Participants: Pr. John Carter
Series Code: CR
Program Code: CR001616A
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00:13 Well, I'm glad to see you today.
00:15 The topic is The Search For Happiness. 00:21 Many years ago, 00:23 before most of you folks were born. 00:26 Beverley and I were out driving in northern New South Wales. 00:33 Does that confusion? 00:34 It's Wales, you know, sort of part of the UK. 00:39 Then there's Northern Wales. 00:40 Well, this is North New South Wales. 00:45 And we were driving near a little town, 00:48 this will confusion you too, by the name of Mullumbimby. 00:50 If there's anybody watching the telecast from Mullumbimby, 00:54 just want to say hello to you. 00:56 But as we were driving along there was a beautiful girl 00:58 standing beside the road. 01:00 And she was thumbing up, 01:02 you know, she was hitch-hiking. 01:04 And so we pulled up and we said, 01:05 "Where are you going?" 01:06 She said, "I'm on the way to happiness." 01:10 And so we put her in the car and I said her, 01:13 "Where is the way to happiness?" 01:15 She said "Down at Byron Bay." 01:17 And the people who come from Byron Bay 01:19 know exactly what I'm talking about. 01:21 That's the pot capital of Australia. 01:24 It's a bit of Colorado. 01:29 And so she said, "I'm going up to Byron Bay, 01:32 at the back of the Byron Bay, not Byron Bay itself, 01:35 but up in the mountains" because she said, 01:38 "We're going to be free from all restrained." 01:42 A beautiful girl, and she said, 01:44 "I'm empty inside but I'm searching for happiness." 01:50 Never saw her again, obviously. 01:53 But it is true that the whole world 01:55 is searching for a creed to believe, 02:00 and a song to sing. 02:03 I want to notice the words of the most influential person 02:09 who ever lived. 02:11 And that is Christ. 02:12 Would you please turn in your bible 02:14 to John 10:10, 02:18 the words of the most influential person 02:24 who ever lived in history of the human race. 02:26 John 10:10, and Jesus said, 02:31 "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, 02:37 and to destroy." 02:38 There are lots of thieves, my friend. 02:40 "I have come that they may have life." 02:43 What did he say? 02:44 "That they may have it more abundantly." 02:47 The Jesus said, 02:51 I've come to this world. 02:53 He said, it's a pretty dark place, 02:55 but I've come into this place to show you 02:58 the path to happiness. 03:03 Every person under the sun knows that we have a problem. 03:09 The human race got a problem and thus the hippy girl was, 03:13 you know, up there on the hills, 03:16 going to the place behind Byron Bay 03:19 searching for the happiness. 03:21 Every year in this great country, 03:24 the United States of America, 03:26 42,773 people say that, life, I can't take it anymore, 03:33 and they commit suicide, including Hollywood stars. 03:39 In fact, I'm told over the last few years 03:42 the rate of suicide in the United States of America 03:45 is up some, I think it's... 03:48 my memory is working today, 40 percent. 03:53 More than a million Americans every year 03:56 tried to take their own lives, 03:59 including some of the glamorous and the beautiful people 04:04 that you see on the television. 04:07 The question is, 04:09 what is the root cause of the deadly malaise, 04:14 and all pervading sense of discontent and hopelessness? 04:20 Have you heard the story of the man 04:21 who went alone to see his physiologist? 04:25 And he said, "I'm is terribly depressed, 04:27 I don't see any purpose in living. 04:30 I just feel like ending at all." 04:32 The physiologist said, "Well, look," he said, 04:34 "we all get the blues." 04:35 He said, "Did you know the circus has come to town?" 04:38 And he said, "They have a marvelous clown." 04:41 He said, "He is the funniest clown 04:44 that you'll ever seen anywhere in the world." 04:46 He said, "I went along to see the clown 04:48 just the other night. 04:50 And I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed." 04:52 He said to the man, 04:54 "You ought to go and see the clown." 04:56 The man said, "Doctor, I am the clown." 05:03 So the whole world, we know, 05:05 is searching for a creed to believe 05:08 and for a song to sing. 05:14 There has been various solutions 05:17 that has been proposed 05:19 and one solution was given to us by a very famous man, 05:24 he was a German Jew. 05:26 Some of the great thinkers, German Jews. 05:28 His name was Karl Marx. 05:33 You've all heard about the Karl Marx? 05:35 He gave his communism, he gave his Marxism, 05:38 he said "Religion is the impotence 05:42 of the human mind to deal with occurrences 05:47 it cannot understand." 