01 JESUS IS REAL.pdf - Dr. George O. Wood

JESUS IS REALLuke 1:1–4Maybe he had begun to encounter the cost of serving Christ, or opposition directed against him,or tragedy that had struck his life for which there was no ready answer. As a new believer, he isgrappling with these things.Maybe you are like that: a new Christian or even an old Christian who needs grounding, a floorupon which your faith can stand.Perhaps Theophilus was not yet a Christian. Maybe he had the perspective that ―Christianity isinteresting, but I‘m not really ready to grant that it‘s the truth.‖ Maybe he came from theassumptions that all religions are the same, they‘re all taking us down the same road of findingGod. And that the one God stands over and above them all. Maybe he was saying, ―Religioustruth, if it‘s real at all, is only subjectively real. It will never be objectively real.‖ Whensomething is subjectively real, its reality can only be measured within your own experience, andtherefore, the test of that religion becomes, how sincerely do you practice it? And if you practiceit sincerely, then what could be wrong with that?Maybe Theophilus wondered if a thinking person could be a Christian. He may have beeninfluenced by the kinds of attitudes that are seen in George Gershwin‘s Porgy and Bess.Remember Porgy and Bess, where the character who was eventually responsible for breaking upPorgy and Bess himself breaks up a Sunday School picnic by singing, ―It ain‘t necessarily so. Itain‘t necessarily so. The things you are liable to read in the Bible…it ain‘t necessarily so.‖Maybe Theophilus had that kind of idea about Jesus, ―It ain‘t necessarily so.‖Maybe you are like Theophilus, an inquiring non-Christian who looks for evidence that willconvince him. Whether Christian or non-Christian, this book will speak to you with certaintyabout Jesus.5