(dramatic music)
- This week on Christian World News,
an unlikely truce in themiddle of the bloodiest war.
See what brought abouta Christmas ceasefire
and led enemies to embrace one another.
Plus, dashing the snow, wego north of the Arctic Circle
to meet a band on nomadic reindeer herders
and the preacher whobrings them the gospel
and proving Jesus is the real deal.
Four defenders of the faithmake the case for Christ.
Welcome to Christian World News, everyone,
I'm Wendy Griffith.
100 years ago in November,
the war to end all wars ended in Europe.
Some 10 million soldiersdied in World War I,
many in desperate andbloody trench warfare.
But on Christmas Day, 1914, aremarkable event took place.
The guns ceased,Christmas carols were sung
and soldiers on both sidescame out into what's called
No Man's Land to celebratethe miracle of Christmas.
John Jessup has the story.
(dramatic music)- To the glory of God--
- Each year, Andrew Hamilton
lays a wreath at the World War I monument
in his small, English village,
a tribute to thegrandfather he barely knew.
What do you remember of him?
- I just remember an oldman who shouted a lot
because he was deaf andhe'd lost his hearing
really, during the First World War.
So he was really quite frightening
and then when I read hisdiaries, I was amazed, I suppose,
at the life he'd been involved in.
This one is the original one
which he would havekept in his top pocket.
- [John] As Hamilton writes in his book,
Meet At Dawn, Unarmed, his grandfather,
Captain Robert Hamilton, keptdiaries from 1913 to 1950.
Most years were fairly mundane,
with one remarkable exception: 1914.
- Wednesday the 5th of August,wire to mobilize at 5:30 a.m.
- [John] Hamilton waspart of the initial wave
of British troops in what came to be known
as the First World War.
The general consensus at the time
was the fighting wouldbe over by Christmas.
(booming)
Just one day earlier, Germantroops had invaded Belgium.
And then, England joined the fight.
Ironically, the leadersof the opposing sides
were first cousins.
Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm IIand King George V of England.
Caught in the middle, thetiny country of Belgium.
- This very provincial,rural area of Belgium
was almost at the centerof the world attention.
- [John] German troopscut a path of destruction
through Belgium into France.
Allied forces stoppedthem outside of Paris,
pushing them back, but only so far.
A stalemate ensued with bothsides digging in, literally.
(booming)(guns firing)
Trench warfare on theWestern front had begun.
- [Andrew] September the 18th.
Several men killed and wounded
in the trenches by shell fire.
This was, without exception,
the most miserable night ever spent.
I stood all night in water up to my ankles
and the rain pouring down.
- This is one of the original trenches
from more than 100 years ago.
Two parallel zig-zagging lines
built by the German and Allied forces
stretching more than 450 miles.
In some places, the opposing armies
were only 50 yards apart.
- Both parties have dug in and
the cold is coming in.
And so, all of the sudden, the first enemy
is not your opponent, at theother of the No Man's Land,
but it's the cold.
- [John] By the end ofNovember, there were over
one and a half millioncasualties on the Western Front.
As the stalemate continued,
it became clear the war wouldnot be over by Christmas.
The outside world pushed foran official Christmas truce,
including Pope Benedict IV,
who asked that the guns may fall silent
at least upon the night the angels sang.
British General HoraceSmith Dorian, however,
issued a directiveforbidding fraternization,
saying it destroys theoffensive spirit in all ranks.
But the Germans didn't letwar stop their celebration.
They displayed Christmastrees in their trenches
and, on December 23rd,held a church service
in a bombed out sugar refinery.
School teacher Kurt Zemisch served
in the 134th Saxon Regiment.
Like Hamilton, he kepta diary during the war.
- [Kurt] We sang the song
This is the Day That the Lord Has Made.
The celebration moved many to tears.
I ordered my men that onChristmas Eve and Christmas Day,
no shots were to be fired
from our side if it could be avoided.
- [John] Then, somethingextraordinary happened.
