In this sermon, the speaker explores the concept of humanity's fallen nature and the search for meaning in life. He contrasts the belief that people are basically good with the biblical perspective that humans were created to be good but have become fallen. The speaker reflects on the consequences of this fallen nature, such as greed and the inability to be content. He also discusses his personal journey of investigating various ideologies and religions, ultimately finding answers in the Bible and the transformative power of Jesus.

Once upon a time there was a person called Isaiahu ha-Nazih, Isaiahu ha-Nazih, Isaiah the prophet. He was the prophet of Israel. He was the prophet of Judah. And he lived before the Babylonian captivity. He lived hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus was born. And I want to read three things that this prophet Isaiah said. Because the three things he said, he was not saying simply to the people of his own time. But he was saying to the people of our time as well. You see, there's two different things. Two opposite things. Two mutually exclusive things. You can't be male and female. You're either a male or a female. You're either black or you're a white person. Right? You're either a South African citizen or you're not a South African citizen. Things which are mutually exclusive. There are two things that are mutually exclusive that people don't think are mutually exclusive. You can't have both. One is called religion. The other is called the gospel of Jesus. The gospel of Jesus is one thing. Religion is another. Now, unfortunately, the two have become convoluted. They've become confused in people's thinking. People think the gospel, Christianity, Jesus Christ. That's a religion. Like Islam, like Judaism, like Hinduism. The second way people become confused is they think Christianity is something for non-Jews, for Gentiles. When, in fact, Jesus himself said, I came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When, in fact, every writer of the New Testament was a Jew, except for Luke, and he had been a convert to Judaism. Every writer of the New Testament was Jewish. When, in fact, the only reason people who are not Jews believe in Jesus is because Jews believed in him first. When, in fact, by the second century, probably 25% of the Jews in Jerusalem believed he was the Messiah. Christianity is not a different religion. Jesus never came to begin a new faith. He simply came to fulfill the Torah, the faith of the Jews. Christianity is not separate from Judaism. It's the fulfillment of it. People are confused. Religion is one thing. Religion is one thing. The gospel is another. But it's become confused. I don't have a high view of religion. I never did. And I was astounded when I began to read Jesus and what he actually said, he didn't have a high view of religion either. I was shocked to discover the difference between the real Jesus of the gospel and the one I had in my mind, the little plastic one on the dashboard that people pray to. The real Jesus of the gospel was quite different than the one of organized religion. He was quite different than the Roman Catholic Jesus or the Jehovah's Witness Jesus or the Mormon Jesus or for the most part even the Protestant Jesus or the historical Jesus of intellectuals. He was quite different in a number of ways. As I pointed out the other night to begin with, there was never any such person as Jesus Christ. Never. There's never been such a person as Jesus Christ. His name was Rabbi Yeshua Bar Yosef. Nina said it. That's his name. His name was Yeshua Hamashiach. Gentiles called him Jesus. But that was not his name. Secondly, the things he said about religious people and religious leaders. He said that they were by and large hypocrites. Vipers. Parasites who put condemnation on people and manipulated people to get money out of them. And now, there are people coming in the name of Jesus as he predicted there would be. Who are just as hypocritical and just as corrupt as the religious leaders of his day. Only now, of course, they say they're Christians. I never thought much of religion. You want to ask me about religion, I'll tell you about religion. Religion is the war between Iran and Iraq over one million Muslims killed by other Muslims. That's religion. Religion was an orthodox Jew with a kifah, a yarmulke on his head and putting a bullet in the back of his own prime minister in Israel last year. That's religion. Religion is Northern Ireland. Catholics murdering Protestants and Protestants murdering Catholics. Hatred. Bigotry. That's religion. That's religion. Religion is some con man preacher on television telling you God wants you rich and if you send him this much money God's going to make you rich. Put your hand up. That's religion. It doesn't take a lot of brains to realize more people have probably been murdered in the name of religion than anything else. It doesn't take a lot of brains to realize religion is a financial con job. You need something to deal with your fear of death. You need something to cope with your fear of the unknown. You're going to be dead someday. You're at the family funeral. You need something to comfort you when your mother is dead or your father is dead. So buy my product. Be a Muslim. Be a Catholic. Be an Orthodox Jew. Be a Hindu. Religion is good business. Not honest business but good business. If you want religion you're wasting your time. Religion has never done anybody a bit of good and it won't do you any good either. Religion is like somebody with a lot of problems. So he goes out and he hits the bar. He begins drinking heavily and he gets drunk and all of a sudden he feels better. And he gets more drunk and then he's self obliterated. He feels wonderful. So he wakes up the next morning. His problems are still there. His business is still going to the wall. His wife is still leaving him. On top of it all he's got a hangover. That's religion. It'll take your money. It'll disillusion you. It'll give you a false sense of security. But it's not even going to solve your problems in this world let alone in the world to come. Having read the gospel having read it very carefully many times I'm absolutely convinced absolutely convinced that there's more people in hell because of religion than there are from all the alcohol abuse all the drug abuse all the sexual immorality all the corruption in business and politics put together there's more people in hell because of religion. See when Jesus came criminals they knew there was something wrong with them. Prostitutes they knew there was something wrong with them. Who came to Jesus? Who believed in him? Tax