Writing a deserving tribute to such a giant of a personage as Dr Ravi Zacharias whose extra-ordinary life, professional excellence and pursuit of life needs no further introduction for all, is an impossible attempt for me, yes, even to my own satisfaction. Yet, for my sheer admiration and respect as a spiritual person himself and for my gratitude over his impact on my thinking, outlook and worldview I put out this small piece of expression for the glory of God alone.
I saw and heard Dr Ravi Zacharias for the first time through a satellite telecast at Imphal in the year 1995 during the Global Conference organised by the BGEA. I still remember vividly his message title, "The Principles of Message Preparation" which he confidently and eloquently delivered. I was so impressed, I can never forget him since then. As a teenager, that Conference that telecasts pictures of most of the internationally re-known speakers of the world and hearing some of them speaking including Dr Billy Graham himself, was a gateway to my overcoming the worldly fascinations and the beginning of my view and outlook outside the confines of Lamka.
We all know Dr Ravi Zacharias is known for his effective defence of the Christian faith and for his addressings of life’s greatest existential questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny with eloquence and grace amongst variety of audiences.
Born in Chennai, South India in 1946 and brought up in Delhi, North India, he blends the mental and cultural fabric of the great Indian sub-continent. And, immigrated to Canada in 1966 and never re-settled in India, he had the advantage of trans-cultural and philosophical understanding of the Eastern and the Western thoughts as well. Yet, he understands life very well not only from its speculative aspects alone but in a very existential way too, linking up his body, his soul, the world and God. He says "The world was made for the body, the body was made for the soul and the soul was made for God".
I believe every one will face the same problem of choice of words on Dr Ravi given his wide area of influence worldwide with charm, wit, intellect, insight, eloquence, grace and most important of all the power of God's word. Yet, I find it every worth the while in attempting it because I am sure that there is every thing to gain and nothing to lose.
He once said, "An argument may remove the doubts but only the Holy Spirit can convict the truth", which suggests he fully understands the Holy Spirit as his foundation of life, in and through whom he sails his lifeboat of ministry upon this ocean of diverse humanity around the world.
We all know that Dr Ravi began his spiritual journey when at 17 years in Delhi, he attempted suicide and while lying in a hospital bed, someone handed over a Bible to his mother, who read it out for him from John 14:19 "Because I live, you will also live" and having convicted, gave all his life for Jesus. His prayer, "Jesus, if you are the one who gives life as it meant to be, I want it. Please get me this hospital bed well, and I promise I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth", is very foundational to his lifelong ministry. As God restored his health, he embarked on his pursuit of Truth and left no stone unturned indeed, as promised. He had said, "There is no greater discovery than seeing God is the author of your destiny". And the rest is history for all to see and read! He went on to become an internationally re-knowned Christian evangelist and apologist and an author of about 30 books including many award winners and best-sellers.
Through the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) which he founded in 1984 with a mission to "Helping the thinker believe and the believer think", he launched a global team of nearly 100 Christian scholars and authors who continue to speak, train and address the questions of millions around the world. His engagement with the academia started with the launched of his first ever Veritus Forum at Harvard University in 1992. This Forum has open up opportunities to speak across university campuses around the world. His founding of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA) in 2004 has now trained over 400 students from 50 countries. His launching of the Wellspring International in the same year as the humanitarian division of his ministry is another remarkable one. He also appeared at the United Nations Annual International Prayer Breakfast, a rare privilege to address the highest decision making body of the world, in that same year. His radio program called "Let My People Think" which was started in 1980 is now syndicated to over 2000 stations in 32 countries and has also been downloaded 15.6 million times as a podcast over the last year.
His first best-selling book 'A Shattered Visage : The Real Face of Atheism' which he wrote in 1990 was a huge success. His recent book "The Logic of God" has earned 2020's Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) award in the category of Bible Study. His other best-selling books include "Can Man Live Without God?", "Jesus among other gods" and "The Grand Weaver". Yes, he remained faithfull to his calling and commitment to the service of his master and Lord till he breathed his last on 19 May 2020.
