Talk in Bedford School Chapel

This brings back memories. I first entered this chapel sixty years ago. So much has happened since.

I must confess that at the time I wasn’t interested much in what chapel represented. But the school did teach to play a reasonable game of tennis and squash and groomed me to get good enough A levels to get me into a Cambridge college that was strong on tennis.

I loved university for its social life, its sports and academic life, but something else happened there that was to radically change my life. When a young lad I hadn’t been very impressed with church but at university some sporting friends who were also Christians encouraged me not to look at church but to investigate Jesus. I could get my teeth into that subject so I started to investigate. Deep down i knew I needed a purpose to live for.

It hadn’t taken me long to recognise that that Jesus certainly existed. He must have been a real person to have had such a dramatic effect on the Roman world in such a short time and have many contemporary writers speak of him.

I was also very impressed with the prophecies in the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures, that foretold so much detail about the future Messiah, God’s chosen King, who would enter this world to save it. There are 330 such prophecies. He would be born in a small town of Bethlehem, he would be a direct descendant of King David, he would be executed by crucifixion and he would then rise from the dead. I had never been shown these before.

But I still sat on the fence. I was determined not to be conned by religious people.

I was like a lad standing there with my mouth wide open waiting for something to happen. Have you heard the Chinese proverb that goes?

“Man stand long time with mouth wide open waiting for roast duck to fly in.”

I didn’t realise that it was up to me to respond to what had already happened through Jesus. I started to learn about Jesus and what he and his apostles taught. It had the ring of truth. Some of this was mind-blowing. Jesus taught that God doesn’t look at how polished and accomplished we are on the outside. He is concerned about the real me. As I looked at myself I recognised that the real me wasn’t as good as the external image I wanted to portray.

Outwardly I think I was quite pleasant but I knew that God was not the controlling influence in my life. I was inwardly convinced by now that Jesus must be God but I still hadn’t accepted him as my Lord - I hadn’t closed my mouth on the truth about him. In reality I was independent of God, I was what the bible calls a sinner. Sin has been well expelled with this acronym for S, I, N.

“Shove of God, I’m in charge, No to what you want”

Years later a lady entered my clinic, wearing a silver cross round her neck. I commented on its beauty and casually said,

“Excuse my asking, but does that cross mean that you are a Christian?”

“Ye-es,” she replied hesitantly, “but it depends on what you mean by Christian.”

There was little time in a busy clinic, so I simply said,

“Someone who is sold out to the Lord Jesus.”

“Oh, - then I’m not.”

I well remember the day that I knelt down in my rooms in Downing College and asked the Lord Jesus to forgive my leaving him out of my life, and to become my Saviour and Lord. I sold out to him. The cross of Jesus, where he took responsibility for my sin, became immensely important to me. The Christian Union and then good Bible teaching churchesn became very important to my new life. I went on to become a senior cancer surgeon, was given lots of letters after my name but nothing compares with what I gained that day when I committed my life to Christ. He changed my life.

Today, there is a widespread misunderstanding as to what makes a person a Christian. Many now think Christianity is an impersonal religion about good moral behaviour. A headmaster ashamedly wrote in his autobiography the following:

“I was happy in conversation with boys always to tell them what ideal behaviour was and where selfishness, cruelty and exploitation lay, but was unwilling to talk of the very centre of Christianity, the meaning of the cross, because I found it repugnant and in part beyond belief. With this semi-religion, I was able to live with some contentment, but I knew well that it was ‘non-infectious’ and that, if what I believed was all Christianity amounted to, it would attract few. I knew the Lord did not walk about Palestine, beginning a world revolution by saying, “Come along everyone, be nice to everybody, be truthful, be honest.” No, he spoke of repentance, of salvation from sin, of conversion.”

Is a personal relationship with Jesus vital if we are to be acceptable to God? Jesus said it is essential. Do you remember the learned moral Jewish scholar, Nicodemus, who came to talk with Jesus one night. He started by saying,

“Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God. For no-one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

And Jesus interrupts him,

“I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

Nicodemus was religious, but not yet in God’s kingdom. John explains that this means making a new start with Jesus as our Saviour and Lord. We know that later Nicodemus did take that step and became one of the early followers of Jesus.

Later in John 3 comes the famous verse,

“God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”

The stakes are high. This passage goes on

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

There is no doubt what Jesus taught, the big question is is this true?

When working as a cancer surgeon I had to tell many people that they had cancer and that realisation causes many to reconsider the purpose of life. To help them I wrote a book ‘Cure for Life’ that has now been translated into many languages and is in its 5th edition. It tries to answer this most important question “Is Christianity true?”,

“Is Jesus really God. Does he give us the answers we all seek. Did he die for my sin?”

The book investigates who Jesus claimed to be, what evidence there is to support his claim, and then what he taught us about the point of life.

In medicine we say that all treatments offered to people need to be ‘evidence based.’ Similarly any faith worth its salt must also be evidence based. If Jesus’ claims are true, then he is the most important person in history, relevant for all of us. Our mouths are meant to close on this truth and be nourished by it.

I hope that each of you will investigate the claims of Jesus. You could read through John’s gospel over Christmas. You could read ‘Cure for Life.’ By doing such things you too can find an evcidence based faith that you can close your mouth on - for eternity.

BVP

Dec 2017