At The End
Ravi Zacharias, A Pursuit of Questions
**Update (22/06/2021)**
I never could come around to actually writing anything about the Ravi scandal after it happened. I never found the words. Disappointment is a really hard pill to swallow. I mean, I know we follow Jesus ultimately, not other men, but this was still a heavy realization to come to terms with. Somehow though, the title of this post was still apt, ‘cos the old man left us with a lot of questions… at the end. (Bad joke, I know.)
Anyway, before you read a line of what I wrote in memory of his work that touched me, I’ll leave a link here to a video with one of the best responses to the whole situation that I saw on the web. It’s by David Wood, a less elegant, though no less effective, apologist. I think he says a lot of the stuff I would like to say, and there’s a lot of sense made and wisdom shared, even if it has his typical crudeness.
As for my original post, I’ll leave it below as I wrote it. I’m keeping it as a reminder to myself, and anyone else who cares for it, that no man is beyond falling. God sees what we do publicly and in secret, and everything comes to light eventually.
If, somehow, this post, written in ignorance of the man’s secret sins still manages to tug on something in your heart, I’d be glad, but this is primarily a reminder that Jesus is our goal. He and He alone!
May we do better.
In 2018, I started writing a post which I couldn’t finish. It was to be titled “A Life Well-Lived”.
I wanted to examine the lives, deaths and impact of three popular people who died that year. In order of their decease, these people were: Priscilla “Ebony” Opoku-Kwarteng, a young Ghanaian dancehall/afrobeats artist with her whole life ahead of her; Billy Graham, a 99-year-old Christian Evangelist said to have preached the Gospel to more people than Jesus or the apostle Paul, and Professor Stephen Hawking, possibly the world’s greatest theoretical physicist.
Spanning entertainment, academics, and religion, and covering lives lived over twenty to ninety-nine years, I really hoped to squeeze some lessons out of that post. However, Ghanaian that I am, I found it hard to bypass our cultural respect for the dead and open up the details of their lives in pursuit of a lesson or two. So, for the past two years, I have relented from completing that post… and I don’t know that I ever will.
Today, however, there is a life that has influenced mine which I feel I must honour, even as it seemingly hangs in the transition point between this earth and eternity. I am referring to Dr. Ravi Zacharias, a man who has unwaveringly dedicated his life to the pursuit of truth.
But first, a story:
The infection, the pain… everything was getting worse. Why did bad things happen to good people? Of all the things a man could suffer why this?
“Have I wronged the Lord somehow?”, the old king wondered., “Maybe I said something I shouldn’t ha-” “Isaiah is here to see you, your majesty.” The servant’s words broke the king’s train of thought.
Hezekiah’s eyes lit up. Certainly, the prophet brought a good word from the Lord.
“Let him in”, the king ordered.
The old prophet walked into the king’s chamber, staff in hand. He did not seem excited. Hezekiah’s excitement turned to dread.
“Prophet.”
“Your majesty.”
“You bring me a word from the Lord?”
“I do.”
The hesitation was obvious.
“Let’s hear it then”, the king said, mustering all his courage.
Isaiah let out a sigh, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”
If you read the full story in 2nd Kings 20, you will see that King Hezekiah went on to plead with God for an extension of life, and God granted him fifteen more years. The happenings of those fifteen years are a discussion for another day.
What I want you to see is that per God’s initial agenda, it was time for Hezekiah to come home. I do not mean to say that Hezekiah’s illness came from God (the Bible simply says “Hezekiah became ill”) but I want you to see that whatever the case, God was prepared to transition Hezekiah into eternity through that illness.
Does God need an illness to bring His children home? Ananias and Sapphira would beg to differ. In the grand scheme of things, when God decides to do what He wants to do, it gets done. Effectively.
And so God tells the king, “Put your house in order. You’re coming home.”
Is he not the God who heals? Emphatically, YES! But He’s also the God who calls people home when it’s time. Of course, the devil kills too (it’s part of his three-part mission statement in John 10:10) but one of the perks of being God is that you can do what you like.
Okay, now I can say what I really came to say.
At the time of writing this, Dr. Ravi is lying in a bed somewhere after over fifty years of serving the Lord and leading many to Christ. At age 74, his life and legacy have touched possibly every corner of this world in some way. He is a general worth celebrating.
