Engaging the Mind: The Rational Call of Christianity

The Bible is a book which from beginning to end urges people to think to guard up the lines of their mind, its whole case as a matter of fact is dependent upon that. The Bible says that all our troubles in life are ultimately due to the fact that we don't think or else if we do we are thinking incorrectly with false premises or have gone wrong somewhere in our argument. [00:03:00]

The greatest problem confronting the human race this evening is what is called the battle for the mind. Now I want to make this clear. I am asserting that all acute thinkers are agreed about that. Now whether they are Christian or not at this point doesn't matter at all. I could quote to you many names of men who are not Christians who say they're not Christians who have no use for Christianity at all and who abominate Christianity but they agree in saying that the greatest problem in the world at this very minute is the battle for the mind of man. [00:05:11]

There are at work in the world at the present time various forces and influences which are doing their utmost to govern and to control the minds and the thinking of men and women to draon the thinking to bludgeon the minds of people so they argue that the greatest matter of moment at this present time is how to maintain the freedom of the mind. [00:06:15]

Advertising and propaganda surely there's no need to elaborate this point. Are we not all victims of advertising and of propaganda? Most of the things we eat because we've been told by many advertisements to do so. We dress because of the advertisements. All our life is being controlled by very subtle and by very very clever advertising. [00:10:18]

The very society in which we are living, the so-called Mass Society to which we belong, do we realize that even that discourages thought? Look how we live in cities and in crowds. All that is discouraging to thought. You can't be in a crowd and be as free in your brain as you were when you were alone. There is a mass mentality, a mob psychology. [00:12:54]

The modern views as regards conduct and morals, as I've already suggested, the whole notion of morality is rapidly disappearing and we are told that men behaves as he does because he happens to been born like that so he's not responsible so there's no point in thinking. Everything is explained thus in terms of constitution abnormality or disease. [00:21:43]

The history of the human race proves that beyond a doubt and a peradventure the most liberating force from the standpoint of the mind that the world has ever known has been Christianity. Listen, go back to the first century and you see a new phenomenon. Before Christ came into this world there were the Greek philosophers and they taught, yes, but who did they teach? [00:37:59]

The gospel has always liberated the minds of men. Come along the next Century, the Puritan Era, there again you find the same thing. In Cromwell's Army there were preachers. These men wanted to be kept abreast with the truth. They wanted their minds to be fed. The common people became knowledgeable and religious. Their whole level was raised. It was the Gospel that did it. [00:40:38]

The gospel is based upon history, IC facts. There are many of us who cannot follow the argument about the ultimate and the absolute. We can't grapple with abstract truths and Concepts but when I'm asked to look at a person Jesus of Nazareth, a man who worked as a carpenter, I don't care how we literate and how IGN Noble I am I can look at him I can listen here is a record of facts. [00:44:23]

This and this alone guarantees freedom of the mind and freedom of thought because this alone gives us a true view of man. If I'm but an animal and I'm just in this world to eat and to drink and to indulge my sex, well why bother myself about thinking and about improving myself for the whole of the human race? [00:45:17]

Man is a being that has been made in the image of God. He's a special creation, he's a unique creation, and his uniqueness lies very largely in his possession of this power of reason, this power of self-contemplation, this power of self-analysis and self-criticism which no animal is capable of. That's the thing that makes a man man. [00:46:02]

Everything I need is provided here. I can't liberate my mind but Christ can. He's done it. Look at the many did it to as depicted in the New Testament. Read the story of the Saints and the anchorites and the martyrs and all those who have come and found themselves in him as the result of believing the gospel and invariably you will be looking at men whose Minds have been liberated. [00:51:10]