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Series Code: TIJ
Program Code: TIJ004108S
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00:27 Some of the most powerful and influential words ever heard 00:31 were spoken here on the northwestern shore of 00:34 the Sea of Galilee in 00:36 Israel. Only a few people heard those words that day 2000 years 00:41 ago but since then billions of people have been influenced by 00:46 them. Today we're going to look at just four of those words; 00:51 four words that changed the world. And they can change your 00:56 life too by bringing you inner peace and happiness. 01:01 ♪ ♪ 01:21 The great English poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote the 01:25 Charge of the Light Brigade about a famous English charge in 01:29 Russia during the Crimean War in the mid-19th century. 01:33 It starts like this: Half a league, half a league, Half a 01:39 league onward All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 01:43 Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns! he said. 01:48 Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. You can almost 01:53 feel the hoof beats can't you? It was a useless charge. They 01:58 were slaughtered almost to a man The Crimean War has been called 02:04 the first modern war because modern style weapons and 02:08 explosives were first used on a large scale. In its day the 02:13 Crimean War was unparalleled in it's number of casualties which 02:18 horrified all of Europe. On the Russian side was a young soldier 02:24 who in the calm moments would sit and he would write amid the 02:29 horror and death. His name was Leo Tolstoy and he was honestly 02:34 acclaimed as the world's greatest writer of novels. What 02:41 he witnessed in that war changed his life forever. What most 02:45 people don't know is that Leo Tolstoy went on to become one 02:50 of the world's greatest peacemakers. We're going to 02:53 look at his life 02:54 in the context of what Jesus taught. I'm here by the Sea of 03:00 Galilee where Jesus gave us the Beatitudes. The center of Jesus' 03:06 teaching about the kingdom of God is the Sermon on the Mount. 03:10 Now the Sermon on the Mount is a summary of how Christians should 03:15 live before God and also in relation to other people. 03:19 It contains some of Jesus' best known teaching and instruction 03:24 for living. So if we really want to know what it means to be a 03:28 follower of Jesus and to live as a citizen of the kingdom of God 03:32 then we must understand Christ's teaching in the Beatitudes. But 03:37 the Beatitudes aren't just spiritual principles for 03:41 Christians. They are arguably the body of principles that has 03:46 been most influential in shaping Western civilization as we know 03:51 know it today. The word beatitude is an old fashioned, 03:57 religious sounding word that not many people will recognize today 04:02 It refers to being blissfully happy. This is a happiness that 04:08 belongs only to God and it can come only from God. In other 04:13 words when in your life you have the qualities Jesus described in 04:18 the Beatitudes you will share in the joy of heaven here on earth. 04:23 It's the only way to truly live. If you're after lasting 04:27 happiness and inner peace here it is. So Jesus sat on a hill 04:34 so the crowd could hear him and he taught the people the most 04:37 radical and influential set of principles for living that this 04:42 world has ever heard. Much of what Jesus taught here is about 04:47 personal relationships and how people behave toward one another 04:51 And among the Beatitudes he said this in Matthew chapter five 04:56 and verse nine: 05:00 There they are, just four words, but they changed the world. 05:05 Here's the full text: 05:13 Like each of the Beatitudes there is the great truth hidden 05:19 in this radical contradiction and this great truth can be seen 05:24 played out in the life of Leo Tolstoy. Many people have heard 05:29 the name Leo Tolstoy probably in connection with his huge novel 05:33 War and Peace. It's probably the best known novel in the world 05:38 that's never been read by most people because it's whapping 05:42 1125 pages long. Leo Tolstoy is in fact regarded as one of 05:50 the greatest authors of all time But what most people don't know 05:55 is that he was one of the most influential peacemakers of all 05:59 time. In fact, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three 06:06 between 1901 and 1910. His not being awarded the prize is one 06:13 of the greatest controversies in the history of the Nobel 06:16 Prize. Let's look at his story and find out why. 06:21 His actual name in Russian was Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. 