gatherers? Criminals? Prostitutes? They believed in him. Who crucified him? The Sadducees? The Pharisees? The Jesuits? The Imams? The Popes? That's who crucified Jesus. And that's who's still crucifying Jesus. Religion is a con. If you're religious I don't care what it is you have been taken for a ride. Now I don't say I don't say to become a follower of Jesus you have to be a criminal or a prostitute or a drunk but it helps. If you want to be eternally separated from God you have to be a member of a church or the denomination or the synagogue. You don't have to go to the novena you don't have to go to shul you don't have to go to the mosque you don't have to be an upstanding member of the community a member of the chamber of commerce you don't have to have your name on the social register you don't have to be a fine religious upstanding member of the citizenry of your community to be eternally separated from God and go to hell. You don't have to be religious to go to hell but it helps. Let's understand the difference. Let's look at this Jew named Isaiah Yishayahu Hanavi Now in fairness we must point out something there was in fact one religion which was bona fide one religion which God did give that religion was called Torah meaning the way it was the original covenant God gave to the Jews however that covenant was by it's own only temporary God told Moses in chapter 18 I will raise up a prophet like you and put my words in his mouth and the rabbis tell us Deuteronomy 18 18 is about the Messiah and anyone who does not listen to him I will require of him and they will be under the curse of the Torah If you want to understand the terrible things that have happened to the Jewish people read Leviticus 26 read Deuteronomy 28 it's the curse of the law why the holocaust why the inquisition why the pogroms it's the curse of the Torah the Torah was given to prepare the people for the Messiah the Torah was given to teach people about their separation from God and that they couldn't save themselves in fact the biggest section of the Torah the biggest section of the Torah of the Jews was given for a sacrificial system to try to make atonement for their sins to make up for the fact that they couldn't keep the Torah call it in Hebrew Kapora if the people really had faith in God and really repented and turned from their sin the best they could and they kept the Torah and the sacrifices the blood of the animals would make Kapora it would cover the sins of the people until the Messiah came and removed them but the temple was destroyed in 70 AD as the prophet Daniel said the Messiah would come and die before it would be destroyed and the Talmud as I pointed out the other night agreed so even the one religion that was authentic of a temporary value to prepare the Jewish people for the coming of the Messiah so they could bring God's message of salvation to everybody that religion doesn't exist anymore after the temple was destroyed as the prophet predicted they had a council at a place called Yavne and they decided instead of the Kohen the high priest will have a rabbi and instead of the temple being the center of our faith and worship we'll have a synagogue and instead of keeping the Torah which we can't keep anymore without a temple we'll just make our own religion and the prophet named Jeremiah predicted they would do just that and that's just what they did hence Judaism today is not the Judaism of the Torah it's just another religion now all these religions have some truth I've never found a single religion African tribal religion Hinduism Islam, Roman Catholicism Rabbinic Judaism I haven't found a single religion that doesn't have some truth Marxism has some truth there's always real cheese in a rat trap trusting in religion you're being conned you're being conned by who's ever selling it to you you're being conned by yourself you're being conned by the world and ultimately you're being conned by the devil you are being conned what are the differences between Jesus and religion if you want religion you can have religion if you want God you need Jesus you can have religion the world can have religion the world can keep its religion I don't want religion I don't need religion I've got Jesus what about you let's understand the difference first of all every religion teaches a blind faith blind faith just believe come on just believe it believe it experience it once you experience it you'll know it's true the Mormons say I had a burn in my bosom and I knew the church a lot of and I saw it was true other people say well it was good enough for my parents so it's good enough for me my mother and father were Catholic my mother and father were Muslim my mother and father were whatever I was born a Jew I'll die a Jew so your only relationship with God and what you believe is determined by what somebody else thinks you should believe if God exists and you stand before Him one day as the Bible says you will we all shall what your parents believe and what your grandparents believe is not going to be the issue it's going to be what you believe so let's continue blind faith I'm something of an evidentialist there's two ways of thinking the Hebrew way of thinking and the Greek way of thinking they both have their place the Hebrew way of thinking says first trust God then you'll understand the Greek way of thinking says first understand then trust God the Hebrew way of thinking is for Hebrews two Hebrews people with a relationship with God once you have the relationship with Him and you know you can trust Him then He expects you to act which you might call a blind faith based on His proven record but He never expected anybody never to come to believe in Him based on blind faith what did He tell Moses? let the people all see what's going to happen when He walks this mountain let them see how I'm going to deliver them from Egypt let them watch and see what I'm going to do I'll give them a reason to trust Me I'll give them a reason to believe in Me now once I gave them the reason then I expect them to trust Me but I don't expect them to trust Me without a reason He never did so let's look at this nice Jewish boy Eshayahu Hanavi Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18 come now let us reason together says the Lord though your sins are as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they are red like crimson they will be like wool let's begin with the first phrase of that verse come now let us reason together says the Lord the New Testament says the real Christian faith not the Catholic one the Protestant one the Jehovah's Witness one the real one of the Bible our faith is reasonable it's not just believe in the guru just