There are some things about it that seem unreasonable at first but make sense when you know more. Just like if you were living in 1626 and I explained to you that I’m in Nashville, but just this morning I woke up in Pittsburgh – that would seem like I was a liar. ‘Everybody knows it takes months to get from Nashville to Pittsburgh!’ But I would know something that you didn’t … US Air! I know that I got on a plane this morning and an hour and ten minutes later I was in Nashville. Jesus Christ was a very special person in human history and everybody knows that. He claimed to be God and if you don’t believe that then you need to read your Bible a little closer because it’s very clear. He claimed that the proof would be that he would raise himself from the dead and he explained how, when and where. The entire world knew that that was the bet on the table and they posted a sentinel of Roman soldiers to prevent anyone from tinkering with it. They sealed it (his tomb) with the Kings seal and these guys (16 of them) were under penalty of death if they fell asleep on their watch. So if two of them did fall asleep there would have been 14 left going “get up!” On the third day, right when He said it would happen; they were all passed out cold. He rose from the dead and he didn’t just appear to his buddies. He appeared to them and then to those who weren’t so sure and then to hundreds of other people in a time in history that when something happened a block away, not everyone would find out because there wasn’t a Pony Express or the Internet. A few years’ later, a thousand miles away, there were churches with a thousand Christians in them because He turned the world upside down. No one at the time questioned whether it happened. That is the beginnings of the Gospel in a nutshell. And His message is very clear. He was sent to repair the relationship we have with God. God wanted to always talk with us every day, face to face. He wanted us to live on this earth forever without sickness or death. That’s how it all started out. It may be how we return – nobody knows. And we had fallen so corrupt that He had to create a once and for all method of rectifying the situation and that’s what Jesus did. And that’s the so-called Gospel in five seconds.”
The fact that ApologetiX plays all over the country, has over 47,000 members in their fan club, has been voted the Favorite indie band by CCM Magazine readers and has been going strong for 13 years shows that it works and it works well. Karl himself gets over 1000 emails from fans of all ages a week and he answers every one of them! The common thread of those emails, he says ranges from “Thank you for allowing us to enjoy the music of our youth without the guilt of listening to nasty lyrics” to “My kids are learning the music that I grew up with and I can encourage that without having to worry about what Robert Plant is going to sing!” from adults and everything from questions about boyfriends and girlfriends to comments about abuse from kids.
Karl adds, “Many people come away (from our music) saying ‘I did something I haven’t done in ten years after listening to one of your songs. I cracked open my Bible and read the rest of the story.’ To me, that’s a home run. That’s all we want to do.”
