Jesus Christ do you think you are what they say you are you remember that day when Saul was persecuting Christians was on the road to Damascus and the blinding light came and he fell down and the first question he asked was who art thou Lord who is Jesus why cannot we escape him why is he in our conscience in an our mind so that our plays and our poems and our operas are about him he's he just a revolutionary hero why is he something more he only lived 33 years he never travelled more than a
hundred miles he never had any formal education and yet 2,000 years later an entire generation it's talking about Jesus Christ some say that he was a madman was he there are others that said he was revolutionary he come the leader revolution was here revolutionary in the sense they changed men's lives he was but he never led a revolution against Rome who was Jesus an establishment man Jesus Christ is not the establishment Christ he's building another kingdom he's building an eternal Kingdom and then there were people that said that he was deliberately evil that he was
an evil man that he was a devil that's the question Jesus Christ who are you who is Jesus we can't escape we try to run from him but there is he keeps popping up everywhere [Music] our greatest philosophers write about him our greatest historians write about him our greatest poems and plays are about him you go anywhere in the Soviet Union and you'll see images in art and much of the music has to do with Jesus they can't escape him well we know some things about him we know he was a man Jesus was completely
human he was representative of man because the Bible says he was identified he was numbered with the transgressors we know that he was hungry we know he got thirsty we know he got tired we know that he had the joys of friendship we know that he wept at the tomb of a dead loved one we know that he had all the characteristics of a man and yet very interestingly the Bible says that he never committed a sin there isn't a trial or a testing or a temptation that Jesus has not been through before you and
he resisted them and overcame them all [Music] he was a man just like you but he was more than that he claimed to be the unique only-begotten incarnate son of God in fact he claimed pre-existence the scripture says in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God [Music] before time began he existed he said before Abraham was I am and in eternal existence no wonder they got angry no wonder they threw stones at him no wonder they tried to kill him and no wonder they eventually did crucified he stood and said I
am God was he was me hope he claimed me the son of the Living God [Music] Jesus Christ claimed to be the son of the Living God and you know it at his incarnation or his birth that was not his bird or that wasn't the beginning that wasn't the origin of Jesus that was the beginning that was the beginning of his incarnation because he has always existed from everlasting to everlasting he is God the Bible says and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us in other words the logos the Word of God the
eternal God became flesh and the person of Jesus Christ and lived like a man among us he was not just another great man he was God in the flesh and oh the ethics that he taught never a man spake like that man in the ten commandments thou shalt not commit adultery but I tell you that if you even look on a woman to lust after you've already committed he said Moses said thou shalt not murder but I tell you if you have hate in your heart against your brother without cause you're already guilty he lifted
man's ethics to the highest plane and demanded that we live that kind of a life he himself lived that kind of a life how do you explain Jesus Jesus Christ are you what you say you are you know they only brought three charges against him to crucify one they said this man loves sinners that was one charge the second he healed on the Sabbath day and the third he claimed to be the Son of God was he the son of God look at his authority Jesus came under them and spake unto them saying all Authority
has been given to me I know one thing he forgave sin and no prophet ever did that and then look at the death he died did ever a man die like Jesus the lightning flashed and the thunder roared and the earth began to shake and even the soldiers confessed that this must be the Son of God anyone that can see Jesus on that cross and not be touched has a heart of stone they first took off his clothes then they took long leather thongs with steel pellets or LED pellets on the end and beat him
across the back until he could hardly stand up then they put a crown of thorns on his brow and his face was bleeding and they laughed at him and they spit on and they mocked him and with one snap of his finger 72,000 angels had already drawn their swords ready to come to his rescue and wipe this planet out of existence in the universe and Jesus said no to this end was I born and he dragged and lifted and hauled that cross the man that helped Jesus carry that cross was a black man and don't
ever forget another thing Jesus belongs to Africa as much as he does to Europe and Asia he was born in that part of the world that touches Africa and Asia and Europe and Jesus was not a white man like me nor was he as black as some of you we don't know what the color of his skin but it must have been a dark color like the people of his day because he was a man like them [Music] don't ever say it's a white man's religion or a black man's religion it's a world religion he
belongs to the world when he died on that cross they nailed him they put the nails in his hands and you know what he said forgive them they know not what they do forgive them could you forgive somebody that's putting nails in your hands and you know you didn't deserve that's how he confronted the violence of his bed and then on the cross he said my God why staff was shaking me and then he dropped his head and said it's finished [Music] he meant your plan of salvation is finished God can now forgive you of
all your sins because Jesus had finished God's plan for your salvation because you say God knows every one of you by name he has the hands of your head number God looks upon you as though you were the only person in the whole universe he sees you and you alone and on that cross Jesus had the capacity to think of you and he loved you enough to stay on the cross was there ever such a love is that when he could have been rescued and taken back to heaven and to sit on his throne but
he didn't he said no I'm doing it for the joy that is set before me because he saw that he would be raised from the dead he saw that they would be a gathering in the generations to come of a people for his name that would make up his body he saw the day when we will reign with him in his kingdom