05:50 He said, we are religious 05:51 because we just can't work things out. 05:55 He believed in the class struggle. 05:58 We hear these all the times today, 06:00 the rich against the poor, 06:02 and the problem of pure capitalism. 06:06 You will remember the book Animal Farm 06:09 by George Orwell. 06:11 In the book the communist said, all animals are equal 06:15 but some animals are more equal. 06:18 And they discovered that the animals 06:20 were most equal in the Soviet Union 06:23 were the pigs. 06:27 And so the Marxism is an attempt 06:30 to solve the problem, 06:32 the malaise that afflicts the human heart. 06:36 Didn't see it worked very well at all. 06:38 He also said, 06:39 religion is the opium of the people. 06:43 When you think of Russia, the atheist, 06:46 the communist put to death in Russia 06:49 around 50 million people. 06:51 It's not a very good advertisement for communism. 06:54 Not a very good advert... 06:56 and especially, when you discover in American, 06:58 today people are thinking 07:00 communism may be the solution to the problem. 07:03 Fifty million people were murdered by the communist. 07:07 And then if you go to China, the days of Mao, 07:10 tens of millions were put into death there. 07:12 Then in Cambodia, it's unspeakable, 07:15 the millions of people who were put into death 07:17 because they were considered to be less than animals. 07:22 Another man who had a tremendous impact 07:24 upon the human race was Freud. 07:27 He was an Australian Jew. 07:30 He said, "Our problems are purely psychological, 07:33 " not so much economical and political, as mark said. 07:36 But Freud said, psychological. 07:39 And most of our urges have got to do 07:43 with our sexuality. 07:46 He was the person who discovered or rather 07:48 who implemented psychoanalysis. 07:52 He said, "Religion is an illusion 07:57 and it derives it's strength from the fact that it falls in 08:01 with our instinctual desires 08:05 and our drives." 08:08 We've all got these hidden passions, 08:12 and the solution is psychoanalysis. 08:19 Perhaps, the philosopher 08:20 who has influenced America and the world 08:23 more than anybody else is the great German philosopher 08:27 who wanted to become a pastor, Nietzsche. 08:32 He was born in the year that some would say 08:34 was quite significant, he was born in 1844 08:39 and he died of syphilis in 1900. 08:42 And when nobody else would take care of this man 08:45 who hated Christianity, 08:47 he was taking care of by his Christian mother 08:50 and his sister. 08:52 He thought that weakness is evil 08:56 and that power is good. 08:59 He said, "You have your way. I have my way. 09:02 As for the right way, the correct way, 09:05 and the only way, it does not exist." 09:09 It said that the Fuhrer, 09:11 Hitler slept with the copy of the Antichrist 09:16 under his pillow. 09:18 He believed that might was right 09:22 and the emergence of the super race. 09:25 Listen to these statements, almost too hard to believe. 09:28 "All superior men who were irresistibly drawn 09:32 to throw off the yoke of any kind of morality 09:36 and to frame new laws had, 09:39 if they were not actually mad, no alternative 09:43 but to make themselves or pretend to be mad. 09:48 " So this is the person who has influenced American, 09:53 British, and German, and Australian, 09:55 and all the great universities, 09:57 more than any other person in history. 10:01 Nietzsche, he set out to be a pastor. 10:05 Then a person, perhaps, 10:06 who was even more famous than Nietzsche 10:09 is Charles Darwin, 10:11 who also set out to become a Christian pastor 10:15 because he belong to the church of England. 10:18 He said, "One general law, 10:22 leading to the advancement of all organic beings... 10:26 let the strongest live and let the weakest die." 10:33 Now we should not think for a moment, 10:35 that Darwin was a bad man, 10:39 he was a kind and a decent man. 10:43 He only became an evolutionist, 10:49 and eventually an Aesthesis, or the very best an agnostic 10:53 after he prayed to God to save his daughter. 10:57 And when his daughter died, he said, 11:00 this is the proof that there is no God. 11:03 He said this, hard to believe, he said this, 11:07 "It's the origin of the species, 11:10 it's a mere rag of a hypotheses with as many flaws 11:14 and holes a sound pots." 11:20 Therefore, the idea of the evolution 11:23 is not a scientific idea, 11:25 it is a philosophy of choice, if there is no God. 11:31 He taught of cause, that life has developed 11:33 purely by chance. 