- [Kurt] No sooner had wesettled into the trenches,
we, and the Brits, tried todraw attention to each other.
♪ Silent night ♪
♪ Holy night ♪- The spirit of Christmas
began to permeate us alland we tried to plot ways
and means of making thenext day, Christmas,
different in some way to others.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Kurt] An Englishmancalled over to our trenches,
"I wish you a merry Christmasand a happy New Year,"
to which I replied tohim and his comrades,
"Thank you very much, Iwish the same to you."
- [Robert] After months ofvindictive sniping and shelling,
this little episode cameas an invigorating tonic,
and a welcome relief to thedaily monotony of antagonism.
On Christmas morning, I woke very early.
It was a perfect day, abeautiful, cloudless day.
- December the 25th.
A day unique in the world's history.
I met their officer and we arranged
a local armistice for 48 hours.
As far as I can gather,this effort of ours
extended itself throughout the whole line,
as far as we could hear.
- [Kurt] So started theChristmas celebration,
the celebration of love,
when enemies becamefriends for a short time.
- [Robert] Here they were,the actual, practical
soldiers of the German army.
There was not an atom ofhate on either side that day.
- [John] Although fighting continued
on most of the Western front,
the unauthorized truceextended along virtually
all the 27 mile lengthof the British line.
Both sides helped bury their dead.
They exchanged gifts, likefood, tobacco, and buttons
and, in some sectors,they even played soccer
in No Man's Land.
- It makes them happy becausethey feel human again.
Whereas the industrial warfare
often reduces them to cannon fodder.
- [Kurt] This was all sobeautiful yet strange.
I will never forget thisChristmas celebration.
- [Robert] The last Isaw of this little affair
was a vision of one of my machine gunners,
who was a bit of an amateurhairdresser in civil life,
cutting the unnaturally longhair of a docile German.
- [Andrew] A very merry Christmas
and a most extraordinary one,
but I doubled the sentries after midnight.
- There would be three more Christmases
on the Western front beforethe war came to an end,
but nothing quite like thiswould ever happen again.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle later described it
as one human episodeamid all the atrocities
which have stained the memory of the war.
John Jessup, CBN News,reporting in Flanders, Belgium.
- [Wendy] A Christmas miracle, indeed.
Up next, he braves sub-zero temperatures
and darkness that lasts for days,
all to bring the gospelto nomads in Siberia.
- God Almighty is a God of blessing.
He always wants to bless his people,
but how to you get that blessing
and what principleswill unlock that secret?
- [Announcer] In Miraculous Blessings,
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- The words of Jesus, they are as valid
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we will be blessed.
- [Announcer] You willsee amazing, true stories
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- But even the doctors acknowledged
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- [Announcer] Call 1-800-700-7000
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- Hello, I'm Terry Newsome.
Did you know there aremore than 148 million
orphans in the world today?
148 million.
But it was three littlegirls that taught me
about the plight of orphans.
My husband and I spent nearly a month
immersed in the daily activitiesof the Ukrainian Orphanage
as we waited to adopt three sisters.
I saw, first hand, the utter loneliness,
the pain of rejection,
and the overwhelming desire to be loved.
That experience changed me forever.
And out of it, grew aministry from my heart
called Orphan's Promise.
Today, we're helping orphansand vulnerable children
in more than 50 countries worldwide.
Thousands of childrenare now in safe homes,
they're being educated, andthey're learning life skills.
I'm asking you to join with me
and become family to these children.
Will you call the numberon your screen right now?
Because every child deservesa chance to be happy.
- Welcome back to Christian World News.
Winter above the Arctic Circlemeans months of darkness
and temperatures of minus60 degrees Fahrenheit.
But in one area of Siberia,a man is braving the cold
to share the gospel with remote tribes.
Our George Thomas brings us his story.
(gentle music)
- [George] Locals call this place Yamal.
- [Translator] Yamal meansthe end of the world.
- [George] And, in many ways, it is.
- [Translator] There are no roads here.
