00:00You know, as a former atheist, I questioned Jesus a lot in my past, but I'll tell you
00:07what, the one thing I never really thought through is why do people question Jesus differently?
00:14I want you to think about this because one of the most interesting things about Jesus
00:19is not simply that people question him.
00:22People question all kinds of things, don't they?
00:25The interesting thing is how people question him differently.
00:30You know, think of it this way.
00:32When people talk about Socrates, they don't usually begin by saying, how do we even know
00:39Socrates was real?
00:41You know, or when they talk about Spartacus, we don't usually hear first.
00:47Maybe Spartacus was completely made up.
00:50Or when they talk about Pythagoras, Confucius, Hannibal, or even Alexander the Great.
00:57They may debate the details, but they do not usually try to erase the person from history.
01:04But when Jesus comes up, something changes.
01:08Suddenly, ancient sources are no longer enough.
01:12Suddenly, writings preserved by followers are treated as suspicious.
01:17Suddenly, belief is treated as if it automatically makes a witness unreliable.
01:25But that's not how ancient history normally works.
01:30You know, much of what we know about the ancient world comes through students, followers, communities,
01:36historians, political enemies, later writers, and people who cared enough to preserve what they believed mattered.
01:46You may not even know this, but Socrates left no writings of his own that we possess.
01:54Much of what we know about him comes through people who admired him.
01:59Spartacus, well, Spartacus left no autobiography.
02:03Much of what we know about him comes through Roman writers, the very civilization that defeated him.
02:13Pythagoras is accepted as a real figure, even though his life is surrounded by later tradition and legend.
02:21Think of it this way.
02:23Most people do not throw these men out of history,
02:26because they understand that ancient history requires careful judgment, not impossible standards.
02:34So, why does the standard suddenly change with Jesus?
02:40I think that maybe the real issue is not that Jesus has no historical support.
02:46Maybe the issue is that Jesus cannot be treated like just another historical figure.
02:53If Caesar existed, you can study Rome.
02:56If Socrates existed, you can study philosophy.
03:02If Spartacus existed, you can admire courage.
03:07But if Jesus existed, the next question becomes unavoidable.
03:13Who was he?
03:15Because Jesus did not merely teach ideas.
03:19He called people to follow him.
03:21He forgave sins.
03:23He confronted pride.
03:25He welcomed sinners.
03:27He touched the untouchable.
03:29He told people to repent.
03:32He said, gaining the whole world is not worth losing your soul.
03:38And that's why Jesus was different.
03:42He does not stay safely in the past.
03:45He steps out of history and speaks to the heart.
03:49So, maybe the question is not, why do people question Jesus?
03:55Maybe the better question is, why do people question Jesus with a standard they do not use anywhere else?
04:05And maybe, well, maybe the answer is simple.
04:10Caesar asks you to believe he existed.
04:14Jesus asks you to decide who he is.
04:20It's amazing.
04:22You know, as a former atheist, I think about this a lot.
04:26The double standard.
04:28Why is there a double standard in this world?
04:31Why don't people just think about that for a second?
04:35There's so many people in history we have either less information for or less support for.
04:43Yet we're willing to make movies about them and we're willing to have conversations about them as if they just
04:49live next door.
04:51Christ, on the other hand, one of the most popular books in history is a large section of it attributed
04:59to him.
05:00Many people in history speak of him.
05:03You know, the one thing that's very interesting about Christ is through all the torture,
05:10through all the horrible things that have happened to people throughout time,
05:15nobody has ever said, hey, this is all made up.
05:19You're right.
05:20I'm sorry.
05:21Because I'm telling you what, if somebody's crucifying you upside down,
05:25or somebody's turned the dogs on you,
05:28or somebody's whipping big old stones at you at a rate that inevitably kills you,
05:35most humans would say, hey, wait, stop this, please.
05:39I'm sorry.
05:41You're right.
05:42This is all BS.
05:43This is all a lie.
05:45Not one, ever, not one person in history who's seen Jesus,
05:51who heard the stories of Christ,
05:54has ever spoken up and said, you know what?
05:58This is all a bunch of crap.
06:00Please stop torturing me.
06:02I'm telling you right now.
06:04Nobody did that.
06:05If this was made up, somebody, just somebody.
06:09And you know, I know that's kind of horrible to think about,
06:11but I always have that thought in my head.
06:13I always think, why do we have such a hard time believing Jesus Christ existed?
06:21It's obvious that he did.
06:23There's no other cause or other belief system with a stronger foundation of people willing to
06:32to be tortured and die over an idea because it's not an idea.
06:39It's a real thing.
06:40I don't know, just a little commentary here at the end.
06:44It wasn't the whole purpose of this talk, but I want you to think about it today.
06:50Think about why Christ existed.
06:53Think about what it is in your life that has proven to you that Christ is real.
06:58Has there been a change with you?
07:01Has something gotten better?
07:03Has a prayer been answered?
07:06Everybody has a story.
07:08And you know, the really cool thing about Christ is even if you don't believe in him,
07:13if you just do what he said and follow his beliefs and his ideas,
07:19your life will be better in every way.
07:23It's 100% true.