As a tribute, I chosed to reproduce here today, only the main points of his preaching at the inaugural International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists in 1983 in Amsterdam. An audience of 3800 evangelists from 133 different countries around the globe who listened to him live, cannot but had to pay him a mid-talk ovation time and again. Thanks now to the media revolution that through internet I can replay the same in youtube and can join them today. I find these points good enough too to guide me in my humble pursuit to live for my Lord as did this great evangelist.
Dr Zacharias, then only 37, began his preaching with this powerful statement : "Cultures, barriers, pre-suppositions, beliefs, religion form vast chasms between the Message of Christ and the Mind of Man". He knows exactly the context and the purpose of his preaching too well. Then he lays down the following points:
1. We will never reach the lost of other beliefs untill we begin to sense the pressure within their souls and within our souls too. To which he took the example from God's dealing with prophet Ezekiel. He also add on to say that, the symbolic wants in the material possessions of people is only a small speck of the massive globe of needs in their spiritual dilemmas.
2. A rigorous religion can be conceived and nurtured in ignorance. He once said about religion like this, "When you come to religion you came to a place; when you come to Jesus Christ, you come to a Person". He qouted an Indian proverb, "After you cut off a person's nose there is no point to give him a rose to smell". Therefore, you can preach the most eloquent message on the person of Jesus Christ but if you've so cut off the person's nose the sweet aroma of Christ will never come through to him.
3. Christianity is not a religious perspective in Apostle Paul, it is God's self-disclosure in the person of Jesus Christ. His famous proposition is that Christianity and other religions are rather superficially the same and fundamentally different, when otherviews admitted the opposite. Christianity's uniqueness is best explained in the person of Jesus Christ. And, quoting a Scottish thinker he said : Jesus was the meekest and the lowliest of all man. But he was so austere that demons fled from Him. He was so meek that little children clung to his presence. No body was so heart kind towards sinners as Jesus was. No body spoke more red hot scorching words about sins. He would not break a bruise reed and his whole life was love. But on one occasion he asks the Pharisees how they expected to escape the condemnation of hell. He was a dreamer of dreams and seer of visions. But for sheer reality He was much more real than any of the self style realists of his time. He was a servant of all. He wash the disciples feet, but when He walked through the temple area he stamp the money changers scampering over one another because they had seen the fury in his eyes. He saved others, himself He did not save at the last. No where in history is there such a blending of opposits in one person as in the person of Jesus Christ.
He digs out the importance of hearing the voice of the needs of other people, sensing their pressures in our own soul, bridging the gap and in moving within their framework, communicating the Person and the power of Jesus Christ.
To conclude with, I would like to quote Bro Gideon Phaltual, a budding apologetics himself and a young SAIACS graduate on Dr Ravi Zacharias: "Probably the only apologist I haven't seen doing open debates (there was one though) but rather open forums and was above reproach in what he did. I have never seen anyone answer questions like he does and articulating paradoxes in such a way demonstrating the fallacy of its opponent in a lesser sophisticated language. I have never seen anyone popularising apologetics (which was shunned by most Christians) to the masses as much as he has done raising a whole generation with the hope and courage to defend the Gospel. If anyone has not listened to him then may I be bold enough to say that he hasn't lived! You'll be greatly missed Dr. Ravi Zacharias! You have given eulogy for many men of God who have gone before you, but I believe the Lord himself now will give your eulogy".
Yes, with all of what he is that we've talked about, Dr Ravi Zacharias really did justice to what he had professed earlier himself saying, "Beginning well is a momentary thing, but finishing well is a lifelong thing". And, one of the secrets to such a fruitful life was that his life was undergirded by love and humility, as he famously once said, "Yes, if truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive".
May God give his wife Ms Margaret, daughters Ms Davis and Ms Naomi and son Nathan, and the entire RZIM team the peace and the comfort of the Holy Spirit and continue to bless them as they steered on the legacy of such a mighty man as Dr Ravi Zacharias.
(Note: Any facts and figures here are quoted from Matthew Fearon, RZIM, UK)
