The Iowa Prayer Breakfast was started in 1961 and has been held every year on Maundy Thursday. Organizers saw record-breaking attendance (over 1500) at the event that featured Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias as the keynote address. In attendance were Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds, Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey and numerous state legislators.
Zacharias sad that in this time in history it is hard to be an elected official. “It is not an easy time to be a political leader anywhere in the world. Probably one of the most unenviable situations in which to find yourself with the fiscal issues, the moral issues, the social issues – all of the issues that funnel down to grassroots level of living are all up for redefinition, all up for struggle, all up for challenge.”
Zacharias spoke for over 30 minutes on “The Tale of Two Men: A Lesson from History” which he said was a challenging talk. Zacharias said that “history has a way of reminding us who was and what is that really remains.” He noted that he who refuses to learn from history is forced to repeat it’s mistakes. He then said that history “is the inscription of innumerable biographies.”
A couple of statements that stuck out at me while he spoke (it was all good, and if anybody has listened to Ravi Zacharias before it’s hard to get sound bytes from him, he’s a deep thinker).
He quoted G.K. Chesterton who said, “the tragedy of disbelieving in God is not just believing in nothing, it is believing in anything.” He noted this is what has led to our relativistic culture. He also noted that “most people don’t know how to think.” Our culture lacks discernment.
Zacharias also said, that “the ultimate test of any civilization is what they do with their children.” While Zacharias didn’t link this to any particular issue, when one looks at the news it isn’t hard to imagine how this statement applies to our current culture.
You can listen to his full remarks above.
Update: Apparently there have been some issues with the mp3 player above. Here is the link for the mp3. I have played it in my iTunes and it works fine. Just right click and select “save as” and you can download it. Sorry about the inconvenience.