06:27 That's because during the reign of the Czars he was born to an 06:32 aristocratic family in 1828 near Tula in Russia. Tolstoy 06:39 experienced repeated loss as a child. His mother died when he 06:44 was two and his father died when he was just nine. Then his aunt 06:49 became his legal guardian but she too died. So Tolstoy was 06:55 raised by another aunt. Tolstoy was a voracious reader but a 07:01 poor student. When he reached university his teachers 07:06 described him as both unwilling and unable to learn. This was 07:12 probably because his aristocratic upbringing had led 07:15 him into a debauched lifestyle which included being heavily 07:19 addicted excessive gambling and immoral living. Even from his 07:24 adolescence he didn't have much time for study and eventually 07:28 he left university without a degree. Tolstoy returned to his 07:34 family estate where he had a go at farming trying lead the surfs 07:39 as they were farmers in their work. His aim was to be the 07:43 perfect farmer. However, the attractions of the big city drew 07:47 him with their brothels and gambling. So he actually spent 07:52 most of his time away from the farm. Tolstoy was going nowhere 07:58 fast. One day Tolstoy's older brother Nikolai came to visit 08:04 him on the farm. Nikolai was in the army and was on military 08:08 leave. Nikolai saw Tolstoy's huge mounting debts and the 08:13 downward spiral of his life. So he convinced him to go with him 08:18 and join the army and that's exactly what Leo did in 1851 08:23 serving first in the Caucus region of southern Russia. 08:27 Tolstoy proudly wore his military uniform and many photos 08:32 were taken. Army was nothing like his previous life of 08:37 privilege and leisure. It was a hard and nomadic life in which 08:42 he was exposed to the brutality of war. (Cannons sounding off) 08:57 Tolstoy was transferred to Ukraine in 1853 where he fought 09:01 in the Crimean War as an artillery officer. He was there 09:06 during the 11 month long siege of Sevastopol and at the 09:10 disastrous battle of Ternea. During this war Tolstoy was 09:15 recognized for his courage and promoted to lieutenant. The 09:21 Crimean War was first large scale use of many modern 09:26 military technologies which resulted in a massive loss of 09:30 life which shocked Russia and the Ottoman Empire. And the 09:36 scandalous incompetence of the generals contributed to the 09:39 wholesale slaughter of the soldiers on every side. It was 09:44 during private periods of this time in the army that 09:47 Tolstoy really 09:49 started writing. He started writing an autobiographical 09:53 trilogy. It began with the story called Childhood in which he 09:58 described his fondest childhood memories. This became his first 10:03 published work in 1852. During the Crimean War he composed his 10:09 sequel Boyhood. These stories were eagerly snapped up by 10:14 publishers and won great acclaim from the public. But during his 10:19 time in the army he also started thinking deeply about the 10:23 contradictions and horrors of war. This was reflected in a 10:28 three part series called Sevastopol Tales which he wrote 10:33 in the middle of the Crimean War Tolstoy's experiences in the 10:37 military had a profound impact on him. It shaped his thinking 10:41 for the rest of his life. He was appalled at the loss of life in 10:45 warfare and he ended up leaving the army soon after the end of 10:50 the Crimean War. Upon his return to Russia from the army Tolstoy 10:56 found himself greatly in demand for his writing. However, that 11:00 same year one of his brothers died of tuberculosis. Five years 11:05 later the same disease claimed the life of his other brother 11:09 with whom he had served in the army. This was too much for 11:14 Tolstoy and he fell back into his old ways of debauchery. 11:18 Although his writing was in high demand he undermined his 11:22 opportunities with his corrupt lifestyle. To try to escape the 11:27 downward spiral of his addictions Tolstoy set off on 11:31 the first of two trips to Western Europe in 1857. 11:35 However, Tolstoy 11:37 was still in the grip of his addiction to gambling and so 11:41 penniless he had to return to Russia only to return to Western 11:45 Europe again a few year later. His trips to Western Europe 11:50 along with his wartime experiences were to shape 11:54 Tolstoy's philosophy and pacifist view. In France Tolstoy 12:00 met with and was influenced by leading European thinkers. 12:04 He also witnessed a public execution in Paris that 12:08 traumatized him and he came to view governments as corrupt and 12:12 not worthy of trust. After his second trip to Western Europe 12:16 Tolstoy returned to Russia fired up with enthusiasm to make a 12:22 difference in society. He had started to accumulate wealth 12:27 through his writing again so founded 13 schools for the 12:31 children of serfs who had recently been freed. 12:35 The majority of the people of Russia at that time were serfs 12:39 which meant that they were virtually just slaves who worked 12:43 the land for the wealthy elite. Tolstoy's schools were a radical 12:49 experiment in democracy. But they didn't last long. They were 12:53 continually harassed and soon shut down by the secret police 12:57 of the Russian Czar. Still they were the forerunners of many 13:02 later education programs around the world. In 1862 Tolstoy 13:09 married a doctor's daughter names Sophia Andreyev. Sophia 13:15 became a great support to Tolstoy bringing order and 13:19 structure to his life with her administrative and financial 13:23 abilities. They had 13 children together of whom eight survived 13:28 childhood. That same year his marriage seemed to have given 13:34 Tolstoy the space to begin writing what many believe to be 13:38 the greatest novel, War and Peace and later Anna Karenina. 