A Conversation With Cliffe Knechtle About Christianity's Toughest Topics | Ed Young

Good morning this morning. How are y'all  doing? I'm so excited to have our guest today.

This guy is legendary. He's pastor of  Grace Community Church. Follow him on YouTube.

It's called "Give Me An Answer". Just type that  in and you'll go right to his many brilliant, brilliant videos. Also, of course, on Snapchat  and Instagram.

Cliffe has been married for many years. His wife is Sharon. He has three  sons.

He will be our guest this February at our C3 Conference. I have kind of twisted  his arm. He's going to do a series for us this summer.

I'm talking about Cliffe Knechtle.  Let's stand to our feet and welcome Cliffe Knechtle. Woo-hoo!

Cliffe! This guy is such a great guy. We are truly soul brothers.

We are. I feel  like I've known him my whole life. Please be seated.

This guy, he's going to be humble,  but this guy played Division 1 basketball. Oh, come on now, Ed. Wait a second.

Wait a second.  I had good seats for every game, and when the team went out to play UCLA, the coach informed  me, "There's not a seat on the plane for you. " I totally understand.

Cliffe, have a seat.  Welcome once again to Fellowship Church. Cliffe, obviously, we have so many different questions, and I know some of you have been kind  enough to text us questions to ask Cliffe.

I want to start off by talking a little bit about  some of the world religions. Just real quick, give me your word on some of these  religions, for example, Islam. If anybody says to you, "All religions are the  same," it shows they're either not very religious or they've not taken the time to study the major  world religions.

Islam. I respect Mohammed when he makes one of the Five Pillars of Islam give  alms to the poor. Very good.

We want to help the poor. But Mohammed, who was born 570 and lived  till about 632 AD, repeatedly in the Quran says, "Jesus is not God. " Problem.

Obviously, Mohammed  never met Jesus. The eyewitnesses who saw Jesus and heard Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter,  James, Paul, or knew one of the eyewitnesses, insist Jesus claimed to be God. So, we have a  basic contradiction.

Repeatedly, Mohammed says, "Jesus was a good prophet, but not God. " But in  the Gospels, Jesus claims to be God by both his words and his actions. So, who am I going to  trust: a guy who was born 570 years after the fact to be my primary source of information about  Jesus, or am I going to trust the eyewitnesses?

Well, that's a no-brainer. I'm going to go  back to the eyewitnesses 100 times out of 100. Secondly, in Islam, Mohammed comes with a sword. 

In Christianity, Jesus comes with a towel. Big difference between pushing a religion through  war, threatening annihilation versus coming with a towel to serve and to love. And one of the  most amazing things about Christianity is it's the largest religion in the world, but its leader is  a servant who washes people's feet and dies on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin and give  us a gift of eternal life.

Phenomenal the way God works there. In fact, I think that it's the  incarnation of Christ, the idea that God becomes a human being and is a servant and then dies a  sacrificial death that is the reason that so many people who are poor, disenfranchised, suffering  can connect with Jesus in such a meaningful way. Buddhism.

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, you got to respect.  He was a young man who struggled through the problem of suffering. Now, come on, you got  to respect a guy who's thoughtful enough to struggle through the problem of suffering. 

But Siddhartha Gautama Buddha never once talks about God. He's at best agnostic, probably  atheist, and he never talks about God. Obviously, Jesus points out, "This is eternal  life, that men and women might know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom  you've sent," in John 17:3.

So, Jesus' point is eternal life begins now in a relationship  of love with God and will last for eternity. That's very, very different, very  unique, very different from Buddhism. Exactly.

Hinduism. Hinduism. Basically monism, oneness, everything  is one.

Whap. What just happened? Oh, obviously, part of God just smacked part of God.

So,  you wipe out the basis for an understanding of justice versus injustice, good versus evil  if you get into monism and take it seriously philosophically, because everything is part  of God. Gandhi got his understanding that the caste system in India was wrong, not  from the Vedas and Upanishads of Hinduism, but from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus  points out God is a transcendent being who is separate from us. He creates us in his image  with a conscience, a rational mind.

