In one of the villages in northern India a missionary was preaching in a bazaar. There is naturally a good deal of discussion after such meetings, for India is a land of culture.
A Mohammedan came up and said, "You must admit that we Mohammedans have one thing that you Christians have not. We at least can take our people to Medina where they can see the mosque which contains the remains of Mohammed, but when you Christians go to Jerusalem you have no remains. You have an empty tomb."
To this the missionary replied, "Praise God, you are right! That is the difference between our faith and yours. Your leader is in the grave, but Jesus Christ, whose kingdom is to include all nations and kindreds and tribes is not in any grave. He is risen!
You ask, "Did Christ really live?" That is one thing that all agree upon—that this Person who claimed to be the Son of God really lived here on earth among men.
We know when He lived—from about 4 B.C. until around 29 A.D.
We know where He was born—in Bethlehem of Judea, a real town, not a mythological one. We know where He lived for most of the years of His life—in Nazareth in northern Galilee. There He worked as a carpenter.
We know many of the characters of His day—their names appear in other historical writings outside of the Bible: Herod the Great, his son Herod, Agrippa, Salome, Pontius Pilate, Tiberius Caesar, Gamaliel, Felix, and Festus.
Every history of the ancient world, every encyclopedia, records the fact Jesus lived during the first century of our era. H. G. Wells, the historian, had a contempt, indeed a hatred, for almost every article of the Christian faith, but he was compelled to give pages to Jesus of Nazareth in his Outline of History.
The dates of history are now designated by the letters B.C. or A.D., both of which refer to the time of the birth of CHRIST—not Plato, not Julius Caesar, not Mohammed.
Millions in each generation have had their lives gripped and changed by the firm belief that Christ has given the world the most perfect revelation of God, the only gospel that does deliver men from the power of sin, the only assurance of forgiveness of sins, the only positive hope of life to come.
Christ has done more to lift and empower the ethical standards of men than all the philosophers of Greece combined. Among all the great men of history, He "is above all." "That in all things He might have the preeminence." Col. 1:1818And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:18).
"What am I to believe?" A lady once wrote to a servant of Christ: "Will you put it down in black and white what I am to believe? I have been told of many different verses, and they are so many that I am bewildered. Please tell me one verse, and I will try to believe it."
The answer came: "It is not any one verse, nor any number of verses that save the soul. It is by trusting the Person and work of the Lord Jesus that we are saved." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31).