believe in the institution just believe in some man just believe in some God nothing like that come let us reason together the scriptures tell us God made us Imagio Dei in His image and likeness He's the God of Reason and because we are made in His image and likeness He made us intelligent beings capable of reason you have to be a moron you have to be one idiot to believe something you can't prove you're going to build your whole life on something you cannot logically demonstrate to your satisfaction if the people do it my parents went to mass my parents went to shul my parents went to the mosque that's what I'm going to do good luck you're sure going to need it if your parents went to hell you want to go there with them come come let us reason together I was an agnostic when I was a student in university I studied science as a teenager in the 1960s I was very much a part of my own generation and era I had some ideas which seem peculiar to many people today but at that time of the civil rights movement in America before the anti-apartheid got going in your country it was already in America in the 60s and the anti-war movement and the anti-draft movement in Vietnam and all this I was very much in that era and I had no faith in anything particularly not politics or politicians and particularly even more so in organized religion essentially my orientation had been somewhat Marxist up to a point at least but something happened to me when I was 13 years old I read a book called Animal Farm by a writer named George Orwell where the animals overthrew the oppressive tyrant farmers and the revolution was led by the pigs which is what we used to call policemen when I was a teenager the only problem was we have a term in Hebrew when a poor person becomes a new master he becomes a worse oppressor than the old master in the book Animal Farm the pigs became the new power elite it was a book by a Jewish author Arthur Kessler called Darkness at Noon and he explained how communism began with high hopes and just became a regime more oppressive than what it sought to replace I realized there was something wrong even if we got rid of white country pigs which is how I define the establishment and even if we overthrew the power structure and gave civil rights to the black people and ended the Vietnam War and all this and redistributed the wealth the same kinds of people who had the wealth under a capitalist system would wind up with it under a communist system or even worse today's hero tomorrow's oppressor why? why is it that no political economic system improves man's life? there must be something wrong with man something wrong with man? so even if we overthrow the system and have a revolution which is what I believe in I believed in revolution as a teenager said we need another revolution in fact Mao Tse-Tung in his red book wrote this, the continual revolution he understood that every revolutionary government, provisional government would become institutionalized and we'd need another one and another one even noted it, even admitted it there'd be no way out of this even the founders of communism they admitted there was no way out of it the vicious circle of human history, I was later shocked when I read that the book of Ecclesiastes said the same thing long before Mao Tse-Tung the book of Harvard said the same thing long before Karl Marx long before dialectic materialism we were going to change the world we were the hippies we were the ones who were going to bring love and peace what was love? I'll tell you what love was, venereal disease peace? yeah, a lot of peace people ripping each other off in drug deals a lot of peace and so it went come let us reason together, why is it like this? why is it that it never gets better? why is it that when you get rid of apartheid, what used to be called political violence is now just crime, the same people doing the same stuff what is wrong with us? why is there no simple political or economic solution? what's the problem? what's the reason? more than that, what about that? there must be some reason we're here so I began to try to find the meaning of existence through examining investigating the occult through mind expanding drugs like LSD and through studying science I was trying to find meaning sounds crazy to you I was desperate so I began looking into this the occult eastern religion let's look at eastern religion I remember when the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came to England and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones went to see him now my religious thinking or spiritual thinking or metaphysical thinking was something like this at the time well okay Mohammed was God's teacher for his time and his culture and Jesus was the enlightened one for his time and his culture right and Zoroaster was the enlightened one for his time and his culture and Buddha was the enlightened one for his time and his culture and as everybody knows the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan are the ones for now seems crazy to you but I believed it and most of my friends believed it or something like this so look at the eastern religion yes the Beatles they went to India to meditate with the Maharishi has it been to India? you ever see what the Hindu religion is? here in South Africa if you had a Judeo-Christian influence in the social fabric there was at least a sense of moral indignation that apartheid was not right, that it was somehow morally unacceptable, at least it was that sense but there's a system of social injustice endemic to India far worse than apartheid called the caste system where you've got the Guru and the Brahmin priest at the top and the peasants are on the ground and there's no sense it's wrong, there's no sense of the poverty, that unspeakable poverty beyond the township, much worse than the township much worse there's no sense that it's wrong it's supposed to be that way, it's their karma it's the divine order people drinking cow urine people taking a little baby and giving it water from the Ganges to drink if they believe it's sacred and the baby dies of cholera but that's ok, it's the baby's karma next time it comes back as a baboon rats spreading filthy disease in the slums of Bombay and Calcutta it was the Hindu caste that worshipped rats you know when you're living in a castle or a mansion in England and you're a multi-millionaire pop star it's easy to believe in eastern religion but look what it's done for the people who live in the slums of Bombay and Calcutta come, let us reason together but let's look further there must be something I was never an atheist I believed there had to be some kind of an