Now, a fortnight ago, I spoke to you on the subject why I am a Christian, and I said that I am a Christian mainly because of two miracles. First of all, the miracle of the Bible, and secondly, the miracle of Christ. And I said that I believe that the Bible is a miracle for three reasons. First of all, because of its unity. Secondly, because of its prophecy, and thirdly, because of its vitality. And tonight I want to speak to you about the miracle of Christ. Now, I know that when I speak about the miracle of Christ, I'm using the word miracle rather loosely. What I mean is that I believe that Christ is so wonderful that he can't be explained in purely human or natural terms. In Isaiah chapter nine and verse six it says concerning the Lord Jesus, his name shall be called Wonderful. And Strong's Concordance, therefore, Wonderful gives a miracle, a miracle. And so the Bible itself says that our Lord Jesus Christ is a miracle. Well, tonight I'm going to suggest five reasons why I believe that the Lord Jesus is indeed a miracle. Uh, first of all, because of his words, secondly, because of his works, and thirdly, because of his holy life, uh, fourthly, because of his resurrection, and fifthly, because of his power in the lives of men. Well, now just le- let us look at each of those. First of all, because of his words. Some of you will remember that at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we're told that the people were astonished at his doctrine, uh, because he spoke as one having authority and not as the scribes. As you read through that sermon, he said, in effect, something like this: Moses said this, but I say unto you, I say unto you. He spoke with divine authority. In Luke chapter four, you may remember that, uh, uh, when he was speaking in the synagogue at Nazareth, it says that the people wondered, they wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. In John chapter seven we're told of certain officers who were sent to arrest him, but they returned without him, and they excused themselves by saying, never man spake like this man. Now, I don't know all the things that they heard him say, but I know one thing that they heard him say. They heard him say this, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. They'd never heard anyone speak like that before. Never man spake like this man. In Matthew eleven and twenty eight you have those familiar words, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Augustine, the great teacher of the fourth century, said that he had found many beautiful things in the writings of the Greeks, but he had never found anything like that. Come unto me, all ye that labor and the heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And then in John's gospel, you have those seven wonderful I am sayings. I am the bread of life. I'm the light of the world. I'm the door. I'm the good shepherd. I'm the resurrection and the life. I'm the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine. Dr. Campbell Morgan said that these seven are like seven signs in the realm of words, just as in John's gospel you have seven signs, seven miracles in the realm of works. Now, I don't know just how those sayings impress you. I am the resurrection and the life. I'm the bread of life, and so on. Uh, but to me at least, they're sufficient to prove that the Lord Jesus was not a mere human ma- a mere man. Such words don't fit ordinary mortal lips. The story is told of an unbelieving professor of theology in Germany who was endeavoring to, uh, prove to the emperor, uh, that Christ was not divine. And the emperor said to him, Professor, have you ever said to your students, I am the vine and ye are the branches? No, your majesty, he said. Has any professor before you ever said, I am the vine and ye are the branches? No, your majesty, he said. Is any professor after you likely to say, I am the vine and ye are the branches? No, your majesty. Well, he said, seeing you admit that no teacher has ever spoken as Christ spoke, I will continue to believe that he's divine. And so I believe that the Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, is a miracle because of those words. Never man spake like this. And then secondly, I believe that he's a miracle because of his works. That is the wonderful miracles that he performed. Of course, someone might object, someone might say, but how do you know that he really performed those miracles? How do you know that they're not just stories that somebody's invented? How do you know that they re- he really performed them? Well, of course, we can't discuss the matter adequately in a few minutes, but just let me say a few things. First of all, according to all the records we have, there's no evidence that his miracles were ever disbelieved by the people of his time. Even his enemies said simply that he was in league with the devil. They didn't try to deny them, they just said he's in league with the devil, and that's why he's able to do these things. And I believe that the same thing is true, uh, for the centuries that followed. We have the writings of people in the se- second, third centuries, men like Celsus and Porphyry, opponents of the gospel, and they brought up all the objections they possibly could to the gospel, but they never suggested that the Lord didn't perform these miracles. They simply said that he must have been a great magician. He must have been a great magician, that's why he was able to perform those miracles. But then we have the writings of the defenders of the gospel, and they pointed to the greatness of the miracles. He gave sight to a man born blind, he raised the dead. A magician couldn't do that. They pointed to the number of them. I don't know how many miracles he performed. I think we have a description of about thirty five of them, uh, but he performed far more