And we, by exercising our consciences and our rational  minds, can distinguish between justice versus injustice, right versus wrong. Hinduism teaches, basically, that what you and I call reality is sort of an  illusion, and you can believe just whatever you want to because it's all an illusion. And Buddhism  at times leans in that direction.

Really? So, it's all just an illusion. No.

Jesus points out  that reality is not just an illusion. God created your body, the physical world that we live in. The  body is not evil.

The body is good. And that's why in Heaven you will have a resurrection body when  you put your faith in Christ. That's why in Heaven you will see your loved ones.

And I can hardly  wait to see my little seven-year-old niece who was knocked into an early grave at the age of seven  in a horrible car wreck, and I can promise you, my brother. And I know that you can hardly wait to  see your precious daughter in Heaven one day, Ed. There are some basic fundamental contradictions. 

Are there agreements? Of course, there are agreements between all the major religions.  You'll find some form of the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto  you," in almost every major world religion.

Mormonism. Because sometimes  people will say, "Well, Ed, aren't Mormons Christians? And what about that?

" I think that probably there are a bunch of  Mormons who do not understand what Joseph Smith really taught and who have tried  to follow Jesus. And I think maybe they are followers of Christ. That's for God  to decide, not me.

But I respect them a lot. If you study Mormonism, if you study  the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, if you study the tablets that you discovered  in upstate New York, a linguist specialist at Columbia University analyzed those tablets and  said that is the biggest hodgepodge of different alphabets from different languages he'd ever  seen, you begin to realize, no, no, no, no, you don't want to trust a guy who lacks credibility. When you read about the polygamy that Joseph Smith espoused, maybe polygamy is true, Joseph Smith,  but if you're going to claim to be a follower of Christ, if you're going to claim to take the  Bible seriously and try and make an argument for polygamy, no, sir, that does not work. 

I can promise you. When the Bible records Solomon having 700 wives and 300 concubines,  it's not saying, "Go out and do likewise. " No, no.

That was Solomon's sinfulness. And when  David commits adultery with Bathsheba and covers it up by murdering her husband, Uriah,  the Bible is not saying, "Oh, by the way, go out and do likewise. " No, it's recording,  it's giving a description of an historical event.

Cliffe, the issue of pain and suffering. You  walked through this with your brother, who is a surgeon at Duke. How did that help formulate  your faith, and what did it do for you personally?

The reason, if you don't have a church home, that  you should make this church your church home, is because this man and his wife lost a child.  Now, friends, that's the most intense pain that I think we, as human beings, can go through. You  lose a child, and you are in agony, total agony, and you don't get over it either.

It's not  like you can forget that, okay? When you confront suffering, you are having to go down  to the depth of your soul, of your personhood, as you know too well, Ed. You either come out  bitter, angry against God, or else you submit to God and say, "Lord, I don't know why you allowed  it to happen, and it hurts like blazes.

" Remember, "I do not know why you allowed it to happen. "  Let's say it all together. I do not know.

I do not know. AUDIENCE: I do not know. That is the first place to start when  it comes to the problem of suffering.

And if anybody thinks that they can give a  watertight answer to the problem of suffering, they are intellectually naive. You can't. Second point, the Book of Genesis records, "God created this and God saw that  it was good.

And God created that, and God saw that it was good. " And the little  phrase, "God saw that it was good," is repeated and repeated and repeated. So, the point is clear. 

When God created, he did a good job. He did not create evil, injustice, suffering and death. In Genesis 3, we read how human beings rebelled against God.

That's where the train got off the  track. That's where the arrow missed the mark. So, if you think you're born into a fair world, you've  been smoking something I don't want to smoke, because it's not fair.

And down deep, you know  that. One of the main points of the Book of Job is life is unfair, God is fair. Don't get the  two mixed up.

Remember, you're not born into a fair world. You're born into an unfair world. When  you suffer, don't blame God.

