Articles

00:00:02:07    : From Moody Radio Chicago, you’re listening to
00:00:04:09    : “This is the Day” with Nancy Turner.
00:00:06:11    : For more information, visit our website: ThisIsTheDay.fm
00:00:10:22    : Now, here’s Nancy Turner.
00:00:12:13    :
00:00:16:29    : You are listening to Moody Radio.
00:00:18:28    : We’re broadcasting out of Chicago, Illinois,
00:00:21:11    : but we can be heard anywhere around the world
00:00:24:19    : right now which I find to be very exciting.
00:00:27:03    : Tomorrow I’ll share an email I got from
00:00:29:05    : a listener who sent it to me yesterday from Trinidad.
00:00:33:08    : So we’ll share that tomorrow but today we have
00:00:34:21    : too many things to talk about to go into that one.
00:00:36:28    : I’ve got another great letter that I will share
00:00:39:02    : with you but I want to mainly share with John Cross,
00:00:41:20    : who’s our guest right now.
00:00:43:08    : He’s the general director of GoodSeed International,
00:00:46:16    : which is an equipping ministry,
00:00:49:15    : specializing in worldview evangelism and discipleship.
00:00:52:10    : And you did hear Julie Roys interview him while I was
00:00:54:23    : in Tijuana on my mission trip with Amore Ministries.
00:00:58:03    : Now I’m back and I said,
00:00:59:26    : “Ok, this is too good of a topic to let go.
00:01:03:02    : We need to do this one more time.”
00:01:04:24    : So, John, welcome back to the broadcast here at Moody Radio.
00:01:08:00    :
00:01:08:19    : << Thank you very much Nancy. Glad to be of use.
00:01:11:14    : << Oh, you are, my friend.
00:01:13:04    : I’d like to back up a little bit before we talk
00:01:16:25    : about your ministry, and talk about you a little bit.
00:01:20:24    : As I was reading your book, “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus”
00:01:23:25    : (of course I didn’t get through the whole thing)
00:01:25:08    : but what I did get through the Preface was something you
00:01:28:14    : said that I’d like you to talk about if you will.
00:01:32:01    : And I’m going to read this little part out of the Preface.
00:01:34:20    : You said: As with any book, some may find it easy in the first
00:01:37:20    : few pages to decide “Well, this is not a book for me.”
00:01:40:26    : I wish to challenge those who are inclined that way,
00:01:43:16    : to read the entire volume before deciding
00:01:46:02    : what to believe about the Bible.
00:01:48:26    : Now, here’s what I’d like for you to talk about:
00:01:50:14    : There was a time when I, too, would have thrown the Bible
00:01:53:19    : out with the preverbal “bath water.”
00:01:56:03    : But then I was challenged to pause and look again.
00:01:59:08    : John, will you tell us a little bit about that story,
00:02:01:24    : where you were at that time where you might have thrown
00:02:04:14    : it out the window and how you decided to, “Ok, maybe I won’t?”
00:02:06:24    :
00:02:08:14    : << Well, my background, I was raised in a family that
00:02:12:29    : was highly exposed to the Bible.
00:02:15:18    : My parents were Bible believers.
00:02:18:25    : It was an excellent family background, I mean,
00:02:21:21    : as I go back through our history,
00:02:22:29    : I can go back generations, many generations on both
00:02:25:08    : sides of my family- Bible believers.
00:02:29:02    : So I had that incredible heritage behind me.
00:02:32:21    : But, as so often is true with young folks as they
00:02:36:29    : are growing up, you come to a stage where your
00:02:38:26    : parent’s beliefs aren’t good enough for yourself,
00:02:41:17    : and you want to establish your own thinking.
00:02:44:27    : And it was really in the process of that time in my
00:02:48:29    : life, as I was thinking it all through,
00:02:51:06    : I came to a point where I had to say,
00:02:55:20    : “If this is true, then it has major ramifications on my life.
00:03:01:02    : “And if it’s not true, then I can just go live which-ever
00:03:03:27    : “way I want, and I’m not going to be a hypocrite and just
00:03:05:21    : pretend that I’m kinda signing on to this Christianity thing.”
00:03:12:01    : And so that was really the whole process in my life
00:03:14:13    : as I thought that through.
00:03:16:21    : It was a very significant time.
00:03:20:12    : I would have been in my teens at the time when
00:03:22:18    : that was all that was going on.
00:03:24:08    :
00:03:24:18    : << I love hearing that story.