11:36 Neo-Darwinist like Richard Dawkins say, 11:39 there is no meaning, no God and no design. 11:43 A famous evolutionist, 11:47 Philip Adams made this statement, 11:51 can you believe it. 11:52 "We are as significant 11:55 as the eighth billionth grain of sand 11:59 beyond the final palm tree in the most distant oasis 12:04 in the Sahara." 12:07 Let see, end result of cause, of atheism 12:11 and evolution though, I would say this quickly, 12:14 not all evolutionists are atheists. 12:19 There are the theistic evolutionists 12:21 who are Christians, such as Francis Collins, 12:26 who wrote the remarkable book The Language of God. 12:29 But pure Darwinism is atheistic 12:32 to the heart. 12:34 It teaches this, listen, 12:35 nothing produced everything, 12:40 non-life produced life, 12:43 randomness produced fine-tuning. 12:47 Chaos produced information, 12:51 unconscious produced conscious, 12:54 and non-reason produce reason. 12:57 Let us be honest. 13:01 Such an idea is totally unscientific, unattainable, 13:04 and some would say a form of madness. 13:08 A form of madness. 13:11 And so these are some of the worldviews 13:13 I presented to you today, 13:14 but I believe they would not hold water. 13:18 Today, I want to present the Christian worldview 13:22 based on the Holy Scriptures. 13:25 And the bible teaches that first and foremost 13:28 our problem is not psychological, 13:31 it is not political, or economic, or sexual, 13:36 or any those things. 13:37 The bible teaches 13:39 that basically our problem is spiritual. 13:43 Would you please turn in your Bible 13:44 to the Romans 3:23. 13:49 Turning to Romans 3, 13:52 by the great Jewish theologian Paul. 13:56 The bible says, "For all have sinned 14:01 and fall short of the glory of God." 14:05 So the teaching of the bible 14:07 is that our problem is basically a spiritual problem 14:11 and it has to do with sin. 14:15 The hardest truth for any person, 14:17 whether he is a Darwinist or psychoanalyst, or Marxist, 14:23 is to recognize that our problem is sin. 14:28 It was only after, could you believe this, 14:31 it was only after 9/11 that many American philosophers 14:36 in our best universities considered the facts 14:40 that there was evil in the world. 14:44 Well, you see, if ultimately, 14:46 and you got to be honest in your thinking. 14:49 And the problem is with many people, 14:50 they are not honest in their thinking, 14:52 but they are carried away by their emotions. 14:55 But if there is no God, there is no good, you see. 15:00 There is no right and there is no right... 15:03 There is no right and no wrong 15:05 if these men are right. 15:08 The evidence of sin is everywhere apparent, 15:12 my friends, think about it. 15:13 Hate, anger, lust, lying, bigotry, white, 15:18 black and brown racism. 15:21 But people say, no, 15:22 I can understand a person being, 15:24 like you being a white racist 15:26 but it's impossible to be a black racist, 15:28 that's absurd. 15:30 Because if we cut open a black person 15:33 he's exactly the same inside as I am. 15:37 And the skin is simply something 15:39 that is very superficial. 15:42 And we are all born 15:45 with a tendency towards racism 15:48 whether we are white, brown, red or yellow, 15:51 whatever the color 15:52 because the heart of man is sinful. 15:57 And so you can see racism and racism is becoming 16:01 more of a problem in the United States of America. 16:05 And all parts of the race are equally guilty, I think. 16:09 You see, the intolerance, greed, 16:11 sexual provisions, slavery 16:14 which is on the increase. 16:15 There are most slaves today 16:18 than even in the days of the slave traders. 16:21 Violence, and perhaps the chief characteristic 16:26 or the chief identifying mark of sin 16:31 which lives in us 16:33 is our essential restlessness. 16:39 Now the great Roman Catholic St. Augustan said these words, 16:44 "Thou hast made us for thyself, 16:46 O Lord, and our heart is restless 16:50 until it finds its rest in Thee." 16:54 Or to put it in a more up-to-date phraseology, 16:59 "Our souls were made for God, 17:02 and they cannot rest until they rest in God." 17:07 And so when you look around the world today, 17:09 you see an all possessive sense of restlessness 17:15 and people are searching and searching, 17:17 and they cannot find it because they do not... 17:19 and they rushing off to their psychologist, 17:22 and psychiatrist, and psychoanalysis, 17:24 and every person under the sun, 17:26 and I don't suggest they stop doing that. 17:30 But they need to recognize 17:33 that our basic problem is not psychological, 17:36 our basic problem is spiritual problem. 