IS YOUR JESUS ALIVE?  HAVE YOU  "TASTED" HIM?

From: "Devin Bramblett" <bramblett@jcn1.com
From: Michael Metzinger <m1zinger@yahoo.com

      At the University of Chicago Divinity School each year they have
what  is called "Baptist Day".  It is a day when all the Baptists in
the area  are invited to the school because they want the Baptist
dollars to keep coming in.

  On this day each one is to bring a lunch to be eaten outdoors in a
grassy picnic area. Every "Baptist Day" the school would invite one of
the greatest minds to lecture in the theological education center.
   One year they invited Dr. Paul Tillich. Dr. Tillich spoke for two
and one-half hours proclaiming that the resurrection of Jesus was 
false.
   He quoted scholar after scholar and book after book. He concluded
that since there was no such thing as the historical resurrection, the
religious tradition of the church was groundless, emotional
mumbo-jumbo, because it was based on a relationship with a risen
Jesus, who, in fact, never rose from the dead in any literal sense.
   He then asked if there were any questions.

   After about 30 seconds, an old, dark skinned preacher with a head
of short-cropped, woolly white hair stood up in the back of the
auditorium.
   "Docta Tillich, I got one question", he said as all eyes turned
toward him. He reached into his sack lunch and pulled out an apple 
andbegan eating it.
   "Docta Tillich...[CRUNCH, MUNCH] My question is a simple
question,...[CRUNCH, MUNCH]...Now, I ain't never read them books you
read...[CRUNCH, MUNCH]...and I can't recite the Scriptures in the
original Greek [CRUNCH, MUNCH]...I don't know nothin' about Niebuhr 
and Heidegger....[CRUNCH, MUNCH]"...He finished the apple.
   "All I wanna know is: This apple I just ate,------was it bitter or
sweet?"
   Dr. Tillich paused for a moment and answered in exemplary 
scholarly fashion: "I cannot possibly answer that question, for I 
haven't tasted your apple."
   The white-haired preacher dropped the core of his apple into his
crumpled paper bag, looked up at Dr. Tillich and said calmly, "Neither
have you tasted my Jesus."
   The 1,000 plus in attendance could not contain themselves. The
auditorium erupted with applause and cheers. Dr. Tillich thanked his
audience and promptly left the platform.

   Have you tasted Jesus?
1 Peter 2: 1 ¦ Therefore laying aside all malice and all guile and 
hypocrisies and envyings, and all evil speakings, 2 desire the sincere 
milk of the word, as newborn babes, so that you may grow by it;
 3IF TRULY YOU HAVE TASTED THAT THE LORD IS GRACIOUS. 

 Please pass this on Saints! God has risen...and he's coming back one 
day!

   Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes
refuge in Him. If you have, rejoice in the hope of the resurrection
that your faith in Him brings. (Psalm 34:8)

The exciting thing is that there is empirical proof that Jesus rose from 
the dead.  As usual it is not easily available or so plain that it hits you 
in the face as irrefutable, because God has chosen that it is by the 
foolishness of preaching  theWord that people are to come to know 
Him.  One of his servants, at the 20th century dawning of the modern 
scientific age, chose to set out to prove empirically that Jesus is alive 
and well on the planet Earth.  

His name was George Mueller of the faith orphanages of Bristol 
England.  A mentally disciplined teutonic student from Germany, Jesus 
saved Him, cleaned up his act and charged him withthe care of 
Bristol's orphans.  George had been challenged to trust in God instead 
of people for the supplying of his needs by the life and practice of 
Franke in the operation of his orphanages in 1727.  Franke had 
determined to depend solely on Jesus for not only his own provision 
and care, but also for the provision and care of the orphans in his care.  
When he needed something, he prayed to the Father in Jesus name 
and he received not only enough for himself but also for his orphans. 

 It was 1835 and George had already experienced Jesus' miraculous 
provision in answer to prayer alone as he pastored in local chapels.    
He had determined that if Jesus could take care of him, a very poor 
man; if he could care for children in an orphange as he felt Jesus 
leading;  if He  would give him the strength and courage to ask no 
person but God in Jesus' Name for anything --- to ask only Him for the 
money needed for the children, the staff, his wife and he; then indeed 
he would be able to prove by the specific answers to specific prayers 
that Jesus is alive and well on planet Earth, hearing and answering 
prayers today as He promised He would.  He determined to keep a 
careful record of each and every need, the prayer about that need, 
and the miraculous answer toprayer that met that need.  Before he 
finished he had completed what is now available as a ten volume 
record of need, prayer and miraculous provision.   The newspapers of 
the time are still available on microfiche at the public libraries for 
those who want to confirm that there was no human record of George 
soliciting funds from people, taking offerings, having fund raisers and 
advertising needs.  

