At a time when I was going through a dry spell, my friend Romy Solis gave me a set of audio materials of Ravi Zacharias. The name was foreign to me but I decided to listen and in just a few minutes I learned so much from him. That was almost 7 years ago. Today I still listen to him, I subscribe to his podcasts and I even went to Oxford University two years ago and attended his summer course on apologetics.
In one of his talks he quoted Malcolm Muggeridge and the haunting words still ring true today. Muggeridge was a journalist, reporter and an agnostic but in his later years embraced Christ as Savior. Possessing a brilliant mind and the ability to put power into words in order to stimulate our thinking, listen to this:
I looked back upon my own fellow country men. Once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world. Made famous in the words of what is still a popular song. That the God who made them mighty shall make them mightier yet.
I heard a crazed-crack Austrian announced to the world the establishment of a REICH that will last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown saying he was going stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I have heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as a wiser than Solomon – more humane than Marcus Aurelius more enlightened than Ashoka. I have seen America wealthier and in terms of military weaponry more powerful than the rest of the world put together. So that half the American people saw so desired – think about a Cesar or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquest. All in one life time…all in one lifetime…all gone. Gone with the wind.
England part of a tiny island on the coast of Europe sullen with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead. Remembered only in infamy. Stalin a hope in a name in a regime he had found that dominate for some three decade. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keeps the motorists roaring as the smog settling with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam and the Don Quixote’s of the media all in one life time…all in one life time…all gone…gone with the wind.
He says “Behind the debris of these sullen Supermen and self-styled imperial diplomatist stand the gigantic figure of One Person because of whom by whom in whom and through whom alone mankind may still have peace – the Person of Jesus Christ.” I give that Person to you tonight as one who can be Your Lord and Savior.
Powers fall. Dynasties collapse. Empires cease to exist.
And yet there are still people in planet earth totally disinterested in eternity and are still building their empires. Businessmen building their financial empires. Religious leaders building their own earthly empires using the Name of God for their selfish ends.
All in one life time…all in one lifetime….all gone. Gone with the wind as Muggeridge would say.
Do not envy the big of this world. Stay little so that only Christ will be Big for we are not yet Home.
Love God love men and be the best you can ever be not only in your work but in your character. This is what we can bring with us to our Home.