By Chris WittsSunday 18 Dec 2022Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
There’s no doubt that Dan Brown has made a big impact in the literary world in the movie making business, he wrote the bestselling 2003 thriller “The Da Vinci Code”. He’s written other books as well, and all his books have been translated into 52 languages. And in 2012, he sold over 200 million copies, and two of them, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons have been adapted into films.
If you have a look at his website sometime, you’ll notice he says, that his books are not anti-Christian, though he is on a constant spiritual journey himself. And he says the book, The Da Vinci Code, is simply an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate. And he suggests the book may be used as a catalyst for exploring our faith.
So, 200 million books sold. That’s a lot of books, and he’s one of the biggest selling authors of all time. But of course, The Da Vinci Code, I don’t know whether you’ve seen it or not. It’s caused a great deal of controversy and the main plot is the murder mystery, the subplot and the story. And that’s really all it is, is that Jesus was just a man married to Mary Magdalene, and the early church knew this. The Bible says nothing about that. Jesus was not married to Mary Magdalene, and there are lots of other errors in the book and in the movie concerning art, literature and history. But anyway, it’s a good story, but that’s all it is.
Let me remind you this morning the real story is in the Bible. The story of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth is the most influential person who ever lived. 20 centuries after his death, he continues to exert his power. You know, people are fascinated by Jesus. The TV special call-in search of Jesus attracted some 16 million viewers when it was put on TV. Mel Gibson Remember The Passion of the Christ?
That was a successful movie. $370 million came from that movie, so obviously people are fascinated by Jesus. Who was Jesus? Is he, as the Bible says, the Divine Son of God? Well, I like the quote that comes from C. S. Lewis and he said, a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would either be a lunatic on the level with a man who says he’s a poached egg or else he’d be the devil of hell. So you’ve got to make your own choice, says C. S Lewis. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him, kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him the Lord and God.
But let’s not come with any of this patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. That’s how C. S Lewis actually described it very well. So Jesus is the central figure of Christianity. And he was born into a Jewish family in Palestine, which is now Israel. And he travelled through the regions of Galilee, Samaria and Judea. He taught in the synagogues, he spoke to the crowds of people and people came to him. They followed him and he preached about the Kingdom of God, about repentance, about love for people. And we read in the New Testament how he healed the second wherever he went, he performed miracles. So it’s impossible to read stories like that from the Bible without getting a sense of the intensity and passion of what he said, because he spoke very differently to what other people there were the professional religious people. But he didn’t speak like them.
Many of his teachings were disturbing, and they kind of and still do actually promote the idea that you’ve got to look beyond yourself because he spoke about a loving God caring about people. And Christians today believe that Jesus is the Saviour, the Son of God. He came to Earth to redeem us from our sins, and he offers promises, eternal life. And so although he’s not here in bodily form, he is here through the person and the power of the Holy Spirit. We can say that Jesus is our guide, our Saviour. He’s the source of our source of our strength, that we can talk to him in prayer and that Jesus speaks to us through the Bible. So he is an awesome person. He he is perfect. We see the tender compassion, how he hated evil and how he would commit to the good of people. And the amazing thing is that Jesus loved us, that he can forgive us and cleanse us. That’s the real Jesus. And I’m so thankful that Jesus is my Saviour. I hope He’s yours too.
Let’s Pray
Lord Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for that example and the power that actually touches lives, amen.