It's not God's doing. Next point, when God became a human being,  he had a really cushy, comfortable life, didn't he? No.

He was poor, he was kicked around,  and ultimately, he got his teeth kicked in as he's nailed to a cross. This is a God who you and I  can connect to in our suffering. And that's why I would encourage you to read the Negro Spirituals,  the songs of the African American slaves who were getting a snot kicked out of them and yet  who learned to connect with a suffering God.

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were  you there when they crucified my Lord? Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were  you there when they crucified my Lord? " Now, guys, they're in touch with reality  and a Christianity that says, "Oh no, it's all a cushy existence. Believe in Jesus and  you'll be healthy and wealthy.

" Really? Wait a second. I thought I'm following someone who got  nailed to a cross.

That's not very cushy. That's not very comfortable. But he's reliable because  as he's dying on a cross, he prays, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

" And  then three days later he rises from the dead and kicks the snot out of death. That Jesus provides  the ultimate solution for suffering and death, forgiveness in eternal life into heaven where  there will be no more sickle cell anemia, no more cancer, no more heart failure, no more suicide,  but eternal life in the presence of Almighty God. Exactly.

Brilliant. So great. Cliffe,  a lot of us, I'm talking to those of us who are followers of Christ, a lot of us have  relationships and we're friends with people who don't know the Lord.

They are far away from  God. You do such a brilliant job of being kind but also confrontational. When is the right  time to, I don't want to say put them on the spot, to see where they are spiritually and go  for the ask, is what I'm saying?

Obviously the Holy Spirit has to lead, but what are  some practical things you could tell us? First of all, it's very kind of you to  tell me that I'm so kind. Unfortunately, it's not true.

But thank you, Ed. I appreciate  that. I've had a real problem with anger, and I was at Millsaps College, I'll never forget  in Jackson, Mississippi and a student came walking down the walkway saying, "Oh, here's another one  of them born-again, narrow-minded fundamentalists out here telling us we all need Jesus.

" Well,  I didn't take two kindly to that. I tried to engage him in conversation. He just stomped  off and went into the student union.

And so, what I did was I turned to the other students who  were there, and I said, "God gave all of us two ends, one to sit on and the other to think  with. Our entire future depends upon which one we use. Heads you win, tails you lose.

" All right, well, you're laughing pretty loud, but a woman at the back of the crowd raises her  hand and says, "Would Jesus have said that? " Yeah, well, I had to apologize, and I had to mean it  and apologize for using that, whatever you want to call it, expression. So, I've had to really  grow in this area of repenting of my anger, of my being caustic at times, and grow in the  fruit of the spirit of self-control and patience.

Second point. The challenge that I think  you're pointing to so accurately, Ed, is, how do you balance grace and truth? Ephesians  4:15, "Speaking the truth in love.

" You take truth and you divorce it from love, and all you  do is bash people over the head with the truth. That's not good. You remove truth from love  and all you've got is empty sentimentality.

Let's all sit around and sing kumbaya and rub toes  together, and it's just empty sentimentality. So, the challenge is to combine truth and love. That's  something I'm still learning and still praying for wisdom on, brother.

But I think it's incredibly  important. I like the comedian in Las Vegas who said, "If you believe that Jesus is the way to  heaven, how much do you have to hate a person not to tell them about Jesus? " That's good.

It's  the love of Christ that motivates me to say, "Hey, have you ever considered Jesus?  Because I've looked at the options, friend, and the options are really poor.  I don't care if it's money, Muhammad, Buddha.

I don't care if it's a career. I don't  care even if it's your family and you come out of a highly traditional culture where family  is everything. Guess what, bud?

You're going to lose your family one day or you're going to die  before them, but you will lose them. " And when you die or in the process of dying, God could look at  you and say, "You know, Cliffe, right now, you're going to lose everything, even your family. "  But if I put my faith in Christ, I'm not going to lose him.