17:40 Man naturally is empty inside. 17:45 Doctor Billy Graham talks about 17:47 going somewhere years and years ago 17:49 to run a campaign in this great United States of America. 17:53 And he spoke to one of the leaders 17:55 of the Hollywood industry 17:57 and he said, "Dr. Graham, 17:59 I would love to come and hear you preach tonight, 18:01 " but he said, "I cant get out this," he said, 18:04 "because I'm desperately empty inside." 18:08 And he was one of the comedians of Hollywood. 18:11 And the reason that we need so many comedians today 18:14 is because we are searching and searching and searching 18:19 and not finding, 18:21 because we are looking in the wrong place. 18:24 We are empty inside, we have a black hole inside. 18:28 And we try to fill the black hole with drugs, 18:31 alcohol, illicit sex, consumerism. 18:36 That's why television commercials 18:39 are so anonymously successful, 18:41 because they appeal sin inside. 18:45 We need more stuff, comedy, violent games, and movies. 18:50 And violent games, 18:53 and pornography, and searching, 18:55 and people can't get to the next sale fast enough, 19:00 and they got to, 19:01 because it gives them high for a little bit. 19:06 And the television people understand this far better 19:08 than anybody else, they know that we need to have a high 19:12 even if we're playing video games. 19:17 And it has been said today, 19:18 one of the biggest problem in America 19:19 and the rest of the world 19:22 is the ubiquitous cell phones, 19:27 where by we cannot live without it. 19:30 Even people who go into the church, 19:32 and they cannot live without it, 19:33 they got be texting all the time. 19:36 And you see people, it is... 19:39 Listen, it is a sickness, it is a sickness. 19:42 It is a symptom of our emptiness. 19:45 And you see the people going to restaurant 19:47 and they sit opposite each other 19:49 and they don't talk but they have cell phones, 19:52 and they are doing this on their cell phones. 19:55 They even communicating with the people 19:56 across the table with the cell phone. 20:01 And driving has became almost a paralysis occupation 20:04 here in Southern California because you see people texting, 20:08 actually texting as they're driving. 20:11 They are addicted to it as much as a person 20:15 is addicted to alcohol or heroin. 20:20 It is the symptom of the emptiness, 20:25 it is the symptom of the hole that is within us. 20:29 Remember, our souls were made for God, 20:31 and they cannot rest until they rest in Him. 20:36 Now what I'm telling you today is the teaching 20:39 that has been taught by the greatest thinkers, 20:42 and theologians, and photospheres 20:44 in the history of the human race. 20:46 We have a problem, it is true. 20:50 But our problem is the sin problem. 20:53 They say, you know, I like to read, 20:57 keep up whether it's science or economics or anything, 21:00 and I read and people say, 21:02 well, we got to have more laws pass. 21:04 We got to have the president involve, 21:06 and we got to outlaw racism. 21:10 You can't outlaw the human heart. 21:13 We got a fix Baltimore, 21:15 we got to fix this place 21:17 and we got a pour billions and billions... 21:19 did you know, this country has poured more money 21:22 into trying to outlaw poverty than the rest of the world 21:25 in the history of the human race? 21:28 And we should try to outlaw poverty. 21:30 But throwing money at a problem does not solve it. 21:35 We seem to think, no, we can solve every problem 21:37 if we throw enough money at it. 21:40 But the problem is not economics 21:42 and the problem is not in racism. 21:44 If we were throwing money at the problem 21:46 then we have no racism left in America. 21:49 But we got more racism today 21:51 than in the history of the United States. 21:54 And money is not the solution, and let me tell you, 21:57 speeches by politicians, 22:00 that is not the solutions either. 22:03 The problem is sin and Christ is the solution. 22:08 Sin is deadly and humanly incurable. 22:13 I want you to look at Romans 6:23, 22:15 and you know that what I'm saying is true. 22:18 You know, you know it's true. 22:19 Romans 6:23. 22:22 Romans 6:23, the first bit, 22:26 "For the wages of sin is death." 22:30 We're going to read the rest in a moment. 22:33 Sin is deadly, "The wages of sin is death." 22:38 Years ago, I heard about a lady doctor 22:42 who was works in Africa. 22:44 She was a medical missionary, best sort of people. 22:48 She was a Baptist. 