than that, because we're told in places that they brought all their sick to him, and he healed them all. And John tells us that if all the works that he performed had been written, the whole world would not contain the book, so we could say he performed hundreds and hundreds, possibly, uh, thousands of miracles. And they pointed to the completeness of them. When he gave sight to a blind man, the blind man saw clearly, and the deaf heard, uh, plainly, and the the dumb spoke, uh, plainly, unlike many modern healers. And they pointed to the variety of them, all kinds of sicknesses, even miracles in the realm of nature, like turning water into wine. They pointed to the publicity of them. Some of them performed in the presence of his enemies, and yet there was no suggestion that he hadn't performed them. And especially they pointed to the nature of them, with one or two exceptions that they were works of love and mercy, and very unlike miracles attributed to him by later writers. For example, one later writer said that when Jesus was a boy of seven, he was playing with some other boys, and they made some birds and some animals of clay. And Jesus made the birds fly, and he made the animals walk. Now that's the sort of thing that people invented about him, but you don't read anything like that, uh, concerning him in the Gospels. And J. B. Phillips wrote a book entitled The Ring of Truth, and I believe that when you read the Lord's miracles, you feel that, that there's a ring of truth about them. And so I believe that he's a miracle because of his words and also because of his works. And then thirdly, I believe he's a miracle because of his holy life. Uh, Peter, the man of action, said he did no sin. Paul, the man of knowledge, said he knew no sin. John, the penetrating seer, said, in him is no sin. The writer to the Hebrews said that he was in all points, uh, tempted like as we are, apart from sin. He said he was holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners. Now, I don't play bowls. I don't know if any of you people play bowls. Perhaps most of you are not old enough to play bowls yet, but I don't play bowls, but I understand that the ball that men use when they are playing bowls is not quite even. It has what they call a bias, that it goes to one side, so that even if it is thrown perfectly straight on a flat surface, it won't go perfectly straight, it'll veer to one side. Now, humanity's like that. Humanity has a bias, a bias towards sin, and it applies to all. It applies to the rich and the poor, it applies to the great and the small, the young and the old, the educated and the uneducated. They all have this bias. We all know, or many of us know, that little children, young children are very beautiful, very delightful, but they're not very old before they show that they have that bias, that bias towards sin. Now, there's only one person, I believe, in the whole history of the world who hasn't had that bias towards sin, and that's the Lord Jesus himself. Well, now you say to me, now, how do you know? How do you know that he didn't have this bias? Well, I would say, first of all, I know because of the scripture testimony, in him is no sin. He was apart from sin. There was nothing within him to respond to sin. But then too, I think that there's another reason, another strong reason we could say, uh, why we believe that he had no bias to sin. I believe that it's a universal rule that the holier a person is, the more conscious he is of sin. As a matter of fact, that's how people become very saintly, very holy. They have a very deep consciousness of sin, and then they receive forgiveness and cleansing. A classic example of that is in Isaiah chapter six where the prophet sees the Lord high and lifted up, and his train filling the temple, and so on. And Isaiah is smitten with a sense of his sin. And then the live coals come from the altar, they're placed upon the lips, and his sin is cleansed, his iniquity is purged. And you read the, read the biographies of the great saints, and you'll find that something like that has happened in the case of every one of them. They've had a very deep consciousness of their sin, but they've received cleansing from it. Now, let me just give you one example of that. I doubt if there's anyone in the history of so-called brethren assemblies who has been more saintly than Robert Chapman of Barnstable. Mr. Darby, the great teacher, said concerning Robert Chapman that Chapman lived what he himself taught. Dr. Campbell Morgan, who knew him, uh, was once speaking at the Keswick Convention, and he referred to Chapman as that great saint, that wonderful soul. And on one occasion, when Campbell Morgan was an old man, he turned up at the meeting place at Barnstable. He said he wanted to worship for once at the place where Robert Chapman worshipped. There was a man by the name of Haight who lived with Chapman for years, and he said he never found a trace or never saw a trace of sin in his life. JR Caldwell, a well-known teacher of Glasgow, after a visit by Mr. Chapman, said that his visit remains as a precious illustration of how God can reproduce even now in a believer the image of his son. Now that was the almost universal testimony concerning the saintliness of Robert Chapman. But what did he say about himself? Well, there's a little book of Chapman's entitled Choice Sayings, Choice Sayings. I think others have put it together. It consists of selections from his Bible expositions, and in one place Chapman says this about himself. He says, I count myself more vile than the murderer who suffers death by the hangman's hand because the atoning blood of the Son of God acquaints me with myself. That which shows me my forgiveness reveals to me my pollution. And so I say, where you find a very saintly man, you also find this deep consciousness