Life That Has Lost Its Focus

Nigel told me about this yesterday. Doctor Ravi Zacharias would be giving a talk titled "Life That Has Lost Its Focus" this evening and I attended it with him and his sister Ailene. Here is an account of what transpired as well as the contents of the talk which may the Lord grant me the scruples, wisdom and diligence to faithfully retell.

Preceding the talk was an introduction of Ravi Zacharias by a spokesman for Eagles Ministries which was the organiser for the night's event. He shared his personal encounters with and impressions of Ravi Zacharias and one of the statements by Ravi Zacharias that stayed indelible in his mind was that evangelism is making dead people live.

After some light hearted humour, Ravi Zacharias embarked on his speech by reiterating the painfully obvious - that we are living in uncertain times. [He himself was giving a talk in Oxford University on the very morning that those terrorist bombs went off in London!] It is tough for a Christian to navigate with absolutes in a relative world but the fundamentals of the Holy Bible is able to answer the deepest questions of humanity. Ravi Zacharias also adds that it is no job for a Christian to determine a person's salvation and whether the grace of redemption has been bestowed upon him... for there will be wheat and tare in the field till the Lord divides the harvest.

Ravi Zacharias then referred us to the Scriptural reference for the talk which were chapters twenty one and twenty two of the Second Book of Kings, where he juxtaposed Manasseh and Josiah as two Jewish monarchs whose lives were drastically unlike because the former had lost the focus in his life whereas the latter had focus in his.

What is History? Ravi Zacharias asked, and how to define it? History is not just merely the documentation of the power of kings and demagogues; for instance, Saddam Hussein was known to harbour aspirations to emulate the construction of Nebuchadnezzar's empire. History in Karl Marx's eyes was the sheer realism and pragmatism of economic theories and philosophies. And then for Hegel, who believed that it was not economics that interwine but ideas, History is about convolution of concepts. Thesis will spawn antithesis and both will merge to form synthesis and so on in their cyclical vortex.

For the Christian, the Holy Bible opens with the words "In the beginning God..." and Ravi Zacharias commented History is His Story.

And indeed it is so; Ravi Zacharias declared that History is the essence of innumerable biographies. Since bios means life whereas graphe means to write, biography simply implies life written out, a legacy left behind that makes the difference.

Manessah went against the reformation of his father Hezekiah to bring the Israelites back to God. Ravi Zacharias then turned our attention to the Book of Deuteronomy, which apparently seemed to suggest was Jesus Christ's favourite book because He quoted it the most when He was troubled. Ravi Zacharias mentioned a threefold description that I could not quite trace its origin from because I must have either been daydreaming or dozing off but here it was anyway:
1. Humility
2. Spirituality
3. Faith

Suddenly it was time to flip to the Gospel of Saint Matthew chapter twenty two and I found myself hearing Ravi Zacharias saying that it chronicled a profound discussion between Jesus Christ and the Pharisees. We all knew the answer:

"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."

Then Ravi Zacharias' voice boomed, "So in whose image are you made in? Give yourself to Him." God has invested intrinsic worth in each and every one of us, a worth that is not contrived but essential since we are fashioned in the image of God. This was an exhortation to the Christians and Ravi Zacharias mentioned this because of the negative example of Manessah whose rebellion accelerated the entry and progress of Paganism. Manessah turned his back to God and turned his face away from Truth. Ravi Zacharias aptly quoted G K Chesterton:

"There is only one angle to stand, but so many angles to fall."

Take Truth away, people will not believe in nothing - they will believe in anything! Therein lies a void or vacuum, this emptiness that is reminiscent of the grave warning of Jesus Christ in chapter twelve of the Gospel of Saint Matthew, verses forty three to forty five:

"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation."

The Atheist gayly claims that he is dancing on the grave of Christendom... but he does not know there is nobody in it. Ravi Zacharias hastily plunged into the exploration of how just one man can lead millions into untold evil, as Manessah had via his infanticide, religious persecution and total abolition and abandonment of the Truth. Joseph Stalin was another fine example. Stalin was an apostate; punching the air with a fist, out of sheer defiance to Heaven, the ex-seminary student slaughtered millions of his own people. This carnage was the outcome of Stalin's desire to be God.

It was at this juncture that Ravi Zacharias appealed to all youths to learn to think well, to think reasonably, and to think rationally. He then proposed the following:
1. Objective moral values only exist if God exists
2. Objective moral values do exist, thus God exists
There are points of references or yardsticks for moral values; in other words, there are ethical absolutes or benchmarks whether you believe them or not.

A nation has reached its lowest ebb when it victimises itself, when it abuses its own children, mused Ravi Zacharias. We cannot desecrate life without paying a heavy and bitter price. Life at its very core is sacred. Again G K Chesterton popped up for a scintillating and stimulating thought:

"Everytime you remove a fence, always ask why it was there in the first place."

Ravi Zacharias added that the Moral Law was established for a reason. He then shared with us about his son's teeball games and this led on to the thought that games are not played to protect the rules but the rules are meant to protect the game... if you violate the rules, you cannot play the game well.

According to Ravi Zacharias, the term worship held three meanings:
1. to prostrate oneself
2. service with one's hands
3. piety and propriety
Which entails the trinitarian chain of reverence, work and ceremony, a string or strand that runs through Life. Martin Luther did not come to do away with the priesthood, but the laity. Whether you are a coalminer, a teacher, or a pilot, your vocation is sacred. Worship is coexistent with life.

Ravi Zacharias raised three bizarrely unique aspects of God:
1. He is our conviction of safety
2. He brings a bout of change in us
3. He relieves us from the tyranny of the immediate
In conclusion, we were reminded that History is a story of innumerable biographies. Manessah lost his focus in life and lost his soul; Josiah found his focus in life and found God.

Ravi Zacharias' closing prayer ended with, "God, rescue us from the tyranny of the immediate for we are made to live for eternity."