intelligent design to the universe the fool says in his heart there's no God I didn't know what this God was I sort of believed the way Einstein did at least that's what he would have said some kind of a collective or corporate intelligence on the back of the celestial eminence maybe the goddess Spinoza philosophical ideas, something like this Einstein said they asked could it all be chance when they were dealing with the ideas of non-locality and physics and so on and Einstein said God does not play dice with the universe it can't be chance the probabilities were too much when I went to university began studying science a protein was a very very long molecule and the probability of getting the right combination of amino acids together in the right configuration under the right circumstances to make a protein to make one enzyme let alone a polypeptide chain it was ridiculous I was taught entropy the second law of thermodynamics things go from a state of order to disorder not disorder to order so even if this stuff didn't evolve something had to make it happen contrary to entropy and these same professors that were teaching me this themselves were still believing presuppositions that there was no God even though the mathematical probability said this is unthinkable they were just caught up in the system I knew there had to be a God but who? prove it come let us reason so I looked further into the occult there was a witch in New Jersey near New York and she used to read my tarot cards and she was quite good at tarot cards she had a familiar spirit she was a diviner and one day she was doing my tarot reading and she began to freak out with the tarot cards and she saw the tarot cards I was going to become a believer in Jesus which to me was a bit bad and she began freaking out with the cards don't come back and burn me when this happens I said what? she said don't come back and burn me when this happens I said but what happens? and she told me would you calm down here roll the joints relax reshuffle the cards and we'll begin again and I'll tell you to this day if you want to talk about a track record she wasn't always right but if I took the amount of predictions that she gave me and how often they came true if you can outperform Paul Cain, Mike Bickle, John Winberg and the rest of them come let us reason together so I looked pick up a book like Nostradamus this guy seemed to know the future so I was told the only problem with Nostradamus was it was a matter of vague interpretation well you could say he meant Hitler here or you could say he meant the Kennedys over there but it's a matter of interpretation no proof Tibetan book of the dead the Bhagavad Gita Scientology what a con job that is I looked into all these things including things claiming to be Christian like the Jehovah's Witnesses prove it where's the proof you want me to follow it and stake my life on it where's the proof I understand there must be a God I understand that there must be something wrong with mankind but where's the proof I believe that the occult had to be scientifically researched so I began to experiment with LFB when I was in my mid teens or so and then the experimentation turned into an extensive research project laughter which without doubt accounts for much of what you're looking at today and I came into contact with a demonic whose mind altering drugs I already mentioned and so on and I was later astounded to find in the book of Revelation the greek word sorcery pharmacia in greek two psychedelic drugs you can definitely enter the spiritual realm through another door other than Jesus you ask people to say that in that kind of a background and I saw things not just hallucinogenically I also had an out of body experience which I thought was an actual projection but it was not my spirit left my body at astronomical speed and I couldn't get back into it it was not an ordinary astral projection it was terrifying whether I was clinically dead I don't know but I know somehow I came into the presence of Jesus and he sent me back and I didn't understand it and I thought well that's far out you know I'm one of those people you know when I got saved all I could say was thank you Jesus and praise the lord which doubled my previous vocabulary of wow and far out a lot of people are like that you know so anyways I went through all this stuff with the occult and the acid and studying science and one day in Greenwich village in New York I went up to somebody on the street and I had a cigarette and I was looking to buy some marijuana or something and I was studying in university but I didn't have any classes the next day so on the weekends when I had no exams and stuff and would go to Greenwich village and get high and I took a cigarette and I went up to this guy on McDougal street in New York this was like towards the end of the hippie era 1971 72 and I said to him hey man you got a light and I took the cigarette in my mouth well as it so happened he didn't have any matches but he certainly had the light and he began to show me things that I never considered the law of conservation of matter and energy in the bible before anybody knew about it that the earth was round long before columbus and this caught my fancy so I had a problem I always knew there was acid freaks and speed freaks now I met a Jesus freak that's what we call them and something else happened there were these guys coming back from Vietnam totally strung out on shiny tether and very powerful and they began getting saved, becoming Christians with no withdrawal no cold turkey not one or two, thousands of them so I began to investigate the bible it was clear the youth culture, the hippie movement wasn't going anywhere except it was becoming part of an establishment now the nerds even have long hair just another system the occult you always find the gypsies reading the crystal ball, this is money there's got to be some way out of this there's got to be some way now at this period I was having problems in university lysergic acid is soluble in fats, lipids and when your body requires energy the first thing that gets metabolized is lipids to release the energy and I was using cocaine very heavily on top of it and I told my genetics professor well there was something in physics called Brownian movement that all matter is in constant motion but the particles are held together by electromagnetic force in other words this podium, this is moving this bible is moving but its stability is only relative to our perception because of the electromagnetic force holding the atoms together and I told my genetics professor that I could see Brownian movement with the naked eye citric