Evangelist Ray Comfort today released a new video production, “Genius,” that reveals passersby stunned by the revelations that they really are not all that “good.”
The video was created as part of Comfort’s work on his new “The Beatles, God and the Bible” book project, and along the way, lays out a likely meaning behind the mystic words in Lennon’s “Imagine,” which these days is played each New Year’s Eve before the crystal ball drops in New York’s Times Square.
The “Genius” project is in the style of “180,” the video project that showed people reversing their position on abortion, from positive support to total opposition, in just a matter of minutes when Comfort confronts them with the truth about the procedure.
“180” was in conjunction with Comfort’s first project in the series, “Hitler, God and The Bible.”
While that dealt with abortion, his “Genius” confronts individuals about their own “goodness.” A stunning number agreed that they would readily take $2 million that didn’t belong to them, if they wouldn’t get caught, and nearly an equal number said they would commit the murder of an innocent person if they were paid $10 million, and knew they wouldn’t get caught.
They also admit to stealing, lying, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and violating others of God’s laws, leaving Comfort describing them as “lying, cheating, blaspheming” people who could not possibly be defined as “good” by God’s law.”
His point is simple: that people need the atonement offered by Jesus in order to reach heaven.
Comfort explains that even though many believe Lennon’s “Imagine” lyrics reveal a total disbelief in faith and God, that may not be the case.
Those lyrics being: “Imagine there’s no heaven, It’s easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people, Living for today… Imagine there’s no countries, It isn’t hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too…”
That came from the same mind of Lennon who once said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.
But Comfort notes that Lennon’s own explanation of the lyrics were that, “It is the concept of positive prayer. If you could imagine a world peace with no denominations or religion … not without religion but without this my-god-is-bigger-than-your-god thing…”
The video includes its humorous moments, including when one person, asked who was John Lennon, said the 14th president of America.
Comfort also notes that the Christianity in which Lennon grew up – dry sermons in cold, stone church buildings attended mostly by elderly – certainly would have been something a young artist would have avoided.
Lennon was murdered by David Chapman outside Lennon’s apartment in New York in 1980.
Lennon also said at one point, “I don’t believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to man. It’s absolutely irrational garbage. They set up these idols and then they knock them down. It keeps all the old professors happy at the university. It gives them something to do. Everything they told me as a kid has already been disproved by the same experts who made them up in the first place.”
Not too many people know that John Lennon met Paul McCartney while at a church function, or that John was a choirboy. Nor do they know that at the height of their fame in 1965, all four Beatles professed to be atheists.
In 1980, Lennon had moved from proudly stating that they were more popular than Jesus, to humbly saying: “I’m a most religious fellow … I was brought up a Christian, and I only now understand some of the things that Christ was saying in those parables.” As a young man, George Harrison wrote, “I want to find God. I’m not interested in material things, this world, fame – I’m going for the real goal.” Later in life, Ringo Starr said, “For me, God is in my life. I don’t hide from that.” In the 1990s, Paul McCartney said, “I’m not religious, but I’m very spiritual.” He prayed for his wife when she was having trouble giving birth to their daughter, and his 2001 song “Freedom” spoke of freedom as “a right given by God.”
“John Lennon was a musical genius,” says Comfort. “All I have to do is think of some of his songs and even the titles make me feel good…and I’m not the only one. His music has crossed cultures and even generations. The Beatles have sold more than 2,303,500,000 record albums, and in June of 2012 they hit number one on iTunes. They are as big now as they ever were and they’re half dead – with the tragic loss of Lennon and Harrison.”
Ray Comfort is the founder/president/CEO of Living Waters Publications. From humble beginnings, the ministry has become internationally recognized, reaching the lost and equipping Christians with every necessary resource to fulfill the great commission. In addition to his main ministry, Ray is co-host (with Kirk Cameron) of the award-winning television program “The Way of the Master,” which airs in 70 countries around the world. He also co-hosts a daily radio program by the same name, airing on the Sirius Satellite Radio Network and hundreds of terrestrial stations. Ray is a bestselling author of more than 60 books. He and his wife, Sue, live in Southern California, where they have three grown children.
See the complete collection of Ray Comfort books and videos here.
See the book trailer:
Media interested in interviewing Ray Comfort about his new book and video on the Beatles can email [email protected].
