The following is an excerpt from a sermon entitled One Solitary Life. It's purpose is to underscore the tremendous impact of Jesus Christ's life:
"He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn't go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.
[Twenty] centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned- put together- have not affected the life of a man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life."1
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnote:
1. Adapted from "Arise, Sir Knight," a sermon by James Allen Francis, in the Real Jesus and Other Sermons (Philadelphia: Judson, 1926), 123-124; as quoted by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek in I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, p. 324.
Related Posts
Jesus: The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived
Did Jesus Make a Mistake about His Disciples Seeing the Kingdom Come in Their Lifetimes?
Video: Who Did Jesus Think He Was?
Comments