acid cycle ATP adenine triphosphate reacted in Krebs cycle would yield adenine diphosphate plus energy plus inorganic phosphate TI and Krebs cycle, oxaloacetic, malic and all this stuff and they were giving me a psychotropic drug called borazine to try to stop the hallucination I was messed up and I was having a difficult time trying to memorize all this physiology and biochemistry when I was strung out I wanted to be a scientist work in biomedical research but there were three problems dope and sex and rock and roll as a result I never did get the Nobel prize but I found something better how is this? I began reading the bible with the aim of disproving it I wasn't trying to prove it, I was trying to disprove it I wanted to prove it was just another con just another religion just another ism that's all I was not trying to prove it I was trying to disprove it so I was fine come now let us reason together says the Lord my first problem was this I could document, I could prove with archeology that the Tanakh, the Old Testament was written centuries before Jesus Christ was born you could go to the British museums they would verify it it was written centuries the second problem I had was that unlike Nostradamus the predictions in the Old Testament were literal they weren't vague they weren't how you interpret it or what you want to make out of it it said too many direct things for instance, 800 years, nearly a thousand years before Jesus was born there was someone called King David and in the 22nd psalm which any rabbi could tell me was written long before Jesus was born he says my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? ok, but Jesus could have said that then it begins describing the crucifixion verse 7 all who see ye sneer at me they separate the lip they wag their head commit yourself to the Lord let the Lord rescue him if he delights in him verse 14 all my bones are out of joint when the Torrance trial was investigated they crucified Shadabra's dead bodies in France and that's what happens in a crucifixion the bones pop out of joint but then it went on to say thorns have surrounded me abandoned evil doers encompass me they pierce my hands and feet I've torn all my bones they divide my garments among them and for my raiment they cast lots now I should prove that was written over 600 years before this was written in about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice Eli, Eli, lama sabatani my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and when they crucified him they divided up his garments among themselves, casting lots they pierced my hands and feet and gambled for my clothes it wasn't like Master Dominus, this was literal then it goes on to say here they gave me gall to drink when he was hanging on the cross they gave him vinegar and gall to drink in Matthew 27 verse 34 but King David said that too in Psalm 62 that's what he said King David said they gave me gall to drink but they gave him so I had a problem so I said well, that was written by people after the time of Jesus I was trying to make it seem like he fulfilled these predictions it was staged, like the Passover plots it was staged, it was put on how come his own people rejected it? so I read further Max DeMont the Jewish historian, not a Christian said that his own people were accepting him in huge numbers well into the second century and the founders of Christianity were Jews the two biggest opponents of early Christianity were the Roman government and the Jewish rabbis so I read what the Roman government wrote at least pagan Roman historians Suetonius, Tacitus Josephus who was a Jew who converted to paganism these people admitted it was common knowledge throughout the Roman empire that this man rose from the dead hundreds of people hundreds of Jews in different places at different times some in Palestine some in Turkey, some in Greece, some in Italy some in North Africa willing to die the cruelest of deaths even seeing their families murdered willing to be martyred this way saying we saw this man alive after he was dead and he rose he can raise us, we're willing to die for this he can get a crazy group of people in Waco, Texas you gotta go to Waco anyway to shoot it out with the FBI and die as I pointed out the other night he can force these people down in the jungle in Vienna like that guy Jim Jones did but to get hundreds of people in different places at different times, Jewish people willing to die this way facing this terrible death even seeing their children murdered I had a problem but not as big of a problem as when I read what the rabbis wrote about Jesus as I quoted from the other night there was something called the Avodah Zerah written by the rabbis trying to discourage Jews from believing he was a Jewish Messiah this was not written by Messianic Jews, not by Hebrew Christians not by Jews who believed in him it was written by rabbis trying to persuade other Jews not to believe in him the Avodah Zerah it said yes you are not to believe Jesus did miracles as no other rabbi he healed the sick he even raised the dead and his disciples did miracles in his name and when he was crucified on Passover like the New Testament says when he was crucified he then ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives after raising from the dead that was not written by Jews who believed in him that was written by Jews who rejected him and were trying to persuade others to reject him it's one thing when your followers say these things it's another thing when your enemies say it it's one thing when those who are trying to persuade people to believe in you say it it's another thing when those who are trying to persuade people not to believe in you say it I had a big the prophet Micah chapter 5 verse 2 says someone who was pre-existent from eternity would be born in Bethlehem he would be the Messiah that was 500 years nearly before Jesus was born who his ancestors would be they would be from the house of David a descendant of King David the prophet Zechariah chapter 11 says he would be betrayed by his friends not only that it says the price his friend would betray him for, 30 pieces of silver no fewer than 7 places the prophet Isaiah alone said that this person would cause the Gentiles, the Gentile nation non-Jews to believe in the Jewish God this little nation Israel was never anything even to this date there's only 13-14 million Jews in the world they're nothing yet how come the God of this little country compared to China is a billion people people in China believe in this God of the Jews by the tens of millions despite persecution under the communists why is this? I'll tell you why it is because it's