Responding to Jesus: The Urgent Question of Faith

There are only two major responses here, and only two major responses are possible: one either is like the leper and the men who suffered from the py and his friends, whom you remember, of whom we are told that they were so anxious to see him and to come near to him and to be blessed by him. [00:10:28]

The very state of the world is pressing it, my dear friends. If what the newspapers hint at is true, and if we are sitting as it were on the edge of a volcano as we seem to be with life as uncertain as it is today, there is nothing I say that is more important than this. [00:11:25]

The Pharisees, because after all, they were the religious leaders, they were the teachers of the people, they were the doctors of the law, they were The Men Who separated themselves in an attempt to be holy and to live a life that glorifies God, and yet as I say, it was there of all people who turned against him. [00:14:21]

The first thing that explains their tragedy, as it seems to me, is that they never came out of the position of being onlookers. And it came to pass on a certain day as he was teaching that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem. [00:17:01]

Of course, they were interested in a sense. That's why they were there. They'd come out of every town of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem. Why? Well, they heard about him. They had heard rumors concerning him, and they were obviously interested. They were attracted in a point, as we say today, they were intrigued. [00:18:48]

Prejudice means that you've prejudged an issue. It means that you've not only made up your mind beforehand, but that you are controlled by something that has made up your mind for you. We are victims of prejudices. You don't take up a Prejudice; the Prejudice takes you up and it holds you in a grip that is as tight as of ice. [00:25:55]

They never saw that this was something altogether bigger. In other words, like all who have prejudices, the blinkers that were upon them prevented their seeing. They were confined and rigid, and thus they missed the glory. What a terrible thing Prejudice is. It is the thing I say that shuts the heart and shuts the mind. [00:33:36]

The trouble with the Pharisees finally was that they failed to face the evidence as it was there staring them in the face. They wouldn't face the facts that were before their eyes, and thus it was that they never recognized him. Take this particular instance that is given as one each side of this particular verse that we're looking at. [00:35:51]

They saw him healing lepers; they couldn't do it. They saw what he did to this man with the py; they couldn't do it. They saw him even raising the Dead, the son of the Widow of name, Jerus, his daughter, Lazarus. There was no question about the facts because they were eyewitnesses themselves. They were there. [00:36:49]

The fact of Christ is still there facing Mankind. We are not preaching cunningly devised fables. Christianity is a fact. That's why you called this year 1955. It dates from him. He comes into secular history. You can't get away from him. Jesus of Nazareth is a fact. There would never have been a Christian church if he isn't a fact. [00:40:05]

It was their failure to submit themselves to him that finally accounts for their tragedy. It was because of this difference between them and the leper who, looking at his skin and his festering SS and perhaps parts of his joints and fingers falling off, knowing that no man can help him and nothing can be done for him. [00:44:38]

You may have intellectual difficulties with regard to him. I would not minimize them. There are things that are difficult to understand, but what I am saying is this: don't be governed and controlled by them. Don't allow details and minui to rob you for a moment. Leave them, forget them, confront him. [00:47:27]