I'm not going to lose God. That's  why it's so important to build my life on Christ, to build my life on God, not on money, pleasure,  career, and even something as good as family. When people throw the science situation  at you like, "Christianity and science, surely they're not compatible,"  how do you delve into that?

My first question is, "I've been reading the Bible  a long time and I've never discovered any biology, chemistry, physics, or astronomy there. Would  you please show me in the Bible where we have science? " Because obviously if you're going  to tell me that science contradicts the Bible, there's some science in there to contradict. 

No. The statement "science contradicts the Bible" is totally incorrect. Why? 

Because there is no science in the Bible. Wait a second. What do we mean  by science?

Science is a description of process. How the organism functions, how  it grows, how it replicates, that's science, a study of process. There is no description of  process anywhere in the Bible.

Not in Genesis One or Two or anywhere else. So that's why  the idea that science contradicts the Bible is totally incorrect because there is  no science in the Bible to contradict. How about this statement, "Unless you can prove  it to me scientifically it's not true"?

Really? Please scientifically prove to me, show me that  unless I can scientifically prove it to be true, it's not true. You see, that's not science. 

That's philosophy. And people get confused between science and philosophy. Science is a study  of process, how the organism works.

Philosophy is thinking rationally and logically about  theoretical issues, about intangible values. See, there's a difference between, can you grab hold of  a brain? Well, yeah, if you do a lobotomy.

I mean, you can take the skull off, and you can grab hold  of a brain. Can you grab hold of a thought? No, thoughts are intangible, non-material.

You've got to begin to think through, what are the examples of good science and what are the examples  of good philosophy? I love what Galileo said. Galileo the great scientist said, "The Bible tells  us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.

" Now, Galileo got persecuted by the Catholic Church  and that was tragic, but he was right. He did good science, and he had good faith. The Bible tells  us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.

"Cliffe, the Bible surely has been  changed over thousands of years. " We hear that a lot. "Do we have the same  Bible?

I don't think so. " What do you say? Good question.

The Old Testament in English  is based on the Hebrew Old Testament. The New Testament in English is based on the  Greek New Testament. For the New Testament, we have over 5,800 Greek manuscripts or pieces  of manuscripts dated from the second through the 10th century A.

D. , all handwritten, all  agreeing to an infinitesimal degree. Now, are there manuscript variants?

Yes, there are. As  Bart Ehrman likes to point out, there are between 200,000 and 400,000 manuscript variants. But  those manuscript variants are located in 25,000, approximately, manuscripts, the 5,800 Greek  manuscripts I refer to, the 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts, the 5,900 about manuscripts  in Ethiopic, Coptic, Armenian, Slavic, Gothic.

We have a plethora of manuscripts of  the New Testament, about 25,000 of them, and in those 25,000, there are about 200,000 to  400,000 manuscript variations, variants. Just read John chapter eight verses one to 11. The footnote  in the NIV clearly points out these verses are not in the earliest Greek manuscripts.

We're very  honest, there's nothing being covertly done here, but you will notice when you study those variants,  they change nothing. They change no teaching in the New Testament. We have an incredibly  accurate presentation of the historical evidence supporting the trustworthiness of Christ.

I was at the University of South Carolina. A white woman steps out of the crowd and says, "You white  colonists just hoodwinked a bunch of Africans to believe in Jesus and Christianity is essentially  a white Western religion. " I was just about to answer her when a tall Black gentleman steps out  of the crowd and he says, "Excuse me, I'm from Ethiopia, I'm doing Masters here at University  of South Carolina, and our Ethiopian church is far older than any one of your American churches  or Western European churches, far older.

And for you to try and stand out here and appear to be  assuming that the white church colonized Black people, that's why Black people believe in Jesus,  that's racism. That's false. That's not true.

" See, that's one of the things I love about faith  in Christ. Where was the center of Christianity in the first century? Jerusalem.

Where did it go to?  Antioch. Where did it go to?

Down to Alexandria, Egypt. Where did it go to? Eastern Europe,  then Western Europe, then the United States.