07:25Have you ever met anybody who said, I started following Jesus and my life fell apart?
07:31I've never heard a person say that.
07:34You know, for the most part, you hear people in every single circumstance say,
07:39I started following Christ.
07:40I became a Christian.
07:42My life got better.
07:43I'm doing better things.
07:45I'm a better man.
07:46I'm a better woman.
07:47I'm a better parent.
07:48It will benefit you in so many ways.
07:51I never hear people say, I started following Christ and my life fell apart.
07:56I became a horrible, abusive husband and I picked up a drug addiction.
08:01And well, I drink every day now because I follow Christ.
08:05That never happens.
08:07I hear the exact opposite in the argument for Christ in my mind.
08:12And I'm a former atheist.
08:14I had all the arguments.
08:15You know, one of my favorite arguments was, when you understand why you don't believe in
08:20Zeus, you'll understand why I don't believe in Jesus.
08:25And that's a really interesting argument that I would use on a regular basis.
08:32But Christ called me to do this and speak to people and write stories.
08:39Yeah, I don't know if you've been to douglasvandegraaff.com yet, but we've been doing some really creative
08:45things that I want to share with you real quick.
08:48We've been putting Jesus in stories that traditionally wouldn't have a Christian aspect.
08:57Like, did you ever notice in the Harry Potter series, in every single one of the movies,
09:04they always replace the defense against the dark arts teacher.
09:09And I thought, who would be a better defense against the dark arts teacher than Jesus?
09:15And he's presented respectfully, but at douglasvandegraaff.com, we've taken all the Harry Potter books
09:22and we've rewritten them, placing Jesus within the story in a very respectful way.
09:28And it's just fandom.
09:30We're not selling these books.
09:31They're 100% free.
09:33It's just something fun that I've been doing on the side.
09:37I've put Jesus through Bud's training.
09:40He became a, as a result, he went through all the training from selection to becoming an army
09:46ranger.
09:47He went, Jesus went through Navy SEALs training.
09:53He was elected president of the United States.
09:56I even put Jesus in an Avenger story.
10:00Um, we put him in Homer's Odyssey, where he walks side by side with Odysseus through all of his trials
10:08and offers him support and encouragement and, uh, biblical advice.
10:13Uh, also, we've just recently completed a Star Trek The Next Generation story.
10:19You have got to check that one out.
10:22The idea there was awesome.
10:25I don't even want to tell you about it.
10:27I just wanted you to go out and check it out.
10:29But we have over 700 different articles such as this, um, on douglasvandegraaff.com.
10:37Um, I also have commentary for every single chapter of the, uh, New Testament.
10:43So, if you've ever wanted to understand the New Testament, I created eight separate perspectives
10:50for each chapter of the New Testament.
10:53And you can find those on douglasvandegraaff.com, douglasvandegraaff.org.
10:59Um, I'm on Tumblr.
11:02I'm, I'm all over the place.
11:03I think we do, I do nine separate stories for nine separate blogs every single day.
11:10And I think you're going to love some of the, the longer term work that it's taken for me to
11:15build out.
11:16Uh, these stories take a lot of time.
11:18The books, uh, where we place Jesus in some interesting and encouraging, uh, situations related to, to fandom.
11:29Um, we're going to do some Minecraft stuff in the future, some anime stuff.
11:33We have a whole laundry list of different, uh, applications for, for Jesus.
11:39Cause he's my friend.
11:40And I think he's, I think Jesus is so cool.
11:43And when you see how he truly belongs in these stories and how interesting it is, it's going to make
11:51you feel closer to Christ.
11:52I also want you to consider that we're building this Christian library and we have already 14,000 separate articles
12:01that have been Christian articles that have been created in support of the New Testament.
12:07And we're building a Christian library.
12:10Um, we do have a GoFundMe for that.
12:12So if you want to support that, that would really be great.
12:15That keeps us, that supports all the costs for the time, et cetera, that are necessary to make all these
12:22stories and all these documents appear.
12:25But the creativity engine in this house is, is, is just keeps rolling forever.
12:31I look up and I see a really, we have a really cool, uh, I love Willy Wonka and the
12:37Chocolate Factory.
12:38And Willy Wonka said something that I think is so cool.
12:41He said, we are the dreamers of dreams and we are, and that's what we're doing here on this channel.
12:48We're not just talking about Christ and the way that a sermon would present him.
12:54We're presenting Christ across multiple verticals.
13:00And that just brings more people closer to him.
13:03And you're going to love the stories we're telling on DouglasVanderGraph.com.
13:07So check it out.
13:09We have over 2000 YouTube videos on our YouTube channel.
13:14Now, which you're watching right now, you probably already know, you know, 600,000 subscribers, thousands of videos, thousands of
13:24documents.
13:25This is huge and we're doing amazing things.
13:29And if you're just watching a video every once in a while, you're missing out on the big picture because
13:35we're doing more on this channel and on the internet free of charge right now than any other solo creator
13:43in the Christian niche.
13:44Nobody touches this.
13:46And we're doing it because my name is Douglas VanderGraph and I believe in Jesus Christ.
13:54God bless every single one of you, every single one.
14:01I'll see you tomorrow, friends.
14:04Bye-bye.
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