of sin, but you don't find any of it in the Lord Jesus. You find the very opposite. He says that he always does the things that please the Father. He says, which of you convinceth me of sin? He says, the prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in me. He can find no fault against me. He told others to repent and seek forgiveness, but there's no evidence that he ever repented or sought forgiveness, asked God's forgiveness for himself. You never find him saying, I'm sorry. You find Paul saying that, but you don't find Jesus saying that. I've never had any problem with the virgin birth, because there had to be a miracle somewhere. If there wasn't a miracle somewhere, he would have had a bias. He would have had a bias. His, his holiness would have been the same as the holiness of Robert Chapman, if there hadn't been a miracle somewhere. I can remember hearing C. F. Hogg once commenting on the words of Romans one and four, where it says the Lord was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. And C. F. Hogg said, at the one end of his life there's the virgin birth, an incredible thing. At the other end of his life there's the resurrection, another incredible thing. But in between there's the holy life, and that makes the other two credible. And so I believe he's a miracle because he had no bias, because of his holy life. And then fourthly, I believe that he's a miracle because of his resurrection. Now, you might say to me now, supposing you read in a book that Julius Caesar rose from the dead, would you believe it? No, I would say I wouldn't believe it. Well, why, why do you believe it if you read in a book that Jesus rose from the dead? Well, the two things aren't parallel. Julius Caesar was a great man, but he was only a man, and so there's no reason for thinking that he should rise from the dead. But I don't believe that Jesus was only a man. I believe that he was the Holy One, the Holy One, uh, the holy eternal Son of God, and to me it's not surprising. It's what I'd expect, what I'd expect, that he should rise from the dead. Peter says in Acts two, it wasn't possible for death to hold him, wasn't possible for death to hold him. Well, now we can't take time to go over all the evidence of the resurrection. You'll find it at the ends of the Gospels and in First Corinthians fifteen. Let me just briefly mention a few things. You have the empty tomb, that tomb that was guarded by the soldiers. And why didn't they produce the body if he didn't rise from the dead? You have all the witnesses. And Paul says that at one time he appeared to five hundred at once. You have the birth of the church. How did the church arise apart from his resurrection? You have the change in the disciples. From being weak, they became strong. From being, uh, timid, they became brave. You can, you have the conversion of Paul, the chief of the persecutors became, uh, the chief of the apostles because the risen Christ appeared to him. You have the change of the day of worship from the Saturday to the Sunday. All these, I suggest, are inexplicable apart from his resurrection. You've heard of Dr. Arnold, doubtless. He was a famous headmaster of Rugby School in England, and also at one time a professor of modern history at, uh, Oxford. And, uh, Dr. Arnold wrote these words: I have been used for many years to study the history of other times and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who, who have written about them. And I know of no fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort to the understanding of a fair inquirer than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again. A fortnight ago, I mentioned a book by Professor Blake Locke, uh, entitled Why I Am Still a Christian. Professor Blake Locke was for many years a professor of classics at Auckland University. And on page fifteen of that book, Professor Blake Locke wrote this: I claim to be a historian. My approach to classics is historical, and I tell you that the evidence for the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ is far better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient history, which I taught for forty two years as a university teacher with some confidence. But someone might say, well, perhaps those two men, uh, uh, Professor Blakelock and Dr. Arnold, uh, being Christians, were a little bit prejudiced on this subject. Well, now let me tell you a story that's often been told about two men that weren't prejudiced, or rather they were prejudiced the other way. In the eighteenth century, when unbelief was rampant, when there were many people who said that they were deists, that is, they believed in God, they said, but they didn't believe in Bible, in the Bible, they didn't believe in Christ. There were two such men, brilliant lawyers called Gilbert West and Lord Lyttelton. And these two men set to work to explode two of the strongholds of Christianity. Gilbert West took the resurrection. He was going to prove that Christ didn't rise. And Lord Lyttelton, uh, took the conversion of Paul. And Lord Lyttelton was going to prove that the conversion of Paul can easily be explained psychologically. It wasn't a divine thing at all, it was just a psychological thing. And so the two men set to work, and they marshalled the evidence. But something very wonderful happened. As they began to marshal and to weigh the evidence, their view changed, and Gilbert West, uh, found that he couldn't, uh, disprove the resurrection, and Lord Lyttelton found that he couldn't prove that the conversion of Paul was just psychological. And so they turned around, and Gilbert, uh, West wrote a splendid work, uh, proving, defending the truth of the resurrection, and Lord Lyttelton a splendid work proving the reality, the divine reality of the conversion of Paul. Something similar happened