And where is the center of Christianity  today? Africa, South America and China. Christianity is not the white person's religion. 

Jesus said, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever, whoever believes  in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Let me ask you another fun question, random,  of course. Next week I am doing a message called Poloticked.

Just the frustration of the  whole vibe. How do you approach voting? How do you talk about that and what should we look  for when we're voting in just several days?

He's a rascal, isn't he? He has to open  up the hole, "Cliffe and step in. " right?

Can start using that word rascal?  "You rascal. " That's good.

I am convinced that the solution to America's  problems is not the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. I'm convinced that  the solution to America's problems is Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. Second point, I am convinced that when America follows Jesus Christ, America is great,  but when America does not follow Jesus Christ, America turns ugly real fast and there  are too many sick illustrations of this, be it the pornography industry, be it the child  sex traffic trade and unfortunately the list goes on and on.

We follow Christ, we are great. We  turn our backs on Christ, we get ugly real fast. The third point is basically this, please vote  November 5th.

Why? Because we live in a democracy which is based on the people voting. Please vote. 

Well, how do I vote Cliffe? It's very simple. Look at the issues, think carefully through them. 

Follow your conscience and vote. Please vote. That's great.

Great answer. Cliffe, you do such  a fantastic job of asking questions. When you're engaged with so many students and so many  adults with some of these issues, I know you're asking question after question.

We have an  opportunity, don't we, to do that at the office, school, whether we're playing pickleball or at  the gym or whatever, we have that opportunity. What are some questions that you go to when  you're talking to someone, if that makes sense? That's a great question.

All right. Guys, it's  really simple. I hope you and I are genuinely interested in what people think.

I think we  genuinely enjoy good conversation. Here's some of the questions I ask. Some people believe  there's a God.

What do you think? Second question. Some people think there's a meaning and purpose  to life.

What do you think? Third question. What do you think is a real Christian?

Fascinating  answers you get to that one. Fourth question, some people believe that Jesus rose from the dead.  What do you think?

Learn to ask questions. Do you know that Jesus asked over 290 questions in the  gospels? Guys, that's a lot of questions he asked.

He's encouraging people to think, kick your  brain into gear and think hard. God gave us rational minds, that's one of my pieces  of evidence for the existence of God, the rational brain. If there is no God, what  is your rational mind?

A highly developed monkey's mind. Do you trust the thoughts of a  monkey? I don't.

See epistemological nihilism, the whole idea that we can't know anything makes  a lot of sense if there is no God because if there is no God, your rational mind comes from the  irrational. Now just get a hold of that one. How can a rational mind come from the irrational? 

No, it's far more reasonable to think my rational mind comes from a rational mind, the creator  God, not from the irrational or non-rational. Cliffe, I have doubts, and Lisa and I went  through this and still go through this trying to work through the pain and suffering. What do  you do with doubt because we all deal with it.

It's very simple. I just deny it. I stick my head  in the sand like an ostrich, and I say, "I don't have any doubts.

I'm a true believer. " That's  idiocy, Cliffe. You've got to face your doubts.

You can't run away from them. You got to be honest  with yourself. You got to be honest with God.

Now just look at the Psalms. Just look at Moses and  Abraham. Just read Genesis 18.

Abraham standing over the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, hey God,  you're going to wipe those places out if they're 50 righteous people. What about 45? What about 40? 

What about 30? What about 20? What about 10?

Hey, Abraham, why did you stop at 10? Why didn't you go  9, 8, 7 righteous people down there? What are you going to do with it Lord?

You see, what Abraham  is doing is he's struggling through the question, will the judge of the whole earth do right? How many of us struggle with that? How many of us in Ed's position are struggling with God, "why  did you allow my daughter to die?

" We all struggle with it, don't we? We doubt and I doubt. But then  you got to think through, okay, is God a Scrooge?

Is God an ogre? No, the cross of Christ proves  that God is not an ogre. He suffered, he suffered.

He sacrificed to give us the solution for  suffering and death. He's not an ogre. He's good.