People use frozen lakesand rivers to get around
on reindeer or snowmobile.
(beeping)
- Latitude 70 degrees north.
Longitude 70 degrees east.
The Yamal Peninsula sits in the deep,
frozen, Siberian tundraabove the Arctic Circle.
So I've got my four layers on here.
Put on my last
layer of clothing.
The temperature here fluctuates
between minus 30 and minus60 degrees Fahrenheit.
Never worn so many clotheslike this in my life.
But we're almost ready.
It's a little after 6 a.m.
(engine rumbling)
Peter Khudi, our Siberianguide, does last-minute checks.
That, right there,folks, is reindeer skin.
This is our sleigh.
I mean, in essence, this ishow we're going to be traveling
into the tundra, on the back of this.
The sleigh is attached to a snowmobile.
- [Translator] I have tomake sure we have enough rope
and other emergency suppliesin case we get stuck.
- Is this dangerous?
(speaking foreign language)- Yes, it is.
- Our destination this morning?
A four-hour journeydeep into the wilderness
to meet a nomadic family.
Two hours into our journey,we stop for a brief moment.
It's about 9:25 in the morning.
9:25 in the morning andthe sun has yet to rise
and we're hoping to catchthat before it rises.
Let's go.
The sun here shines only fora few hours during the winter.
When it does appear, normally around noon,
the sun rise, well, it'ssomething to behold.
(speaking foreign language)- This is a special place.
- [George] Peter belongs tothe largest nomadic tribe
called the Nenets.
He is more than just a guide.
You see, he's a Christian.
And for the last fewyears, he's been sharing
the Gospel of Jesus Christ with his tribe
and others who live here in the tundra.
- [Translator] When I became a Christian,
God gave me a new heart.
He also gave me a new heart for my people.
I go out on my snowmobile,meeting these nomadic families
and telling them about the love of Christ.
- The Nenets are nomadic reindeer herders.
The word Nenet means child of a deer.
This is, in essence, the lifeblood
for the Nenet people hereon the Siberian tundra
because their meat, as well as their skin,
fetch a lot of money in the villages.
- [Translator] Our food,clothes, shoes, homes,
our transportation,everything comes from them.
Without reindeer, we cannot survive.
- [George] And learning how tosurvive in the tundra begins
at an early age.
- [Translator] All my childrenwere taught from a young age
how to live in the harsh conditions.
It is our way of life.
But if you are not careful,you can die out here.
- [George] The women take care of cooking,
sewing clothes, andputting up the teepees.
The men are hunters andcare for the reindeer.
And when it comes toskinning the reindeer,
the entire family is involved.
The hide is used to makethe teepees and clothes.
Blood and raw reindeermeat are often consumed
to get vitamins.
- [Translator] We useevery part of the animal.
- [George] Peter is amonga handful of evangelists
reaching the Nenets people.
He's been visiting Ustinia'sfamily for a few weeks now.
- [Translator] He comeshere to tell us about God.
We have good conversations.
- [George] He's supportedby a local Siberian church
and Russian Ministries, an organization
focusing on spreading the gospelin the former Soviet Union.
He says it all begins withfriendship evangelism.
- [Translator] I brought presents
for all the children today.
Each box is filled withtoys, school supplies,
and a children's Bible.
We have to build relationships first.
(barking)- Modern technology,
such as the snowmobile,cell phone, and generator
have certainly made life alittle easier on the tundra.
- [Translator] Before, Ihad to rely on reindeer
to get around, now the snowmobile
allows me travel fartherdistances to meet families.
(light music)
- [George] There areno verifiable numbers,
but Peter estimates some 500 Nenets people
have accepted the Lord in recent years.
- [Translator] Thereare still thousands more
who have yet to hear about Jesus.
- [George] So for now,he continues to traverse
the harsh landscape of the Siberian tundra
in search of more peopleto share the good news
of faith in Jesus.
George Thomas, CBN News in the
Yamal Peninsula, Northern Siberia.
- [Wendy] Hope George hasthawed out since then.