not so long ago. There's a book called Who Moved the Stone by Frank Morrison. Well, Frank Morrison was similarly an unbeliever, and he set to work, uh, to write a book about the last days of Christ. He was going to speak about Christ's great courage, but he was going to treat the, uh, resurrection as a fairy tale. And he began to study the evidence and to weigh it, and he changed his mind too, and he found that the resurrection wasn't a fairy tale. He came to believe it was true, and so he wrote that book Who Moved the Stones as a defense of the truthfulness of the resurrection. And the first chapter is entitled The Book Which Refused to Be Written. That first book he had in mind, it refused to be written. Something of the same, something of the same is true of Lew Wallace, who wrote that book Ben-Hur. Some of you may have seen that film Ben-Hur. Uh, the book was written by Lew, Lew Wallace. Now, Lew Wallace wasn't a Christian either, and he set to work, uh, to write a book in order to prove that Jesus never lived. And, uh, he studied the evidence, studied the scriptures, he visited libraries all over the place in order to learn about the background and so on. He wrote four chapters of his book, but then one night he came out and said to his wife, Christ did live, and Christ does live. And so he rewrote those four chapters, and he went on and he wrote Ben-Hur, which tells of Christianity in the Roman Empire. And so I believe Christ is a miracle because of his resurrection. I believe he rose from the dead. But I believe this also, that the resurrection of Christ is not only a historical fact. It's not only a historical fact, it's a vital truth. It's a vital truth. I can remember years ago, one Easter time, I gave an address on the subject of the resurrection, and afterwards, Mrs. Wark, who had been a missionary in India for forty six years, came up to me and they said that when she was a young woman and she went out to India and she gave a gospel talk to a group of women, and she told them how Jesus had died for them. And afterwards, one of the women came up to her and said, what's the good of your God? He's dead. And she realized how she had failed. She failed because she preached only half of the gospel. If we only preached that, uh, Jesus died for us, that's half the gospel. The other half is that he rose again. He rose again. He's alive. Again, Mr. Goodman, Montague Goodman, was in Sydney years ago. Some of you may remember him. They gave an address on the resurrection in the assembly hall one night. I thought it was a splendid address, and he summed up the resurrection under four heads. He says it means, first of all, an acknowledged son. You see, man gave Christ the gallows, but God gave him the throne and declared to the whole world that he was his beloved son. It means an acknowledged son. And secondly, it means an accepted sacrifice, an accepted sacrifice. Christ died for our sins, yes, but how do I know that that sacrifice was accepted? I know because God raised him from the dead. The resurrection was God's amen, uh, to the work of Christ on the cross. And then thirdly, said Mr. Goodman, it means an ascended savior, an ascended savior. Christ is at God's right hand of making intercession for us, and not only so, he is within our hearts in order to guide us, uh, to strengthen us, to counsel us. And then fourthly, he said he's an awaited sovereign. He's an awaited sovereign. And Christ is the destined Lord of the universe. Now, you look in the paper day by day, and you're apt to get discouraged. You might even be filled with despair. But the resurrection of Christ tells us that God is still on the throne. God is still on the throne, and one day, uh, Christ will be acknowledged as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and Jesus shall reign where'er the sun doth its successive journeys, uh, run. And so I believe that Christ is a miracle because of his words and because of his works, because of his holy life and because of his resurrection, and then finally because of his power in the lives of men. Now you could begin with the Gospels, and you find that the Lord selects, uh, he selects, uh, twelve apostles, Twelve apostles. He didn't, uh, select men eminent in church or state. He selected fishermen, and he selected tax gatherers and men like that. And these men are to be the nucleus of the new society, the nucleus of the church. It seemed like a wild dream, didn't it? Seemed a piece of folly, but it, it was true. It came to pass because of his power in the lives of men. Or take the book of Acts. Why, you could almost entitle the book of Acts the, uh, the, the power of Christ in the lives of men. There you read of hundreds, yes, thousands who were changed by his power. Especially you read of Paul, uh, the persecutor who became the great apostle, changed by Christ's power. And so it's go- gone on down the centuries, men have been changed, uh, by Christ. I mentioned last time Augustine in the fourth century, that dissolute young man who became one of the princes of the church. More recently, you have John Newton, that man who was a slave dealer, and he was marvelously converted, wrote those wonderful hymns that we sing, Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds, and so on. A man who was, had been a slave trader. Perhaps some of you use the Scofield Bible. Did you know that before he b- was a Christian, Scofield was a hopeless drunkard? He was a hopeless drunkard until Christ met him. Perhaps some of you have read that, uh, little book Black and Free by Tom Skinner. Hand up those that have read that little book, To- Black and Free by Tom Skinner. Two, three, four. Well, that's not nearly enough. That's not nearly enough. Everybody should read that little book, Black and Free by Tom Skinner. Tom Skinner was a youth, he was a leader of