Walking from East to West by Ravi Zacharias

Author:Ravi Zacharias
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan

In May of 1965, when I was nineteen, YFC held its Youth Congress in Hyderabad, historically a predominantly Muslim city, with Christian young people gathering from all across India and Asia. Although my parents couldn’t afford to send me, I was able to go because of the generosity of Fred and John, who raised the money for several of us with an appeal to sponsors from overseas.

We’d heard about the preaching contest that took place each year at the Youth Congress. It was the highlight of the week, with one teenager from each delegation representing his or her group. Sunder was the obvious choice to preach for our Delhi crew, and I was taken along to lead the cheers. But, oddly, when the time came, Sunder wasn’t able to go because of a conflict with his studies.

“Ravi,” said Fred, “that means you’re up.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to preach. It’s the least you can do after all I’ve done for you. India can’t be the host country and have no representative from Delhi, the capital. You’ve got to do it.”

“Well, what do they want? I can’t just stand up and say anything I please?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just preach something from the Bible that has gripped your life.”

“OK, OK. But when?”

“About three hours from now. Hurry; go and get something prepared. And I’ll be praying for you!”

Somewhat confused, I rushed back to my room and put my pen to paper in that hot, sparsely furnished school dorm. Sweating profusely as I wrote on a piece of paper, I muttered to myself, “How did I get into this embarrassing situation?”

At the appointed time, folding that paper into my Bible and putting on a neatly pressed white shirt and trousers to match, I hurried over to the tent where the contest was soon to take place. As I arrived, I saw the rest of the contestants in different stages of preparation. I went directly to the front table, where I was handed a brand-new Bible and concordance. “What’s this for?” I asked.

“The rules are, you can’t use your own Bible,” I was told.

“OK, then let me at least take my notes out of my Bible.”

“No, you can’t do that. We give you the topic. Then you have thirty minutes to prepare and ten minutes to preach.”

“You’re kidding me!” I gasped.

“No. Those are the rules, and you’d better hurry or you won’t have the time you need.”

There were two hats containing prewritten topics. I dipped into one and opened it. It read, “Elijah.”

“What’s this?” I asked.

“You have selected the Old Testament character Elijah. Now go and prepare a talk on him.”

I was on the verge of tears. “I don’t know a thing about who this man is.” My voice faltered as I spoke.

“Then pick from the other hat. You are given a choice of a character or a theme.”

I dipped into the hat. “The Love of God,” it read. I breathed a sigh of relief, for it had been the story of my life. The love of God pursuing a derelict, lost young man!

“You have thirty minutes to prepare your sermon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.