Then you got to look at the alternatives,  and that's what I like to do. I like to speak tomorrow as I will at the University of Texas  Austin. And when the first skeptic comes forward, I'm going to be driving towards one thing.

I'm  going to answer his question and I'm going to ask him, what are you living for and what's the  evidence of which you are living for is true? Those two questions, learn to ask those two  questions. What are you living for?

And don't give me an answer you don't know what you're  living for. Fine, that's an unexamined life. Now think about it.

You're dressed a certain  way. You speak in an articulate way. You know that you're living for something or someone. 

You have priorities, you have ambitions. You're not an accident. You're not here by chance.

What are you living for and what's the evidence of what you're living for is the truth?  And friend I have gotten the most hollow, the most poorly thought through answers from some  of the most brilliant people in this country, to those two questions. I live for Christ.

Why?  Because the evidence of his amazing lifestyle, his incredible ethical teachings, his  amazing death, loving and forgiving his enemies and his resurrection from the  dead points to him being totally reliable. Cliffe, what are some of the responses that you've heard just generally from some of the  most intelligent people or maybe some of the most successful people when  you pose those questions to them?

One guy was doing post-doc work at Columbia  University, was teaching a class on Zwingli and Calvin's view of war, and it was a great class.  And he invited me in there to join the discussion. And afterwards, as I'm walking out, I asked him,  "Okay, that was brilliant, professor.

I really respect you. What do you believe? " He said to me,  "Please don't ask me that question.

" And I said, "What? Come on, sir. What are you living for? 

And what's the evidence of whatever it is you're living for is true? " He said, "No, Cliffe, I  don't like to think through that issue. " Guys, that's scary.

If you don't know what you're  living for and you don't know the evidence that whatever it is you're living for is either  good or not good, what are you doing with your life? And guess what, you do answer that question. We all answer it.

Even though we might not like to say it. We might not have thought it through very  carefully, but we know we've got priorities. We know we have ambition.

You would not succeed  in business, you would not succeed in school, you would not succeed in athletics or art or music  if you weren't a pretty highly motivated person. So please don't tell me that you're really  not living for something or someone. Baloney, you know better than that and so do I.

We  all live for something or someone. Oh, no, Cliffe. No, no.

I just live for science  and empiricism and logic. Really? Okay, so this week you and I either flunk out of school,  get kicked out of school, or we lose our job.

Are you going to be angry? Are you going to be  depressed or are you going to be super confident and cocky? "I can do anything.

I'll get another  job. I'll get into another school. " Or are you going to rest in God in Christ and trust him? 

Guess what, every one of those responses is coming out of a belief system. Whether you get  angry or depressed or you're a cocky son of a gun who says, "I have no problem. I'll get into  a better school, or I'll get a better job.

" You have a belief system and your emotional response  to your circumstances this week will show you what your belief system is. I'm a loser. I lost  my job.

Oh, shoot. I didn't make the ball team. I flunked that exam.

Oh no, I'm a loser. Oh, no  problem. I'm really talented.

I'll make it. Well, that's a view that you have. It's a belief system  you have about yourself, and it shows in the way you handle the circumstances of life.

So  we all have faith and a belief system, and it's shown by our emotional responses  every day. I'm standing here, sitting here, whatever it is I'm doing here, insisting that  the evidence of Jesus Christ's, life, teachings, death and resurrection makes it a no-brainer. He  is more reliable than any other belief system.

In a crowd this size, Cliffe and we  have so many at our different locations, watching online, how would you categorize  most of us? If you could talk maybe two or three categories of people here, what  are you thinking that we're thinking or what stages of our spiritual pilgrimage  would you say that some of us are on? All right.

The first thing is sharing your  faith. If you have put your faith in Christ, I pray that this week you'll talk  with someone about Christ, all right? Now, I got a younger brother who transplants  kidneys and livers at Duke University Hospital.

He's far more intelligent than I'll ever be. He  went to Princeton and Cornell Med School, and he can have some incredibly intellectual discussions  with people about his faith. We have a younger sister who was born with brain damage.