So where is the empirical evidence that Jesus is alive and well and 
answering prayers today?  If you take just one of those ten volumes 
and feed all the variables into the computer using the math science of 
statistics and probabilities to determine what the probabilities of that 
provision taking place merely by chance, by luck, you would come up 
with a figure exceeding  one in one billion.   Such proof that it was 
impossible to explain what happened with George  by mere luck and 
chance is still difficult to accept by the unbelievers and the skeptical, 
but it is a marvelous scientific confirmation of what  we who have 
tasted Jesus already know -------- HE IS RISEN, RULING AND SOON TO 
COME AGAIN AND SET UP HIS KINGDOM ON EARTH AS HE PROMISED 
HE WOULD!!!!!!

Brethren, we have a cloud of such witnesses about us, enough to 
embolden the faith of the most feeble among us, the doubting 
Thomas's.  There is a veritable Hall of Fame of believers who have 
similarly experienced Jesus' miraculous answers to their specific 
prayers in a way that defies all of the odds, is virtually impossible in 
human terms, and demonstrates anew that HE IS RISEN, RULING AND 
SOON TO COME AGAIN!!!
Read the biographies and autobiographies of Hudson Taylor (England 
and China 1890's), of Amy Carmichael (Ireland and India 1900),   of 
Prince Kaboo of the Kru's of Monrovia Africa (aka "Samuel 
Morris"Africa and USA 1900), of Smith Wigglesworth (England 
1910's), of Sadhu Sundar Singh (India 1920), of Gladys Alward 
(England and China, 1920's),  of John Hyde (England and India, 1920), 
of Esther Ahn Kim's awesome and amazing "If I Perish" made into a 
film by the Japanese government as an act of penance after the war 
(Ahn Ei Sook of Korea, 1940's), of Corrie Ten Boom (Europe 1940's), of 
Brother Andrew (Europe and USSR 1960's), of Catherine Marshall (USA 
1970's),  of Harold Morris (USA 1980's), of Becky Tirabassi (USA 
1990's), and of the autobiography of Rabi R. Maharaj (THE DEATH OF A 
GURU), England, Trinidad, India 1980's). 

HAPPY FAITH BUILDING!

Acts 14:3 Therefore they stayed a long time, speaking boldly in the 
Lord, who bore witness to the word of His grace, giving miracles and 
wonders to be done by their hands.
Rev. 12:10 And I heard a great voice saying in Heaven, Now has come 
the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God, and the 
authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers is cast down, 
who accused them before our God day and night.  11 And THEY 
OVERCAME HIM BECASUE OF the BLOOD OF THE LAMB, and BECAUSE 
OF THE WORD  of their TESTIMONY. And they did not love their soul to 
the death.

A PRAYER FOR YOUR TODAY
Holy Father, I praise You for the wonder that You are.  God, I 
thank You for showing and proving Your Love for me by 
revealing Yourself as Jesus Christ of Bethlehem. I accept Jesus 
as my refuge, strength and very present help in the trouble of 
this world, in the trouble of male-female relationships in this 
world today.  Holy Father, I acknowledge my own personal 
inadequacy for the trials of this world.  Merciful God, I
acknowledge that apart from You I am a part of the 
problem of this world, not a part of the remedy for this world.  
Holy Father, I agree with You that apart from Jesus I can do 
no good thing of eternal merit. I give my body, soul, 
strength and mind to You as Jesus enables me.  I accept only 
Jesus as my King, my Saviour, my Director, my Shepherd and 
my daily Deliverer.  Holy Father, I ask Jesus to come into me 
and live in me and work in me to become Your child, and
to become what You want me to be, whatever that may be.
Father, I acknowledge my total daily need of You and my total 
dependence on You to live well, safely and successfully. Thank 
You for being my Father, my Shepherd, my Counselor, my 
Companion and my Comforter.  Please keep me safe in Your 
hand, and in Your loving embrace. AMEN

Most of these books are available from the Christian Literature 
Crusade,  P.O. Box 1449, Fort Washington, PA 19034; 
the Moody Press of Chicago;
 Dimension Books of Bethany Fellowship, 6820 Auto Club Road, 
Minneapolis, MI 55438;
 Barbour & Company, Inc., P.O.Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683 
(http://www.barbourbooks.com);
Open Doors With Brother Andrew, P.O. Box 27001, Santa Ana, CA 
92799;
Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97402

May the Peace and Love of Jesus fill you and your lives,
Tyler
at oldservant@mindspring.com, 0953@geocities.com, 
 oldservant@planetall.com
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/6916/MFile_Index99.txt
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