00:03:26:22    : I’ve seen that play out in my own daughter’s life,
00:03:29:16    : who for years (she might kill me for talking about
00:03:33:08    : this on the air, but ok...)
00:03:35:07    : but you brought this up this way, at that age,
00:03:37:23    : she was one who I would suggest and want her to
00:03:42:08    : come to church, and she did a lot of times,
00:03:44:15    : but then there were mornings like:
00:03:45:22    : “Oh, I’m so tired, Mom, it’s been a hard week at school,
00:03:47:27    : la la la,” but there came a time through a mission trip
00:03:52:28    : that we took back a few years ago.
00:03:56:25    : There came times where she met girls and people that were
00:04:00:17    : really immersed in the Word that brought
00:04:02:20    : it home to her somehow.
00:04:04:15    : And then she recognized that her True North, if you’ll use
00:04:07:21    : a compass, John, her True North was not really
00:04:11:21    : me or her dad, or anybody.
00:04:14:05    : It was God.
00:04:15:14    : And that’s when her life took a turn and now she
00:04:19:07    : puts me to shame in her Christian walk.
00:04:21:11    : It’s remarkable when somebody of that age,
00:04:24:15    : like you were, grasps on to what the Word really means.
00:04:29:12    :
00:04:29:26    : << I think that’s a good illustration of the compass,
00:04:32:22    : because it’s like every one of us has a compass built
00:04:36:20    : into us, and the magnetic part of the compass is swinging back
00:04:41:19    : and forth, trying to find out where the True North is,
00:04:45:13    : and how we line that compass up is how we live our life.
00:04:52:23    : If we do not know the Bible, if we do not understand
00:04:56:19    : what it has to say about life, death, and life after death,
00:05:00:27    : we may find that we’re lining up the compass of our life
00:05:03:25    : with a facade, with something that isn’t true, and that
00:05:08:19    : can have major ramifications on how we live.
00:05:11:12    :
00:05:11:22    : << Well, with that I’d like to share a letter I got
00:05:13:26    : via email, and this was in response to Julie Roys’
00:05:17:24    : interview with you, and so I’m, it’s a long letter,
00:05:21:21    : but I’m not going to read the whole thing.
00:05:23:10    : But this will encourage you and our listeners
00:05:25:07    : to know more about what we are talking about today.
00:05:27:17    : This man, he gave his name as Jack,
00:05:30:10    : and he doesn’t say where he’s from,
00:05:32:04    : but he says that he met a missionary who worked with
00:05:36:00    : some place you might be familiar with, New Tribes Mission.
00:05:40:02    : 23 years I believe you served with them.
00:05:43:02    : Well, he said I met this guy,
00:05:45:14    : and he asked me if I wanted to learn more about the Bible.
00:05:48:11    : I said yes.
00:05:50:06    : He came over to my house once a week for three or four months.
00:05:54:00    : He took me chronologically through the Bible by going
00:05:57:28    : through a book called, “The Stranger on the Road
00:06:00:27    : to Emmaus” by John Cross.
00:06:02:26    : I had never heard of the book or John Cross.
00:06:05:29    : When we came to the part called, “The Law” (the Ten Commandments)
00:06:10:08    : I remember reading the second commandment about
00:06:12:17    : (and this was his reaction to what happened)
00:06:15:13    : I remember reading about having no carved images
00:06:18:04    : in heaven above or here on earth.
00:06:20:11    : You shall not bow down to them or worship them.
00:06:23:04    : Well, I had spent my whole life in a religious system
00:06:25:20    : that constantly bowed to lit candles and prayed to statues.
00:06:30:13    : My worldview started to unravel, and I finally realized I had
00:06:34:15    : never understood the Bible, and really had never been saved.
00:06:39:07    : My missionary friend later told me that he had just taken
00:06:41:22    : the GoodSeed training, and was praying to God to bring someone
00:06:45:25    : into his life to teach this to, and that’s when I called him.
00:06:49:24    : He goes on to talk about his life and how he flew
00:06:53:08    : out to the GoodSeed Biblical teaching seminar,
00:06:55:20    : and his life just sped up and went into a whole new direction.
00:06:58:09    :
00:06:59:05    : << Well, that’s fascinating, thank you for sharing that.
00:07:02:10    :
00:07:02:27    : << And then the last line is this: If I sound passionate
00:07:06:00    : about GoodSeed, it’s because I’m not just a graduate
00:07:10:09    : of their training, I am a walking testimony as
00:07:13:11    : to the power of God through this ministry.