13:43 As a result of the success of these two great novels Tolstoy 13:48 started to accumulate wealth again. He also had time to 13:53 reflect on the disreputable life that he had led until then 13:57 and he went through a great moral and spiritual crisis. As 14:02 he considered his life he became depressed and he struggled with 14:07 the question of the meaning of life. Until then Tolstoy had 14:13 only nominally been a Christian. But he went first to the Russian 14:16 Orthodox church for answers. He found nothing to satisfy him 14:21 there and he came to the view that all organized religion was 14:26 corrupt. So Tolstoy started studying the Bible for himself 14:31 and focused more and more on the teachings of Jesus. What he 14:36 found there, and in particular in the Sermon on the Mount, 14:39 transformed his life. Tolstoy came to understand the teachings 14:44 of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in a literal and radical 14:49 way. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches the values of the 14:53 kingdom of God and Tolstoy believed that the reign of God 14:58 is the only source of authority to which Christians were 15:02 ultimately answerable. Tolstoy rejected the idea that human 15:08 governments have ultimate authority over human beings. 15:12 In fact, he saw the state as violent and deceitful. Human 15:18 governments were ruled by hierarchical and authoritarian 15:22 structures but Tolstoy believed that human relationships should 15:27 be governed only by the values that Jesus taught including 15:31 servant leadership and universal compassion. Tolstoy believed 15:37 that a follower of Christ could find lasting happiness by 15:41 striving to follow the great commandment of loving God above 15:46 all and your neighbor as yourself rather than looking 15:49 outward to the church or to the state for guidance. Because of 15:54 this Tolstoy completely rejected war and violence in all its 15:59 forms and became a radical pacifist. He wrote: 16:25 Tolstoy's ideas on nonviolent resistance were to have a 16:29 profound impact on key 20th century thinkers such as Martin 16:35 Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, a young Gandhi wrote 16:40 Tolstoy a letter asking for his advice on what to do about the 16:45 injustices of the British in England. In a letter he sent to 16:49 Gandhi Tolstoy argued that it was only through the principle 16:54 of love that the Indian people would be able to be free from 16:58 colonial British rule. Gandhi then read Tolstoy's book The 17:04 Kingdom of God is with you which also helped convince him to 17:08 avoid violence and take up non violent resistance. In his 17:13 autobiography Gandhi acknowledged his debt to Tolstoy 17:17 calling him: 17:23 Gandhi even named his second ashram in South Africa Tolstoy 17:29 Colony. Something else that Gandhi and Tolstoy had in common 17:33 was that they both espoused the benefits of vegetarianism. As a 17:40 Count Tolstoy was a high ranking nobleman however because he 17:44 he took the Sermon on the Mount very seriously he also came to 17:49 believe that he should choose the path of poverty. He saw 17:53 denial of self as the path to true spiritual nobility. 18:00 For Tolstoy these weren't just ideas. He took the part of 18:04 poverty very seriously adopting the dress of the Russian peasant 18:09 and living as they lived. Because of his unconventional 18:13 spiritual beliefs Tolstoy encountered many difficulties. 18:18 He was thrown out by the Russian Orthodox Church, he was under 18:23 surveillance by the Russian secret police but worst of all 18:28 his views of his lifestyle became a huge issue for his wife 18:32 especially when he told her that he wanted to give away all his 18:38 money. His wife, perhaps naturally objected strongly. We can 18:43 understand Sophia Tolstoy. After all she had never signed up for 18:48 this. Eventually, Tolstoy agreed to a compromise with his wife. 18:53 He agreed to grant her all the copyrights and the royalties 18:57 to all his writing before 1881. However, this didn't fix his 19:03 marital relationship which in their later years had been 19:07 described as one of the unhappiest marriage relationships 19:11 in the history of literature. Tolstoy struggled to reconcile 19:16 his faith with the realities of what had become a highly toxic 19:21 marriage as his wife became more and more bitter and resentful 19:25 of his radical views and attitudes. Although Tolstoy came 19:30 to reject organized religion he never abandoned Jesus Christ and 19:35 his teachings. However, it was during these last 30 years of 19:39 his life that Tolstoy established himself as a global 19:43 moral leader whose influence stretched around the world and 19:48 even to this day. On November the 19th 1910 Tolstoy finally 19:56 mustered up the courage to try to escape from his fractured 20:00 marriage and he secretly boarded a train heading south. He died 20:05 the next day of pneumonia. Tolstoy spent his last day 20:10 preaching love and nonviolence to his fellow passengers on the 20:15 train. At his funeral thousands of peasants lined the streets. 20:20 We all love peace, we all love it when there's no conflict and 20:29 strife but that's not what the Bible means when it uses the 20:33 word peace. In the Bible peace isn't a passive word, it's an 20:38 active word. It doesn't only mean the absence of something 20:42 but the existence of something. In the Bible peace means the 20:49 presence of satisfying and perfect relationships that bring 20:53 about contentment, joy and well being. That's what Jesus means 20:58 when he says: 21:02 There are people who choose not to intervene for the sake of 21:07 peace and so they let situations and relationships deteriorate 21:11 and break down. All for the sake of keeping the peace. But that's 21:17 not what Jesus called us to do at all. Remember that his idea 21:22 of peace is active and not passive. In this Beatitude Jesus 21:28 doesn't say blessed are the peace lovers. He says blessed 21:33 are the peacemakers. We are called to create peace before we 21:39 can enjoy it. Those who make peace are even happier than 21:43 those who enjoy it. Now the Hebrew word for peace is Shalom. 