true imagine me saying 800 years from now somebody was going to be born imagine 800 years from now where he would be born who his ancestors would be that he would be betrayed by his friends the price his friend would betray him for that he would die by crucifixion 600 years before it was invented that Gentiles would gamble for his clothes that he'd give them gold to drink when he's hanging on the cross that he'd make the nations of the world believe in the God of the Jews this guy 800 years from now not like Master Thomas how do you want to interpret it literal prediction I had a problem I began by taking the laws of finite math that I learned in university these were the early days of what we today call gold standard diagnostic software program where you put a combination of symptoms into a computer with a person's medical history and find out the probabilities of what disease they have and they were just beginning to work on this and they had these simple theorems called Occam's razors and things like this who'd work on probabilities and you had the idea of what was a theory what was a hypothesis what was a postulate and what was a law using the laws of finite math there was no margin of deviation the same way that I was taught how do you arrive at the probability of a diagnosis or how you say something is not simply a hypothesis but it's now a postulate a law that you can't fully understand it's a postulate just like in mathematics by the same standards I applied it to the bible and say wait a minute this is nobody's theory this is impostery then there was a book called evidence that demands a verdict written from a legal perspective the way you would advocate a matter was rules of evidence what's prima facie evidence, what's corroborative evidence what's forensic evidence the laws of evidence in a court again the evidence demanded a verdict it got to the point with me trying to disprove it, I was out to disprove it it took me more faith to reject Jesus Christ than it did to accept him it took me more faith not to believe it than it did to believe it the burden of evidence was just too strong the burden of empirical evidence was just too much in its favor come let us reason together this was not blind faith this stressed my intellect more than any science book I ever read more than any lecture I ever heard come let us reason but then it went on to say come let us reason together what comes next your sins are like scarlet they shall be white as wool the Talmud said that on Yom Kippur the day of atonement they would hang the scarlet thread tied between the horns of the Sa'are Vazrael the scapegoat on the day of atonement before the Holy of Holies Hakodes kodeshim in the temple and if the people's sins were forgiven the scarlet thread would turn white if the people's sins were not forgiven it would remain scarlet and it says for 40 years before the temple was destroyed in other words from 30 A.D. onward from the time of the public ministry of Jesus until the temple was destroyed as Daniel predicted the sins of the Jewish people were never forgiven by the law or the Torah not according to Christianity according to Judaism scarlet thread come let us reason together your sins what's wrong sins how come if the hippies took over and we did what we wanted to do that our counterculture is just as bad as the establishment how come when you have a martial uprising of the lumpen solitary the new regime becomes worse than the old one that was the second point religion is blind faith Jesus has come let us reason but the second is religion says this the brotherhood of man people are basically good we're all God's children we can live together and build a better planet for our children's future we're basically good but the Bible says we were intended to be basically good we were created to be basically good but we've become basically fallen I should have the prettiest wife in the world I could love that woman and be away on a business trip and somebody else's wife or some other woman catches my fancy why why how could I hurt my wife that way how come I'm not content with what I have because man is basically fallen why is it why power and greed these things were basically fallen we were intended to be basically good but we're basically fallen that's the second point Isaiah's second point let's look at his second point Isaiah chapter 53 he said this in Hebrew it's much more powerful in verse 6 all we like sheep have gone astray each has turned to his own way but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon him all we like sheep have gone astray to God who is perfect if you hate somebody it's as bad as murder to God who is perfect if you desire another man's wife even desiring to sleep with her it's as bad as doing it if he's perfect not only that he says be holy as I am holy you have to be like me if you want to go to heaven if not you'll go to hell how can I be like you how can anybody be like you everybody's doomed that's right all we like sheep have gone astray and there's no hope except that the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him to God one man without sin is worth more than all the men with sin the problem is there's no man without sin so God himself becomes the man and the person of the Messiah Yeshua HaMashiach Jesus and as Rabbi Shaul of Parsis Paul the Apostle wrote he who knew no sin became sin God took my sin and your sin and put it on him and took his righteousness and put it on us there's no way I could be righteous to go to heaven there's no way I could be anything other than foul and decrepit before a perfect God so he pays the price for what I did all religion all religion people are basically good we can build the brotherhood of man Jesus said forget it you'll never build the brotherhood of man you'll build the tower of Babel forget about building the brotherhood of man you follow me you let me pay the price for your sins and build the kingdom of God it's the opposite one is religion and the other is Jesus one is reason the other is a con one is man's empty righteousness the other is the righteousness of God himself and Jesus it's the opposite you cannot be religious and a Christian so let's come to the third difference between the gospel and religion the third difference that Isaiah gives us between religion and Jesus he says this the prophet Isaiah says the following all of your righteous deeds are as filthy rags declares the Lord all of your righteous deeds are as filthy rags you see here's where religion gets you religion will tell you the following religion will tell us we have to be good people religion will tell us by doing certain things and not