Well, coming up, 2,000 years ago,
God came to Earth in the form of a baby.
Meet four skeptics who came to faith
by asking the hard questions.
(dramatic music)
(light music)
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- We had four jobs that didn't go right,
but we didn't waver in our faith.
- That's when God put on my heart
that we needed to do the well.
- [Man] Within a couple of days,
we got an insurance refund check
that we had no idea was coming.
- And here we are, thisyear, it's just booming.
(laughs)
- You go out and help other people
and you get rewarded for it.
- [Announcer] Get PatRobertson's latest teaching,
Miraculous Blessings.
- Christians around theworld are celebrating
the birth of Jesus Christ.
Still, 2,000 years later,many ask, is Jesus real?
And, is he God?
Paul Strand talked to fourtop defenders of the faith
who reached the same conclusionin very different ways.
- [Paul] Although believersand evidence exist,
there remains thequestion, is there a God?
Detective J. Warner Wallacehas pursued the questions,
applying the same proceduresused to solve cold cases.
Starting this investigation as an atheist,
he had to accept somethingbeyond the natural
because he believed theuniverse had a beginning
before space and time.
- It began from nothing.
Didn't exist prior to the Big Bang.
That means you were looking fora cause that is non-spatial,
non-temporal, and non-material,
'cause those things are notavailable until the Big Bang.
So you're already looking
for something that's extra-natural.
- [Paul] Astronomer Hugh Ross,
who heads up Reasons to Believe,
sees God in the universe's birth.
- It has a beginning, whichimplies there must be a beginner
that was responsible for
bringing the universe into existence.
- [Paul] And there's such precise design.
- We have fine tuning in the universe,
which is so finely tunedthat the smallest variation
in the universal constance,
you wouldn't even have a universe
in which we have life at all.
Now, what are the odds ofthat happening on its own?
- [Paul] And just howfinely tuned is it for life?
- If you were to add the weightof one dime to the universe
or subtract the weight of one dime
from the observable universe,
that would be enough to upset the balance
to make life not possible.
How can we escape the conclusion
there must be a mindwith supernatural power
that designed it justright so we could be here?
- [Paul] But what about Jesus Christ,
his resurrection, and deity?
- If there's a being out there
that can create all space,time, and matter from nothing,
I'm guessing he couldprobably rise from the dead.
I'm guessing he couldprobably walk on water.
I'm guessing those areprobably small potato miracles
compared to Genesis 1.
- Some people say they'll neverbelieve Jesus Christ is God
because all the prooffor it is in the Bible
and they just don't believe the Bible.
As an atheist, Josh McDowell set out
to disprove Christianity in the Bible,
but found so much evidence,it changed his life.
The result was his book,Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
And he found much proof forChrist outside the Bible.
- In this book, Evidence, I give 20-some
totally extra-biblical sources
that you could recapture fromalmost everything about Christ
that he was raising the dead,he fulfilled the prophecy,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,from non-biblical sources.
- [Paul] Alex McFarland putson conferences nationwide,
like this one in North Carolina,
to arm Christians with prooftheir God and faith are real.
He points out what one of America's
top 20th century historians, Will Durant,
a nonbeliever, had to say.
- Durant, when he was not a Christian,
said that the four biographies,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
their historicity was,quote, indisputable.
- [Paul] Some claim the New Testament
was written hundreds ofyears after Jesus' time,
so all the supernaturaldetails about Christ
could have been addedin long after his death.
But as witnesses, the earliest disciples
memorized, sang, and wrote down
statements of Christ's miraculous life,
starting right after his resurrection.
- Deity, death, resurrection.
Son of God paid for oursins, rose from the dead.
These doctrinal formula, if you will,
these statements ofbelief, come to us within,
not years, not months, butweeks after the crucifixion.
- [Paul] And these disciples said not only
were they eyewitnessesto Christ's miracles,
but so were their opponentsthere in Jerusalem.