After an arduous fight with cancer, doctors have told him that they have done all they can. Science has done its best. There is literally nothing any human being can do for his condition at this point. Right now, only God can heal, and at the same time, God can decide to call him home. We will either see a miracle, or one of heaven’s greatest labourers will finally get to rest.
What happens next is out of our hands, but I have a few things to say based on this man’s life while he still breathes. I don’t have any assurance that these words will reach him… but Heaven’s applause will always ring louder than the words of some boy in Ghana anyway.
According to his own account (he tells his story here), at age seventeen, Ravi attempted (and failed) to take his own life. As he lay on a hospital bed, his body fighting the poison he had ingested, a man from a local Christian youth ministry brought him a Bible and asked Ravi’s mom to read John 14 to him. As she read Jesus’ words in the 19th verse to him, “Because I live, you also will live.” Ravi cried out, “Jesus! If you are who you claim to be, I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth!”
Read that again:
“Jesus! If you are who you claim to be, I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth!”
He survived the experience and immediately began a pursuit of God that has lasted fifty-seven years. Fifty-seven years of study, transformation, and undying pursuit of the truth, just as he cried out that day, hanging in the balance between life and death.
Fifty-seven years later, hanging in what, for him, could certainly be a familiar balance between life and death, his story is one of hope and confidence in what comes next.
What an assurance it is to know that you have spent your life making sure that no stone was left unturned in your pursuit of truth! That you put in the work till there was no other truth left to be found.
The confidence with which Ravi has faced the hardest of questions from people of every academic and spiritual persuasion shows how brutally he has addressed these questions in his own life to arrive at his unwavering belief in the divinity and lordship of Jesus Christ.
I have literally never seen him back down from any question. It’s safe to say the building blocks of his ministry have been questions.
His life embodies the words I once saw on a friend’s WhatsApp status:
Anything and everything will be questioned. Nothing is beyond questioning.
Personally, I have realized something about truth:
After every opinion has been shared, and every case stated; after every theory has been tested, and every argument made; after every assumption has been debunked, and all is said and done; Truth will simply… remain.
When Jesus claimed to be “The Way, The Truth and The Life”, He was saying that He cannot be disproved any more than we can disprove 1+1 = 2. When all is said and done, He and His Word will simply remain.
At first glance, the average Christian finds the idea of “questioning” intimidating. What if a question shakes my foundations and I fall out of the faith? That’s a sign of unhealthy roots on rocky ground.
If Jesus’ words are true (Matthew 13), then every man’s heart is either one of these:
- A pathway (Ground hardened from being walked on, where the enemy refuses to allow anything to grow.)
- Rocky ground (The work of tilling has remained undone. Consequently, root development competes with rocks and stones, so nothing survives.)
- Thorny ground (Preoccupation with the cares of this life chokes any seedling of God’s Word.)
- Good soil (A heart ready to receive God’s Word.)
God is not afraid of our questions. Ravi’s life has proved this to me beyond any doubt.
Certainly, there are many things God does that will still go right over our heads… if we are humble enough to accept it, there are answers God has that will be like trying to teach a three-year-old child the science behind recurrent neural network algorithms.
What would a good father do? What would you do? Sit your three-year-old down and start explaining tensor multiplication and neural architecture? If not, then we cannot fault this Father when He asks us to simply trust. Sometimes — just sometimes — we don’t need an answer, we need a Saviour. Faith is not a panacea for dumb people willing to swallow anything (although some are content with this station), it’s a gift of trust for children who know their Father prioritizes their well-being.
I really should wrap this up.
Dr. Ravi (Ravi-Ji, as he is often honoured in Hindi) has done more than put his house in order. He has put a lot of the world’s confusion in order.
The gifts he’s leaving behind; the RZIM apologetics ministry and his videos and answers will continue to guide the hearts of many on their pursuit of Truth. There is Truth to be found if a man will search. Ravi has taught us that.
Ravi-Ji, thank you.
If God will give us more time with you, we will certainly be grateful. If He has loaned you to us long enough, we understand that He delights in you too, and would like to have you closer.
You were never ours to keep.
You can rest now.
Thank you, Ravi-Ji.