one of those Negro gangs in New York, and they were terrible gangs. They didn't fight with their fists, they fought with knives and, uh, and knuckle dusters and so on. And one night, Tom Skinner was sitting in his car, uh, planning a fight among these gangs, and he turned on his radio, and he heard a preacher, uh, preaching from the text, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. All things have become new. And there in that car, Tom Skinner was wonderfully changed and converted, and he became a powerful preacher of the gospel. Of course, he had to report back to his gang, and it was a very dangerous thing, thing to do. At the risk of his life, he went back to the gang, and there were about a hundred of them, and he told them what had happened. They all had knives, and a lot of them had guns. And when he was finished, he just walked out, and not one of them moved. A couple of days later, he met the man who was second in charge of the gang, and this man said to him, Tom, you know, the other night I had my knife ready to plunge it into your back. And Tom said, why didn't you do it? He said, I couldn't move. I couldn't move. It was just as if someone was holding me. I was glued to the seat, and Tom Skinner was able to lead him to Christ. It's the power of Christ in the lives of men. The time would fail us to tell of the mission fields of the world during the last one hundred and fifty years, how among thousands and thousands of heathen people, the power of Christ has been manifest. You all know something of the Billy Graham Crusades and the thousands and thousands of people who have experienced the power of Christ in their lives in that way. But it's not necessary, it's not necessary to go to the ends of the earth of the mission fields. It's not necessary to go to books and to learn about the power of Christ in the lives of men. Why, there are people in this meeting tonight that could stand up, stand up and tell you about the power of Christ in their life. I can testify that for many, many years, fifty years or more, Christ has been a power day by day in my life. But I'd like to emphasize just one thing, and that is that the power of Christ is not always a dramatic thing. In the case of those men that I've mentioned, like Paul and Augustine and John Newton and Scofield and Tom Skinner, there's something very dramatic, something very dramatic about their experience. Uh, but such is not always the experience. In Acts chapter sixteen, you read about the Philippian jailer. We all know the story of the Philippian jailer, about the earthquake, and he was about to take his life, and Paul and Silas come on the scene. He says, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and I shall be saved. It's wonderfully dramatic, isn't it? We preachers love that story because it's so dramatic, to see it help, it enables us to be very dramatic. But in the same chapter, you read of the conversion of another person, a woman called Lydia, a devout woman. She's at the prayer meeting, and Paul goes along and speaks there, and all it says about her conversion is, whose heart the Lord opened that she attended unto the things that were spoken by Paul. Preachers don't often speak about that conversion, do they? See, it doesn't give them very much scope, very much scope to be dramatic, but it was just as real, just as real as the conversion of Paul. You see, we're all so different. We're different in our appearance, we're different in our personality, we're different in our experience, and so we're all different in the way that, uh, we experience, uh, the power of Christ, especially when we become Christians. In some cases, it's something very dramatic. In other cases, it's something very quiet. I remember once reading a remark by Billy Graham. He said that nothing could have been more memorable than the night of his own conversion, but he said his, his wife wasn't able to pinpoint, uh, the day of her conversion, and he graciously added that his wife was a better Christian than he was. And so, you see, i- i- it's not how much emotion you've ever had or anything like that. The simple thing is whether we're trusting the Savior, whether we are believing in him, whether there's a, a spiritual link, uh, between us and him. And so if you become a Christian, I can't promise you that you'll have very dramatic experiences. The Lord may give you some, I hope he does give you some, but perhaps not too many. You may become too proud if he gives you too many, but he may gives you s- may give you some, but I can't promise you dramatic experiences. But I can promise you, first of all, a divine presence with you. The Lord Jesus said, lo, I am with you always, every day. I can promise a divine presence with you. I can promise a divine power within you. It says it's God who works within you to will and to do of his good pleasure. And I can promise a divine prospect, a divine prospect ahead of you. I think I said last time that the, the gospel is not only for the time we die. It's not only for the time we die, and that's true. It's for every day, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Still, we can't afford to ignore death. We can't afford to ignore it. Once you die, you're dead for a long time. And unless the Lord comes, death lies ahead of every one of us, lies ahead of every one of us. And so it's very foolish to ignore it, isn't it? Very foolish to ignore it. But the gospel gives hope, gives prospect, uh, beyond the grave. Well, now, is it worthwhile being a Christian? Well, I would say that, eh, Christ alone makes life worthwhile. And so that briefly is why I'm a Christian, because of these two miracles. The miracle of the Bible, its unity, its prophecy, its vitality. The miracle of Christ, his words, his works, his holy life, his resurrection, his power in the lives of men.