How To Accept God As A Moral Teacher

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2 I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis

3 John 1:19-34

4 John 20:31 (NIV) these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

5 John 1:1-18 The Prologue In the beginning was the Word v.1 (eternal, not bound by birth or death, he is the medium of communication between God and man)) The Word was with God v.1 (relationship, co-equal, united) The Word was God v.1 (possesses all the attributes of Deity) The Word became flesh v.14 (God incarnate, the God-man) The Word dwelt among us v.14 (He came to earth, bringing life and light to the world) The Word was full of grace and truth v.14 (the law was a shadow, Christ is the full manifestation of God s grace and truth) No one has ever seen God v.18 (Jesus knows God fully) The Son has made Him known v.18 (Jesus manifested God by becoming human)

6 John 1:19-34 (NIV) 19 Now this was John s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, I am not the Messiah. 21 They asked him, Then who are you? Are you Elijah? "He said, I am not. Are you the Prophet? "He answered, No. 22 Finally they said, Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? 23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, Make straight the way for the Lord. 24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet? 26 I baptize with water, John replied, but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. 28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

7 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. 32 Then John gave this testimony: I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God s Chosen One.

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9 John 1:22 (NIV) Who are you?. What do you say about yourself?

10 You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You Saint Augustine

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12 Luke 1:13-17 (NIV). Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

13 Luke 1:67-80 (NIV) 67 His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied 76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, 77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven 79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace. 80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

14 John 1:23 (NIV) I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, Make straight the way for the Lord.

15 God has put enough into this world to make faith in Him a most reasonable thing, and He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason or observation alone.

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17 John 1:34 I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God

18 Romans 10:14 (NIV) How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 2 Corinthians 5:20 (NIV) We are therefore Christ s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

19 Matthew 11:11 (NIV) Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.