Topics:<\/b> Agnosticism; Atheism; Belief; Bible; Conversion; Doubt; Jesus Christ; Truth; Unbelief<\/p>\n
References:<\/b> John 6:29; 1 Timothy 1:16; 1 John 5:6\u201312, 20<\/p>\n
Lew Wallace, governor of New Mexico, was writing a book against Jesus Christ and in the process was converted to Christianity. He told a friend how it happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had always been an agnostic and denied Christianity,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cRobert C. Ingersoll, a famous agnostic, was one of my most intimate friends. He once said, \u2018See here, Wallace, you are a learned man and a thinker. Why don\u2019t you gather material and write a book to prove the falsity concerning Jesus Christ, that no such man has ever lived, much less the author of the teachings found in the New Testament? Such a book would make you famous. It would be a masterpiece, and a way of putting an end to the foolishness about the so-called Christ.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Wallace went home and told his wife about the project. She was a member of the Methodist Church and did not like the idea. But Wallace began to collect material from libraries all over the world that covered the period in which Jesus Christ should have lived. He did that for several years and then began writing. He was four chapters into the book, he says, when it became clear to him that Jesus Christ was just as real a personality as Socrates, Plato, or Caesar. \u201cThe conviction became a certainty. I knew that Jesus Christ had lived because of the facts connected with the period in which he lived.\u201d<\/p>\n
So he asked himself candidly, \u201cIf he was a real person, was he not then also the Son of God and the Savior of the world?\u201d Gradually Wallace realized that since Jesus Christ was a real person, he probably was the one he claimed to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fell on my knees to pray for the first time in my life, and I asked God to reveal himself to me, forgive my sins, and help me to become a follower of Christ. Toward morning the light broke into my soul. I went into my bedroom, woke my wife, and told her that I had received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2018O Lew,\u2019 she said, \u2018I have prayed for this ever since you told me of your purpose to write this book, that you would find him while you wrote it!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Wallace went on to write a famous book. Every time I watch the epic film Ben Hur<\/i>, based on that book, I wonder at how it was written by a man who wanted to disprove that Jesus ever existed and instead became convinced that he was the greatest man who ever lived.<\/p>\n
\u2014David Holdaway, The Life of Jesus<\/i> (Sovereign World, 1997)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Topics: Agnosticism; Atheism; Belief; Bible; Conversion; Doubt; Jesus Christ; Truth; Unbelief References: John 6:29; 1 Timothy 1:16; 1 John 5:6\u201312, 20 Lew Wallace, governor of New Mexico, was writing a book against Jesus Christ and in the process was converted to Christianity. He told a friend how it happened. \u201cI had always been an agnostic … Continue reading “TRANSFORMING
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