00:07:16:13    : So, with that I’m sure you have a few stories that you could
00:07:20:22    : share about people’s responses to this sort of teaching.
00:07:25:03    : And can you talk to us a little bit about this kind of teaching?
00:07:29:05    : Let’s do that, we’ll pause right now and continue our
00:07:31:18    : conversation with John Cross.
00:07:33:17    : What is this kind of teaching,
00:07:35:12    : why does it make such a difference,
00:07:37:09    : how can you take part in a free offer that GoodSeed
00:07:41:10    : is offering today only, right after this.
00:07:43:19    :
00:07:45:18    : Our program is called This is the Day.
00:07:46:29    : You’re at Moody Radio at 90.1 FM.
00:07:49:01    : Thank you for being here, and please email me and
00:07:51:05    : tell us where in the world you are listening to us at.
00:07:53:19    : nancy@moody.edu and I’d love to hear from you.
00:07:57:12    : John Cross, general director of GoodSeed International,
00:08:00:26    : which equips people to bring about evangelism, discipleship
00:08:05:24    : with a worldview, and previous to working with GoodSeed,
00:08:09:21    : John served for 23 years with New Tribes Mission.
00:08:12:10    : He’s directed six award-winning videos,
00:08:14:10    : and written many books, lives in Canada.
00:08:16:28    : John, I’m glad you are here to continue our conversation.
00:08:20:08    :
00:08:20:18    : What happened on the road to Emmaus,
00:08:23:23    : in what way did it happen on the road to Emmaus,
00:08:26:08    : that you wrote this book, The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus,
00:08:29:23    : and how is it used as a teaching tool?
00:08:31:23    :
00:08:32:20    : << Well, the title, “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus”
00:08:36:23    : really comes from a story that you find
00:08:39:09    : in the Bible in the book of Luke.
00:08:43:25    : It’s a story that occurred on the day that Jesus
00:08:47:27    : resurrected from the dead.
00:08:49:24    : And as the Bible tells it, these two men, we assume they
00:08:55:22    : were men, it might have been a man and a woman,
00:08:58:13    : but we don’t know that, at least one was a man.
00:09:01:02    : And they were walking from Jerusalem down
00:09:03:14    : to their city of Emmaus.
00:09:05:21    : And as they walked along a Stranger joined them.
00:09:09:16    : These two disciples were discussing what occurred
00:09:16:13    : in Jerusalem around this whole business of Jesus
00:09:19:22    : bring crucified, and then they said they even heard
00:09:22:18    : rumors that he’d come back from the dead.
00:09:25:27    : Now, this individual that was walking with them was
00:09:28:22    : Jesus himself, but they didn’t know that,
00:09:30:25    : they just recognized him as a stranger.
00:09:33:26    : And what Jesus did as he walked along with them,
00:09:36:15    : was he took the Bible, and beginning in it’s early pages,
00:09:40:29    : right at the very beginning of the Bible,
00:09:42:21    : and going through the Bible in a chronological fashion,
00:09:46:22    : the Bible says he declared to them
00:09:49:10    : those things concerning himself.
00:09:51:14    : And so what he did, was he revealed to them what the
00:09:54:09    : Bible does say about who Jesus is and what He’s all about.
00:09:59:19    : And it says that as he went along that their hearts burned,
00:10:02:22    : these two individuals, their hearts burned within them,
00:10:06:09    : and they all of a sudden began to understand the
00:10:09:17    : Bible in a way that they’d never understood before.
00:10:12:23    : And the book “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus” (we also
00:10:15:12    : have as a DVD, and audiobook, we have it in other formats,)
00:10:18:10    : but the basic book “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus”
00:10:22:03    : was written to explain the Bible in a way that makes sense,
00:10:27:08    : so that when people were done reading it, they would
00:10:30:14    : understand what that story of the empty cross and that empty
00:10:34:17    : tomb, the story of who Jesus is and what he’s all about,
00:10:38:06    : that it would make sense.
00:10:39:11    : They would know in very clear fashion what that was all about.
00:10:42:15    : So that’s the basic premise of the story and
00:10:45:23    : what the book is centered around.