doing certain other things we can be reconciled to God because Jehovah's Witnesses is knocking on doors to Catholics it's the sacraments going to mass and to the novena you're going to burn in purgatory for your own sins so you have to do things to get out of it to Orthodox Jews it's the mitzvot to become the right to Muslims it's the hajj every religion every single religion is man trying to reach God everyone every religion is man trying to reach God no exception Scientology, the cult everyone is man trying to reach God through some kind of being good or good work but Isaiah says according to God even to a good work you're as filthy rags before a holy God it's like a guy who comes home drunk abuses his children sexually beats up his wife and then comes back the next day and brings his kids some candy and gives his wife flowers our sin has separated us from him you're never going to cross it all of your righteous deeds are as filthy rags I don't care how good you are I don't care if you're Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer I don't care if you're Bernard Baruch all rolled into one before a perfect God it's filthy rags religion Satan gets more people into hell with religion than he does all the rest of the corruption in the world put together in the United States this is a big chasm it's an incredible looking thing over a mile deep and I don't know how wide I've seen it called the Grand Canyon suppose people were trying to jump across the Grand Canyon one guy made it one tenth of the way and he fell down into the Colorado Basin and he was dead another guy made it a quarter of the way fell down into the Colorado Basin and he was dead another guy comes along he makes it a third of the way down into the Colorado Basin he's dead another guy makes it half the way someone else makes it two thirds of the way same thing someone else makes it three quarters of the way there he is dead and finally somebody some unique individual actually makes it nearly nine tenths of the way is he any less dead than the one who made it one tenth of the way there's only one man who ever made it across the Grand Canyon metaphorically speaking his name was Jesus and the only way you're ever going to get there is on his shoulders our righteous deeds are our filthy rags I don't care how good you are I don't care how good you are you're not good enough to go to heaven you're not good enough to escape hell I don't care how good you are I don't care because God doesn't care you're not good enough to go to heaven on the other hand it doesn't matter how bad you are no matter how bad you are a drug addict, a prostitute a hit man for the mob, a homosexual it doesn't matter no matter how bad you are you're not so bad that Jesus cannot save you Amen how good is somebody how bad that's religion nobody's good except God himself that's Jesus come let us reason you're sinning all realized sheep have gone astray nobody's perfect nobody meets God's standards you see every single religion I don't care what your religion is is man trying to reach God the gospel Jesus is God trying to reach man it's fundamentally opposite the two are mutually exclusive you cannot be religious and be a Christian Christians do good work because they've been saved not in order to get saved but there's another problem we can't choose God we cannot even choose him you can't turn to Jesus he has to give you the power he said this in the gospel of Saint John chapter 5 verse 24 truly truly I say to you he who hears my word and believes him who sent me and belief in the Jewish concept does not mean simply to intellectually acknowledge its factual basis it means to act on it he who believes has eternal life he does not come into judgment but is passed from death to life if you are not born again you are dead already if you are not born again you are already under a sentence of death you're dead already you are spiritually dead as dead as I was it's only a matter of biological exploration bury the corpse send them off to hell in a laundry chute that's it you see God is a God of justice he can't be wholesome you think of Nazi war criminals what those people did putting children into ovens and they were hung at the Nuremberg after the Nuremberg trial but you see to God none of us are any better than they are but he loves us anyway he loves us anyway to the point that he himself comes to take the wrath, the blame for what we did that's reality, passed from death to life you can't accept Jesus tonight unless he draws you even if you agree with and believe and give intellectual assent to what I say even if it goes here only God can take it from here and put it here you can't become a Christian tonight, you can't do it he has to give you the power it's appointed to man once to die and after this to judgment King David said this do homage to the Son lest he become angry and you perish in the way for his wrath may soon be kindled how blessed are all those who take refuge in him whether you agree with me or not whether you believe it or not it's irrelevant the only question is, is it true? Dr. Hilda over here someone comes to her she's a radiologist and she puts on the x-ray I'm sorry carcinoma, I'm sorry lung cancer, inoperable no chemo no isotopes, there will be no surgery that's going to help you, you'll be dead within six months of that long you're dead you're doomed, you're finished, you're terminal here's the x-ray I can't help you, nobody can I don't believe it I don't believe that whether they believe it or not does not change the reality they're doomed the x-ray shows what's on the inside whether or not you believe it is irrelevant the fact is it's reality, you're doomed God knows what's on the inside and what's inside of you is what's inside of me apart from Christ sin so this person who's been diagnosed terminal see, I got a wife I got a husband and I have little children what's going to happen to their future? and what's going to happen to me? who knows? they think of a coffin and they're going to be lying in it soon they think of a funeral they think of a grave that's going to be them they can't quite believe it but it's true and they know it's true and they can't get out of it now but all of a sudden they find out something there's one hope there's one chance there's one cure there is one master physician that can take your old lungs and give you new lungs you're doomed you are on your way to a real hell you and I will stand before a holy perfect living God in terror and give account for our lives and we're all guilty, there's one hope he knows what's in our heart and our heart is filled with wickedness there's only one cure the master physician