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Atheist MD tries to debunk the resurrection - but fails
By Qian Jiawen
Dr Greg Lehman was dumbfounded by the gospel’s claim that Jesus was God, living as man.
Instead of being happy and fulfilled, Dr. Greg Lehman was always frustrated and angry – despite having an enviable lifestyle that included ski trips, luxury cars, and an expensive house.
"I was going from one thing to the next: I'd buy a new car, and when that didn't do it, I'd go out and buy new clothes or take a trip. I went through hobbies. I did triathlon," Greg says.
A proud atheist, Greg had cruised through medical school, ran a profitable practice and had a wife and two kids. Yet for all that success, contentment eluded him.
"You're sad, you're empty, you're angry, you're frustrated, because you're like, 'Why? What's wrong with me? Why am I not fulfilled? Why don't I feel like I have achieved what I worked my whole life for?'" he explains.
Greg tried to mask what he was feeling inside: "You're embarrassed. You're not going to tell anyone. You keep it inside. So what
you wind up doing is taking it out on other people."
"He was good but he had a short fuse," says his wife, Ruth. "He was arrogant. He was always right."
If he was irritable with his family, he was even more annoyed with his Christian neighbors because he thought their lifestyle did not
match up with the Bible.
Setting out to expose his neighbors' hypocrisy, he began to look for ammunition in the Bible to confront their inconsistencies with
their own book.
After weeks of researching, he realized everything about Christianity hinged on the resurrection. As a doctor, he tried to rule out
options, testing hypotheses that could explain away the resurrection. "Maybe the apostles stole the body or it was a hallucination,"
he considered.
After carefully examining the alternatives he came to a startling conclusion: "None of them were credible. The only thing that could
make sense with the historical facts was that the tomb was empty and He actually rose."
The real clincher, though, was Paul, who wrote a lot of the New Testament of the Bible. He started as a Jewish persecutor of the
early Church but wound up being the biggest proponent of the faith.
The walk-in patient asked: "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?"
"I about passed out," says Greg. "Why was he asking me this? Who was this guy? I bolted out of the room because I didn't know
what to do."
"There were things in my life I wanted to change – the anger and the frustration. But I didn't have the power to change. It
culminated with me breaking down and crying and asking God to forgive me. I repented of my sins and asked [God] to change me."
Greg prayed alone at home to invite Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. The next morning he felt an inexplicable and unaccustomed
tranquility.
"I was completely peaceful. Something was really different. I had been changed."
At first, he was not sure what was going on and even checked to see if his antihistamines had been changed to a brand that would
explain the peace he felt. But they were the same.
Finally, he accepted this as a miracle.
"Since that day, I have never felt alone," he says. "I have never felt empty. I have never felt all that discontentment.
"Every other religion is man seeking God. Christianity is God seeking man. The real test of Christianity is you call on Him, you put
Him to the test. He's not just going to forgive your sins, He's going to show you so you know it's true. That's the big difference."
For two days, he pondered the strange event.
One day, Greg finished a medical consultation with his usual, "Do you have any questions?"
"He's killing Christians. He has nothing to gain [by converting to Christianity]. What in the world
could make this guy go and be the greatest evangelist ever? There was only one explanation and
that was that he saw the risen Lord, Jesus Christ. When I looked at the evidence and I looked at
these guys and their changed lives, I said, 'I have to believe it'."
He was impressed by Luke, fellow doctor and author of the Gospel of Luke. Doctors were trained to dismiss superstition and
identify known causes, even in Luke's day. Yet here was a doctor validating the miracles of Jesus.
Instead, he was dumbfounded by the Gospel's claim that Jesus was God, living as a man: "That quickly got my attention because I
realized if that did happen, it was the most important event in history. I forgot about the neighbors and set out to find out if this
really happened."
Lehman took it out on his wife and family.
Read More ...
The Lord is My Shepherd (Part 8)
The Lord is My Shepherd (Part 7)
The Lord is My Shepherd (Part 6)
The Lord is My Shepherd (Part 5)
The Lord is My Shepherd (Part 4)
The Lord is My Shepherd (Part 3)
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