21:48 Now Shalom means well-being at its very best and highest. 21:54 So we can 21:56 look at that and conclude that the happiest people are those 22:00 who do anything to increase the well-being and welfare of others 22:05 in the world and that would be a correct understanding. However 22:10 the word Shalom also fundamentally means having right 22:15 relationships. When you have right relationships they bring 22:19 you peace. Now there are basically three kinds of right 22:23 relationships that are important The first one is that we must be 22:28 in a right relationship with ourselves. There are people who 22:32 hate themselves and they have never learned to have a healthy 22:37 self-concept. And then there are people who are so full of 22:42 themselves that they can be obnoxious at best and downright 22:46 dangerous at worst. But there is a sense in which as even Jesus 22:52 told us, we are to love ourselves and the only way to 22:57 make sure that this is a healthy love is to be able to see 23:00 yourself as God sees you. So first of all, to have peace you 23:06 must have a right relationship with yourself. The second right 23:11 relationship you must cultivate is with your fellow human beings 23:15 We live in a world with all kinds of prejudices and barriers 23:20 between people. Often they are visible but the most dangerous 23:26 ones are the invisible ones that we take for granted and when you 23:30 live in line with these prejudices you will always be 23:34 not only unhappy but unsafe. Only the love of God can heal 23:40 these wounds. True unity and peace in this world can only be 23:45 found through the power of the love of Jesus Christ. So when 23:50 you work for the good of others you will find supreme happiness. 23:54 When you cultivate loving relationships with others you 23:58 will also find supreme happiness The third and most important 24:04 right relationship that you must have is a right relationship 24:08 with God. When you are in a right relationship with God then 24:13 this peace will flow into your life and it will heal the wrong 24:17 relationships you may have with yourself and bring peace to 24:21 your relationships with others. The Bible tells us how we can 24:26 have this right relationship of peace with God. It says this in 24:31 Romans chapter five and verse one: 24:42 The beginning of all peace is the forgiveness and 24:46 the justification that we receive through Jesus Christ. This means 24:52 that because of what he has done at the cross our sins are 24:56 forgiven when we believe and trust in him. And the cross 25:00 helps us to how much God loves not only us but the whole world 25:05 and the price that he paid for peace. Just before Jesus was 25:11 arrested to be crucified he said this to his disciples in 25:15 John chapter 14 and verse 27: 25:24 This has been called the last will and testament of Jesus. 25:30 And it consisted of peace. Who has ever been bequeathed a 25:34 wonderful inheritance and not accepted it? If you would like 25:39 to accept and experience the peace that Jesus offers, true 25:43 inner peace and happiness then I'd like to recommend the free 25:48 gift we have for all our Incredible Journey viewers today 25:52 It's the easy-to-read booklet The Beatitudes, Wise Words of 25:58 Jesus. This small booklet will only take you a few minutes to 26:03 read but it can help you find true peace and happiness and 26:07 help you share it so that you're a real blessing and 26:11 encouragement to others. This booklet is our gift to you and 26:16 is absolutely free. There are no costs or obligations whatsoever. 26:21 So make sure you take this wonderful opportunity to receive 26:26 the free gift we have for you today. 26:29 Phone or text us at 0436-333-555 in Australia or 020-422-2042 in 26:41 New Zealand or visit our website TiJ.tv to request today's free 26:47 offer and we'll send it to you totally free of charge and with 26:50 no obligation. Write to us at: 27:05 Don't delay. Call or text us now 27:08 If you've enjoyed our journey to Galilee in Israel and our 27:15 reflections on the blessings and happiness that Jesus has 27:18 promised to those who are peace makers, then be sure to join us 27:22 again next week when we will share another of life's journeys 27:27 together. Until then may you find peace in your family, in 27:32 your community and in our world and most importantly in your 27:37 heart. Let's pray. 27:39 Dear heavenly Father, we thank you because you sent your Son 27:45 Jesus into the world to be the Prince of Peace. Through him 27:51 we discover how to live in relationships of peace with 27:55 ourselves, with our community and most of all with you. Father 28:01 teach us to be peacemakers and to share our hope with others. 28:05 In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen. 28:09 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2021-08-02