22:51 And she was working 22:52 in the little village of Lasa. 22:56 And they discovered that a plague had broken out 22:58 among the people there, and they would get the fever, 23:02 ulcers, back of their throat, pounding head, 23:06 and I think, on the fourth or the fifth day they die. 23:09 They could do nothing for them. 23:11 So this lady carried out a postmortem. 23:17 Because they want to send the tissues 23:19 back to the United States of America 23:21 and find out what this demon from hell was. 23:25 And as she was doing the postmortem, 23:27 the knife slipped and she nicked the finger. 23:31 She ran over to the tap and turned it on hard 23:35 and washed her hands with soap, 23:39 but a few days later she got a headache, 23:42 ulcers at the back of the throat, 23:45 and on the fourth day she died. 23:47 There was a demon from the hell lose upon the world, 23:51 if it got out on the streets of New York, 23:53 nobody would live. 23:56 They discovered later, its spread by rats. 24:00 It is still living today in the jungle of Africa. 24:04 It is like sin, it is deadly. 24:10 But the Bible teaches 24:12 that while we all have a problem, 24:15 whether you go to church or not, we all have a problem. 24:19 And the problem is sin problem. 24:22 The Bible tells us that there is a cure 24:24 for the sin problem. 24:26 Would you look at Romans 6:23, the second part. 24:30 First part we'll read it again, 24:32 it says "For the wages of sin is death." 24:35 If you hold on to the sin or if sin holds on to you, 24:38 the bible says, you're going to die. 24:42 "For the wages of sin is death, 24:43 but the gift of God is eternal life 24:47 in Christ Jesus our Lord." 24:51 The bible teaches this, 24:52 and we're going to talk about this 24:54 in the next part of the program, 24:57 that even though we have an incurable problem, 25:00 humanly speaking, it's incurable. 25:03 The Bible teaches that the gift of God 25:07 is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 25:11 We are going to discover in the second part, 25:14 the next program, that the creator God 25:17 who made the stars and who made the universe, 25:20 this is an incomprehensible idea. 25:23 Richard Dawkins said, what a childish idea. 25:27 What a childish man. 25:31 But the Bible teaches the idea 25:34 that the almighty God became incarnate. 25:37 The one who made the universe became a man. 25:42 And when he became a man, he grapples with sin, 25:48 the monster and slew It. 25:52 And that's the next part of our program. 25:55 As we talk about The Search For Happiness. 26:10 Hello, friend. 26:11 I'm John Carter, in Havana, Cuba. 26:15 I'm standing here in Revolutionary Square. 26:19 This great square is dedicated 26:21 to the great communist revolution 26:23 under Fidel, 26:25 that came to this country back 50, 60 years ago. 26:29 This place is still undergoing a revolution. 26:33 We've come to check out the reality of the situation. 26:37 Freedom of Speech is not allowed here still, 26:41 preaching the gospel out of doors 26:43 is not allowed here still. 26:45 Whatever you hear about reconciliation, 26:48 nothing has really changed. 26:51 We've been told, we cannot run public campaigns in Cuba 26:57 in any part of this world. 27:00 We can run meetings in churches, that's allowed. 27:03 So what are we going to do? 27:05 We're going to support the people of God 27:07 in this part of the world. 27:08 We're going to step through those doors 27:10 as God opens those doors. 27:13 We're not going to come and cause a commotion 27:17 and cause trouble to the people of God. 27:20 We will work diligently and as wise as serpents 27:27 and as harmless as doves. 27:29 Stand with us in the preaching of the gospel, 27:32 wherever it is, stand with us. 27:35 Write to me, Post Office Box 1900, 27:37 Thousand Oaks California, 91358. 27:40 In Australia, write to me at the address 27:42 which is now appearing on the screen at Terrigal. 27:46 And let us go forward 27:47 for a mighty spiritual revolution 27:51 as we take the Gospel of Christ to the lost around the world 27:56 as God opens the doors. 27:58 This is John Carter, in Revolutionary Square, 28:02 in Havana, Cuba, 28:04 saying to you God bless you and thank you for your support. 28:12 For a copy of today's program, 28:14 please contact us at P.O. Box 1900 28:17 Thousand Oaks California, 91358. 28:21 Or in Australia, contact us at P.O. Box 861, Terrigal, 28:27 New South Wales 2260. 28:31 This program is made possible 28:33 through the generous support of viewers like you. 28:36 We thank you for your continued support. 28:39 May God richly bless you. |
Revised 2016-06-16