He was born in an obscure town, grew up in a tiny village, worked in a carpenter shop, was an itinerant preacher. He slept in borrowed beds. He died on a borrowed cross, and He was buried in a borrowed tomb. He never made a business, professional, or "social" success. He never owned a house, held an office, had a family. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where He was born. Yet, the world's calendar is dated backward and forward from His birth.

The only thing He ever wrote was a sentence in the sand. Yet more books, songs, and poems have been written about Him than about all the other men who ever lived. He is the most masculine, compelling, fascinating, and perfect Soul in history.

He was so gentle that little children climbed on His knee, and so strong that powerful men ran from the temple when He accused them of making it a den of thieves. Officers sent to arrest Him returned empty-handed, saying: "Never man spake like this man."

The night before His execution, His Roman captors took turns lashing His back with a whip made of leather straps weighted with pieces of metal. They knelt before Him in mock homage and then arose to spit in His face. About eight a.m. they took Him to Calvary, stripped Him of his clothing,…and nailed Him to that cross between two thieves. Many victims of crucifixion became raving madmen before they expired, and often their tongues were cut out to stop their screams and curses. But as this silent Victim looked down upon His jeering tormentors, He said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

Christ challenged the slavery system and declared that man is the creation of God and responsible to God. Christ preached the freedom and dignity of the individual and his God-given right to come and go freely, to enjoy the fruits of his own labor, to work for himself or to sell his labor for pay.

He reminded us that the best way to reduce the exploitation of man by man is to embrace Christianity. Christianity, not handouts, is the hope of the world. Christ was no Socialist. He believed in the profit motive. He recognized that free men will have different talents, and abilities in varying degrees. Some, He said, would gain more with what they had, and these were rewarded with more. He even took the "talent" of the man who did nothing, and gave it to the man who had ten "talents," as a lesson. He congratulated those who profited, and urged His followers to learn by their example.

And, He knew that charity is not charity unless it is voluntary. In Luke 12: 13-14, the Christ was talking to a large crowd when a man approached Him, saying: "Master, speak to my brother that he share his inheritance with me."

And Jesus replied: "Man, who is it that would make me a divider among men?" True Christian charity, He knew, comes from within and cannot be imposed by authority.

And Jesus Christ was not a "moderate," He was, in fact, an "extremist." The "modernists" today proclaim that there is no black nor white; that sin is imaginary, non-existent; that we are to be "moderate" in all things, including evil.

That is idiocy.

An agnostic is a moderate. Moderation is no virtue when one is moderately wrong or moderately sinful. Christ had this to say about these moderates – a type He denounced in extreme terms: "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold or hot. I would thou were cold or hot. So because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth."

The Bible is not tolerant; it's "narrow-minded." And so is the compass, the multiplication table, the boiling and freezing points of water, all nature, and the Kingdom of Heaven. The Gates of Hell, on the other hand, are broadminded – open to situational ethics. God, the Bible, sin, and Jesus Christ are not. They are rigid and unchanging….A true Christian has a standard beyond change. Hebrews 13:8 says: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow."

Loss of faith in God is our nation's – and the world's – most serious problem. When men lose God, they turn to the State. When men lose God, they compromise, appease, lie, steal, and make war. The collectivists, anarchists, and atheists must destroy our faith in God to take over the world. Unless we can recapture our Christian spirit and reestablish our Christian values, we will soon lose our freedom of choice with respect to all of life's values. The time could be approaching when the question will not be whether America can be saved, but whether America is worth saving. Sodom and Gomorrah were not! Only the moral deserve to be free. As the apostle Paul said: "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty."

We cannot oppose evil by compromising with evil. We cannot go forth into all the world and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ if we deny Jesus Christ in the United Nations, in our schools, and in our daily lives. We become part of what we condone.

From "American Opinion Magazine"