who can give a new heart his name is Jesus Yeshua whether you believe it or not is irrelevant I promise you this if you don't believe me now a hundred years from now Yeshua will but it will be too late you hear what I said if you don't believe me now I guarantee you you will a hundred years from now but it will be too late I've known a lot of people who rejected Jesus and on their deathbed if they had a deathbed and didn't die suddenly they were in terror they were in terror, oh God help me give me another ten years if I had my life to live over again I would never live this way please Jesus talk to anybody in the medical profession happens every day in every hospital please, if I had it to live over I'd never do it, I'll believe in you, I'll do what you want you'll find no shortage of people regretting their life having not accepted the Messiah but I've never found one person I've never found a single person who did accept the Lord Jesus on their deathbed saying I wasted my life I wish I didn't live this way I wish I kept living the way I was living I wish I kept running around with other people's wives or other people's husbands I wish I kept taking dope I wish I kept gambling, I wish I kept drinking I wish I kept living that way I've never found one not even one not even one it's appointed to man once to die and after this to judge him if you heard what I had to say tonight if you heard what I had to say you haven't heard anything worth hearing but if you've heard the voice of Jesus he's calling you from death to life he can do for you what he did for me and so many other people in this room he can give you that new heart he can save you from that judgment that awaits you a judgment awaits you either he's going to be the prosecutor who sends you to eternal hell or he's going to be your defense attorney he's going to say wait a minute the price for this person's sin has been paid do you want him as your prosecutor he's your prosecutor already do you want him as your defense attorney as your savior as the one who went to the cross to pay the price for what you did you can accept him tonight I promise you, I absolutely guarantee you if you truly accept Jesus even when things become difficult and things do look difficult if you accept Jesus you'll never regret it if you reject Jesus you'll reject it for all eternity with a regret that you can't even possibly fathom now forever is a long time and now is the beginning of your forever right now you're on the wrong road but you have a chance to get on the right one it says in the scripture now is the appointed time today is the day of salvation vote not about tomorrow you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring we had a Christian guy just the day before yesterday somebody came and put a bullet in his head doesn't take much I was driving in a car in England two weeks ago with my little girl, my daughter and some maniac comes around 70 miles an hour driving on the wrong side of the road crashed right into us if I wasn't in a bigger car I would have been killed so was my daughter you don't know but you can know this you can know that when you do die your insurance is more than paid I'll tell you something once I was caught in a shootout in New York between two cocaine dealers and I saw one guy shot he was laying in the street bleeding and the other guy was shooting at me I expect because he thought I could identify him to the police and he was shooting at me and I was terrified and I couldn't explain to you the terror forget that Clint Eastwood, John Wayne stuff that's only in the movies when you see somebody get plugged in front of you real bullets, real blood shooting at you, it's a terror beyond terror but then I had a very serious accident some years later I was impaled on a spike I won't even tell you how that happened and I drove the pectoral muscle into my lung and they thought I went through the genocidal they thought I was dead and I thought I was on my way out I was afraid of a lot of things I was concerned about my family my family's future, my children's future the pain was excruciating the blood the pain was terrible I was afraid I was afraid of a lot of things but I was not afraid to die what about you? the x-ray diagnosis is here you're pre-terminal you're doomed, you're finished a death worse than the biological death at a waste of salt unless Jesus comes first you're finished, you are hopelessly finished there is nothing you are ever going to do to get yourself out of that mess no religion is going to help you you're never going to reach God even if you'll write this deed on nothing to him you have one way out, you can let him do for you what you can never do for yourself when somebody becomes a believer in Jesus a true believer not what the world says a Christian is or a believer is a true believer the person you are is nailed to the cross of Jesus by faith, you die with him and you become a new creation he doesn't just say I'm going to hang on this cross and pay the price for your sins he says I'm going to do that, but he says you get up here and die with me you'll become a new creation you ask God for the power to turn from sin and you make a commitment to follow Jesus on the basis of the Bible you ask him to make you a new creation to come inside of you and make you God's child to forgive your sins he'll do it now when you become a Christian your life changes you have to stop that sinning alcohol abuse, cigarettes sweeping around that's the ghost that's what got you into this mess to begin with second you pray you see, real Christianity is not religion, it's a relationship with God through a relationship with Jesus, the same as you have a relationship with your parents your brother, your sister, your wife, your husband your friends, you have a relationship he's a person, you talk to him third, you read the Bible he talks back to you fourth, you meet together with other Christians a church is not a country club for good people, it's a hospital for sinners you get baptized that means you are a symbol of dying with him and coming out go to church and get baptized forget the sprinkling baby stuff it's not biblical and then you tell other people what Jesus did to you because he wants to use you to do the same thing for them it's the easiest thing in the world we'll invite people to accept Jesus you don't have to be afraid or embarrassed or self-conscious as not a Christian in this room that has not done it you'll come into a new family you'll come we'll talk to you we'll pray with you we'll lead you to Jesus we'll introduce you to him he made the commitment to you now it's time for you to make a commitment to him