00:10:47:12    :
00:10:47:29    : << If you’re listening today, and are one of those people,
00:10:50:16    : like myself at times, who say “Wow, this story is
00:10:53:10    : so unbelievable, it’s so hard to believe,” but yet,
00:10:57:22    : when we are given the story in bits and pieces,
00:11:02:24    : and we understand first this bit, and then we understand
00:11:06:25    : the next chronological bit, and then the next,
00:11:09:21    : and the next, right John?
00:11:11:00    : It all begins to make sense as a whole.
00:11:13:17    :
00:11:14:01    : << It’s like a puzzle.
00:11:15:14    : You know if you’re given just one piece
00:11:17:01    : of the puzzle you look at it.
00:11:18:25    : There’s odds and ends, there’s colors on there,
00:11:20:29    : you may have a line or two, and you think,
00:11:22:10    : “Wow, what’s this all about?”
00:11:23:28    : And then you’re given another piece.
00:11:26:16    : And if you approach the Bible in a random hit-or-miss
00:11:31:24    : sort of fashion, read one story here and one there,
00:11:34:23    : it can just kind of come across as a bunch of disconnected
00:11:37:21    : stories that really, what’s it all about?
00:11:41:29    : But if you lay it out, and you put all those pieces together
00:11:46:07    : and you look at it, we call it the “Wow factor” because
00:11:49:14    : we’ve actually had people, or “the click factor” we’ve
00:11:52:06    : actually had people click their fingers, the’ll go
00:11:55:28    : “Wow” and they see it all fall together.
00:11:59:01    : The’ll realize that this is an incredible story and
00:12:02:09    : the message that it speaks to is some very,
00:12:04:21    : very good news that we need in a very sad world.
00:12:07:11    :
00:12:07:22    : << Well, the great news for our listeners today,
00:12:10:19    : thanks to you and GoodSeed for setting this up for us,
00:12:15:13    : and John maybe I should let you say what the
00:12:17:01    : actual offer is, but there is a website that you can
00:12:20:09    : go to today, which is goodseed.com/stranger.
00:12:26:17    : We will post that on ours if you go to
00:12:28:11    : thisistheday.fm << goodseed.com/stranger
00:12:34:02    : John, will you tell our listeners
00:12:35:10    : what they can get today.
00:12:37:12    :
00:12:38:04    : << Yeah, what we are doing is, for any listener that goes
00:12:43:08    : to our website today, we’re going to offer
00:12:46:13    : The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus, the book,
00:12:48:24    : and the companion WorkBook at no charge.
00:12:51:22    : We’ll send that to you, no charge for shipping,
00:12:53:29    : no charge for the product.
00:12:55:17    : Only thing that we ask is that you sit down and you read it.
00:13:00:06    : Please read it, and please pass it on.
00:13:03:22    : So we’re offering it to you at no cost,
00:13:06:12    : for either the shipping or for the book itself.
00:13:09:06    :
00:13:09:23    : << And that is for today only, correct?
00:13:11:19    : << That’s correct, right.
00:13:12:21    : The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus
00:13:13:25    : and the companion WorkBook.
00:13:15:19    : This is about a 280 page book and we would be more than
00:13:20:13    : delighted to send you a copy for
00:13:22:18    : you to become acquainted with it.
00:13:23:20    : << That is a very generous offer.
00:13:25:28    : What are some of the stories that you’ve heard
00:13:29:13    : from people who have actually read this book?
00:13:31:23    : You mentioned that click factor where you snap your fingers
00:13:34:09    : and you say “Oh, OH! This makes sense in a new way!”
00:13:38:20    : Can you relate any other stories to us that really
00:13:41:07    : will touch and bring it home to our hearts?
00:13:42:25    :
00:13:43:23    : << Well, I was trying to think of that while you were reading
00:13:46:02    : that letter, of other stories that I’ve read, or heard.
00:13:50:18    : I just got back from Europe, and I was in a country over there,
00:13:54:23    : and previous to this, I had this gentleman had taken me
00:14:00:02    : on a tour of the parliament that this particular country has.
00:14:05:28    : He’s one of the top individuals in the administrative part
00:14:11:10    : of the government.
00:14:12:25    : He’s in charge of all security for the heads
00:14:15:00    : of state coming through and things like this.
00:14:16:25    : And so he gave us a tour of the parliamentary building.
00:14:20:28    : And at the end of it, as we were standing in the lobby,
00:14:24:05    : he turned to me and said,
00:14:25:14    : “You know we have something more in common than you think.”
00:14:27:25    : And so << this is kind of interesting, and I thought,
00:14:31:01    : “Well, what is that?”
