The Word Became Flesh Part 1 Kathryn Kuhlman

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter's shop until he was 30. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his feet inside a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompanies greatness. He had no credentials but himself. while still a young man the tide of private opinion turned against him his friends ran away one of them denied him he was turned over to his enemies he went through the mockery of a trial he was nailed to a cross between two thieves gambled for the only piece of property that he had on earth while he was dying, and that was his coat. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone, and today He is the centerpiece of the human race. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched and all the navies that were ever built and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth, as has that one solitary life, the life of Jesus Christ. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The hardest proposition the infidel crowd has ever gotten up against is to account for the person of Jesus Christ. Isaiah said, His name shall be called Wonderful. And there's no better name to describe him. He... is the world's one great wonder. No one else ever approached him. No one else is comparable to him. He's in a class all by himself. He has no second. No man ever uttered such wonderful teaching. It was so simple. The common people heard him gladly, and yet so profound that no philosopher has ever sounded their depths. He never wrote a sermon. He never published a book. He founded no college to perpetuate his doctrines, but handed them down to a few poor humble fishermen and yet his teaching has endured for two thousand years it has been translated into every language under the sky it has so transformed human life that whole nations have been lifted out of darkness degradation by its power. Think of it. Think of it. The teachings of Jesus Christ has endured for 2 ,000 years, has so transformed lives. Human life, their whole nations have been lifted out of darkness by its power. And before this humble Galilean peasant, the scholarship of the world uncovers its head today. Bows its head and says, never man speak as. This man spake. No man ever lived such a wonderful life. And he backed up what he said by the way he lived. He was there with the goods. He never had to ask God to forgive his sins because his character was perfect. His enemies watched him like a hawk. And the very worst... thing that they could say about him was that he did good on the Sabbath and that he let a sinful woman come near enough to him to touch the hem of his garment. That was the very worst thing that his enemies could say about him. And then, There never was a character so wonderful as his. He was born, of course, in a given race and in a given age. He had to be. But he utterly transcended his age and his race and became the ideal of every age. The ideal of every race. Come now, Mr. Infidel. Come now, unbeliever. Come, Mr. Skeptic. How are you going to account for Jesus Christ? If he was only man, then by every law of evolution and progress, this 20th century ought to produce a better one. Intellectually and morally, this is so. Somebody says, give us a man's race, his surroundings, and the man himself is accounted for. This is largely so. Socrates is of Greece, belonged to his age. Luther is of Germany, and the circumstances of his day had much to do with his heroic life. And so, to a large extent, we can account for them all. Napoleon, Buddha, Confucius, Cromwell. But this is not altogether so. One day the tourist... came to the birthplace of robert burns and as he looked out over the charm of the highland scenery and saw the quaint and quiet beauty of it all he exclaimed audibly ah no wonder burns was a poet but the guide at his side said sir There have been many, many children born here since Robert Burns was born, but none of them was a poet. No more can you account for Jesus Christ by his environment or the times in which he lived. Other children were born. reared under the Syrian skies and among the Judean hills. Other young men had the same surroundings. Other young men grew up among the same influences, the same institutions, the same religious ideals, the same personalities, the same conflict of opinions, and all the rest of it. How... then does it come that Jesus alone among them all became the wonderful man that we see him to be. The God -man of the universe who walked like a giant among the pygmies of the earth. A truth for this man, Mr. Infidel. Mr. Unbeliever, account for this man. Come on. What have you got to say? He is the one great mystery of the universe, and the only clue to his origin you will ever find, you'll have to find in the gospel where it says, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, and therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Jesus Christ himself said, what if ye shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before that shows his claim to pre -existence and shows us where he was before he came to this earth he sat one day looking up father Glorify me with the glory I had with thee before the world was. In these mattress, all -powerful, all -significant words, Jesus shows his claim to preexistence even before he came. to this earth even before the world was spoken into existence. And now comes the text in John. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Of course, there's always been a set of critics who've had their knife out for this duck. of the virgin birth. I am well aware of this. So are you. And this has been going on for generations. In Christ's own day, they said, why, this is the carpenter's son. We know him. We're some of his neighbors. They couldn't... possibly be anything unusual about him? We know his mother. He's just the son of a carpenter. And that criticism of his divine origin has never let up. Never. In 1892 over in Germany, it broke out anew, and we've had a pretty warm fight on our hands. Ever since, a preacher over there started it. He wouldn't use the Apostles' Creed in baptism because it said that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. They gave him his walking papers, deposed him from the ministry. And there's many a man who stands behind the sacred desk today. Who denies the deity and divinity of Jesus Christ as the very son of the living God. Let me ask you, sir. How are you going to account? for several things that are so reasonable. The first thing you say is that nothing is said about it by Mark or John or Paul. But that simply begs the question. Because they said nothing about it is no sign that they didn't know about it or didn't believe it. They had other purposes in writing. Mark began with his public ministry, passed in silence over the first 30 years of his life. Don't you suppose he knew he had a birth of some kind that he never said a word about it? John knew it because he had Matthew's and Luke's Gospels with him. And when he wrote, he wrote. with a definite purpose knowing that the one of whom he wrote knowing the miracles that had been performed were performed by one that was not merely man but as much God as though he were not man Luke was with Paul and of course told all about it. But it's not to be expected that Paul would mention it. The whole theme of his ministry was the moral significance of Christ as based upon his public ministry, his life, his death, his resurrection. Well, all you can say is the thing was impossible. What was impossible? Such a birth itself. Not with God, my friend. Let God step in on the scene and impossibility must go away. Back and sit down. With God, nothing is impossible. Because you can't understand it. is no sign it is not true. There are lots of things you can't understand, and yet you must acknowledge that you believe them or acknowledge that you're a fool. You say it's unthinkable. What is unthinkable? The alleged result of such a birth. What do you mean? You say, The union of a divine and human nature in one person. It's incredible. It can't be. Well, now, let's see. Because that's exactly what the incarnation is. The union of two natures in one person. A combination of the divine and human in Jesus Christ. One person. Well, if you do a bit of real hard thinking, it may not be as unthinkable as you think it is. But if it's unthinkable to the best human thinker that operates, that's still no sign that it's untrue. Can you understand the mechanical union of oxygen and nitrogen that makes air? Or of hydrogen and oxygen that makes water? Or the union of body and soul that makes yourself? You are a person. And if you can't understand... This simpler union don't growl about divinity and humanity uniting into one person. It's no more incompatible than the union of matter and spirit that makes one person out of... Acknowledge God and you have the answer. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And today, that life has greater influence than any life that has ever lived.