She's  mentally challenged, and she bags groceries at a local grocery store. She's just as committed to  Christ as Stuart, and I are. But she obviously has severe intellectual limitations.

But when she was  going through the special ed program at our high school in our town, she would get a little track,  gospel track and she would've walked up and down the halls and stop people and say, "Excuse me, I  can't read this thing. Could you read it to me? " So please don't tell me you're not smart enough. 

Please don't tell me you don't have enough answers to difficult questions. That's not the point. The  point is to love people with a love of Christ.

He really does love you, and he's going to use your  unique personality in a unique way. That's what life is all about, loving God and loving people.  Part of loving people is telling them about Jesus.

So, it really doesn't matter what your IQ is  or how many questions you can answer or can't answer, that's not the point. Use your unique  personality, your unique intellect, your unique emotional place in life, and communicate  the love and truth of Christ to people. Let's do it this week.

Okay, Cliffe, how  about some here who would be investigating, kicking tires and testing the waters? And what  would you say to those here who are in that group? Please read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke  and John, you owe it to yourself as a thinking human being to go to the source document about  Jesus Christ and the source document about Jesus Christ is not a picture of a blond-haired,  blue-eyed Jesus.

He didn't have blond hair; he didn't have blue eyes. The source document  is not some perverted form of Christianity in your local community. The source of information  about Jesus Christ is the eyewitness documents of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Read  them for yourself. It's only 140 pages, guys. It'll take you a little bit of time.

But  read it and then ask yourself, does the evidence of the way he lived, taught, died and rose from  the dead point to his credibility or does it not? Another group Cliffe, would be those of us here  who today can be the day where we trust Christ. Talk to that group if you would.

If you're here and you're at the point in your  life where this is beginning to make sense to you, this is not the first time you've heard  about Christ. You've heard about him, and you've waffled. But if  you're beginning to realize, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is the truth.

Jesus  really is reliable. He really is credible, and I need to respond to him because he calls  us to respond to him in faith and in love, to trust him and to respond to his love in  love. Then you can make a decision down in the depths of your soul to trust in him, ask him  for forgiveness and commit your life to him.

I want to give everyone just an opportunity to  do that right now. So would you bow your heads with me. Just in a spirit of reverence and  I ask that no one would move or stir during this time.

But my brother Cliffe has done  just a masterful job explaining the gospel and he can do it because Jesus is his master  and the Holy Spirit is using his voice box. You might be here and maybe today is your day. I'm  just going to challenge you to pray along with me.

The moment you pray this and mean it to the best  of your ability, Christ will come into your life. He'll forgive you and cleanse you. He'll give you  a home in heaven and a purpose like you cannot imagine.

But that choice has got to be up to  you. I can't make it for you, but I can help you. Here's the prayer.

You can pray with me. Just  say, God, I realize how much you love me. You love me so much that you sent Jesus to  live this life, this righteous life, to die this sacrificial death in my place on  the cross and then three days later, Jesus, you rose again.

I admit to you my shortcomings and  sins. I turn from those I repent and turn to you, Jesus. I trust you.

I trust in your life,  death, burial and resurrection. And right now, I ask you to infiltrate my life. I give you the  car keys, move into the Oval Office of my soul, take everything I am and everything I'll  ever become.

As your heads are bowed and eyes are closed, if you prayed that prayer  and meant it to the best of your ability, no one looking around, would you please just  slip your hand up if you prayed that prayer. Many hands are going up. Keep your hands up just  for a second.

That's awesome. Up in the balcony and the floor. That is so, so great.

If you prayed  that prayer with me, after I close this time of prayer down, I want you to just make your way to  one of the tables, to your right and to your left, and we'll give you some critical information about  this decision, this decision that changed and will change the geological plates of your life.  Father, we thank you for this time. I thank you for Cliffe.

Just continue, God I know, just to  bless his ministry, his family. I just thank you for our friendship and I thank you for his words  and we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.