00:14:32:12    : And he told me how that his next-door neighbor had
00:14:39:03    : taken the book “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus,”
00:14:42:19    : had sat down with him and taken him through it,
00:14:45:28    : week after week until they completed it,
00:14:49:21    : and he said when he first started out he said “I was
00:14:52:12    : “kind of insulted that it would be suggested that I
00:14:55:06    : didn’t really understand or know the Bible.”
00:14:57:05    : He said, “I was divout in my religion, I went to church,
00:15:04:29    : I said my prayers, I said my confessional.”
00:15:08:29    : And he was going down through these sort of things.
00:15:12:21    : He said as he began to get into it he began to realize,
00:15:15:24    : “Boy, I really do not know much about the Bible at all.”
00:15:19:17    : It’s interesting, you mentioned in the letter you read
00:15:24:02    : mentioned where he got to the story of the Ten Commandments
00:15:27:08    : and he in the same way mentioned that when he got
00:15:29:27    : there, he began to become conscious that he was standing
00:15:35:16    : before a holy God, and that he was truly a helpless sinner.
00:15:40:15    : Now, a lot of people will agree that they are a sinner,
00:15:42:28    : but they will not agree that they are a helpless sinner--
00:15:46:15    : there’s a big difference.
00:15:48:10    : And what the Bible does is it very gently, very graciously,
00:15:52:26    : but very firmly brings anybody that reads it to the conclusion
00:15:56:29    : that they are standing before a holy God,
00:15:59:26    : and that they’re a helpless sinner--they need a Savior.
00:16:04:08    : They need someone to rescue them like the song
00:16:07:00    : you played at the beginning of this session.
00:16:10:16    : And so he began to realize that he needed a Savior.
00:16:15:00    : And of course as the story progresses on you find out
00:16:18:02    : that the Savior is indeed Jesus Christ himself,
00:16:20:24    : and the way he does that is through this whole event
00:16:24:19    : that happened around the cross and the tomb.
00:16:27:15    : Now how he did that and why that was necessary,
00:16:33:09    : I mean Jesus himself said that it was necessary,
00:16:35:19    : why it was necessary, that is all explained
00:16:38:22    : in “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus”
00:16:41:01    : to tie that all together.
00:16:42:12    : So here’s this individual as he tells this story in the lobby
00:16:45:28    : of this parliamentary building, and he’s explaining why you
00:16:49:09    : and I have more in common than you can imagine.
00:16:51:16    : So that was just a story I recorded just a matter of
00:16:56:13    : a few weeks ago.
00:16:57:23    :
00:16:58:01    : << Excellent, great way to wrap up the broadcast today.
00:17:01:07    : John Cross, and friends if you go visit this website
00:17:04:15    : today only: goodseed.com/stranger and
00:17:09:24    : if you can’t remember that you can just go to the one
00:17:11:25    : that we always direct you to: thisistheday.fm --
00:17:14:25    : you’ll find it posted there.
00:17:16:10    : Get your free copy and workbook.
00:17:18:13    : You can do it yourself, right John?
00:17:20:02    : You don’t have to have someone lead you through it.
00:17:21:17    :
00:17:21:25    : << No, that’s right.
00:17:22:26    : The whole book is setup in such a way that you sit down,
00:17:25:22    : and you can just read it through yourself,
00:17:28:09    : an average reader can read through it in about eight hours,
00:17:31:14    : its about a 280 page book.
00:17:33:23    : And there’s other books on the website, too, there,
00:17:36:19    : if you are from a different worldview
00:17:38:13    : background, and you want to investigate it from
00:17:41:22    : your worldview background, we’ve written products
00:17:44:00    : that are directed towards other worldviews that are out there,
00:17:47:17    : other major worldviews and you can investigate it from
00:17:50:26    : your particular perspective as well.
00:17:52:27    : So that is all on the GoodSeed website.
00:17:55:27    : << Very good. It’s in many languages as well.
00:17:58:00    : John Cross, thanks for being with us today.
00:18:00:08    : Creation points to the Savior,
00:18:02:27    : creation points to the reality of God in our lives,
00:18:05:29    : and we need him.
00:18:07:00    : John Cross, God bless you, brother.
00:18:09:05    :
00:18:09:13    : << Thank you very much.
00:18:10:28    :
00:18:12:06    : << You’ve been listening to This is the Day with Nancy Turner.
00:18:16:04    : For more information, visit our website: ThisIsTheDay.fm
00:18:21:01    :