possibly reject those words? And you will find those words bathing your soul. and giving you light in your dark mind. And you will find in the process that peace is coming. Perhaps you open the computer in the morning, and the first thing you do is read all the news. And what is it? It’s all bad news. Well, how about for a week, seven days, opening the Bible as the first thing? Opening, say, to the book of John. and let his words bathe your spirit, and you will find calmness coming over your soul. You will find faith coming into your soul, because faith is a gift from God. It’s not from you. You will hear his words, and you will know these words cannot have come from a regular, run-of-the-mill human being. This was Jesus, and he was the Son of God. And he comes to you and he looks in your eyes that were previously blind, and he touches them with these words, Do you believe in the Son of Man? And you will say, Lord, who is he? And he will say, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. And his words will be so beautiful, so reassuring, so peace-giving, so lyrical, and so startlingly sharply truthful that you will believe again, because you will have zoomed in to that little village where this man spoke as no other man spoke, and he spoke for all the world. Thank you for listening today. Colin Cook here with a rather raspy voice still, excuse me, still getting over my cold. But anyway, thank you for listening in today. And I invite you to listen in every day, any time of the day, because you can hear this broadcast on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com, and key in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. 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