Lecture

Luis Palau: The human race has been trying for thousands of years to set itself right, to find peace, justice, harmony, reconciliation, love for one another. And yet when you study history, and I’m great on history, I think that after the Bible history is the greatest teacher.

Societies that, in a certain percentage—and the percentage can go up or down—respond to the call of God through Christ, and as a society because of the multiplicity of individuals are surrendered to Christ and follow His ways and obey the commands of Jesus Christ, the impact on society is visible in the history books.

Dr. Vernon Grounds: Along came Christianity, and it produced change, remarkable change. It abolished the unthinkable powers of gladiatorial conflicts in the Roman arena. It elevated the position of women. It eliminated the abandonment of children, born and then left to die because they were unwanted. It spearheaded the establishment of hospitals and of schools and of orphanages.

Luis Palau: The way Christ changes a nation is intriguing. It basically starts with individuals who find peace with God, a sense of meaning, purpose, and joy. They have eternal life. This immediately begins to impact the family. And when it works at its best, in other words family members also respond to Christ, the family begins to change also. They have more love, more patience, more caring for one another, more helping one another to succeed. The family becomes a contented team. Not perfect, not in any way, but a contented team that pulls together.

Then this brings moral change, in the community, in the immediate effect of the family, moral and ethical change begins to take place. When Christ is in the heart, cheating, deceit, treachery, infidelity, basically begin to move out of the life of those who surrender to Christ. That in turn puts the pressure on elected officials to bring more justice, more freedom, more truth, more proper justice to the society. The pressure from the masses forces the leadership to change the laws, to apply the laws, to really practice justice and honesty.

This in turn brings freedom. Freedom produces peace in a society. And peace releases the creativity of the citizens. That’s why throughout history you can see the countries where Christ has had a major impact and you see the effect not only on the morals, but what we notice most is on the economy and on the creativity of its people. And the nations where Christ could be said to be more ruling that society in comparison to other societies, you see that people want to go there, the oppressed want to flee there. Right now it’s America, it used to be Britain in the past. It used to be Germany before that …. The Roman Empire in its day; Spain in its day. People are gravitating as masses; and societies envy those countries that have been impacted by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Vernon Grounds: Malcolm Muggeridge, a British humorist who became a Christian some time back, said that, “If you look at history, it’s dark, except where the light of Christianity through Jesus is shining.” And if you were to eliminate that light, the light shed by Christ who said, ‘I am the light of the world,’ you would have a globe that is indeed wrapped in darkness.”