- They would constantlyappeal to the knowledge
of hostile witness of thetruth that they're saying,
they say, you know what I'm talking about.
You were there, you saw him dothis, you heard him do this.
- But you may feel none of thishas anything to do with you
and you shouldn't have to think about it.
But what if there is an eternity?
And what you believe about Jesus Christ
will determine where you spend it.
Wallace says, if you'rea total nonbeliever,
for you own sake, consider the idea
there's a miracle-workingsavior, with this one caveat.
- You can't begin by saying
I don't believe in the supernatural.
That's the thing you'retrying to investigate.
If you start off bydenying the supernatural,
you'll never get to whether
or not there's anything supernatural,
you've already decided there isn't.
- [Paul] McFarland mentionswhat's known as Pascale's Wager.
- If we live as if there is God
and it turns out therewasn't, we've lost nothing,
plus we've lived a goodlife and been happy.
But if you, the atheist,live as if there's not a God
and it turns out there is,you've lost everything.
So, the wise man would wagerthat there might be a God.
- [Paul] Paul Strand, CBN News,
reporting from Greensboro, North Carolina.
- Thanks, Paul.
For more great stories, just go to our
Christian World News webpage.
Find it at cbnnews.com.
We'll be right back.
(dramatic music)
- [Announcer] When yougive, smiles grow bigger.
When you care, homes are happier.
When you comfort, the hurt goes away.
When we all come togetherto love, miracles happen.
- Hello, I'm Terry Newsome.
Did you know there aremore than 148 million
orphans in the world today?
148 million.
But it was three littlegirls that taught me
about the plight of orphans.
My husband and I spent nearly a month
immersed in the daily activitiesof the Ukrainian Orphanage
as we waited to adopt three sisters.
I saw, first hand, the utter loneliness,
the pain of rejection,
and the overwhelming desire to be loved.
That experience changed me forever.
And out of it, grew aministry from my heart
called Orphan's Promise.
Today, we're helping orphansand vulnerable children
in more than 50 countries worldwide.
Thousands of childrenare now in safe homes,
they're being educated, andthey're learning life skills.
I'm asking you to join with me
and become family to these children.
Will you call the numberon your screen right now?
Because every child deservesa chance to be happy.
- Hello!
Is this thing on?
Hey, kids, do you love games?
And do you love discovering things?
Well, do ya?(cheering)
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It's the new, freeSuperbook Kid's Bible App.
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- [Announcer] Bring home amiracle this holiday season,
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- [Boy] I've never seena miracle this great!
- [Announcer] Superbook,Jesus Feeds the Hungry,
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Jesus Feeds the Hungry, available now.
- Watching or reading CharlesDickens' A Christmas Carol
is a holiday tradition in many households.
CBN's video The Story Behindthe Christmas Traditions
explores how Dickens displayed
his Christian faith in that story.
Take a look.
("We Wish You A Merry Christmas")
- Dickens appears in England at a time
of the Industrial Revolution,
when poverty was enormously visible
and there was no socialsafety net worth speaking of.
If you remember, in A Christmas Carol,
two volunteers appear in Scrooge's office
and ask for money for aChristmas dinner for the poor.
- [Man] A few of us areendeavoring to raise a fund
to buy the poor some meatand drink and means of wants.
- Why?
- Because it is at Christmas time
that want is most keenly felt.
- I helped to support theestablishments I have mentioned.
Those who are badly off must go there.
- Many can't go there.
- And some would rather die.
(sighing)
- If they would ratherdie, they'd better do it
and decrease the surface population.
Besides, it's not my business.
- Well, this is what Dickensis preaching against.
What he wants is grace andcharity, two Christian virtues.
He wants forgiveness.
The nephew and his wifemust forgive Scrooge.
The Cratchit family mustfind it in their hearts
at Christmas to saysomething nice about Scrooge.
Scrooge's heart must be changed.
Christianity had alwaysbeen for charity, for grace,
for forgiveness.
But it was not presentin English public life.
And here is Dickens sayingChristmas of all times,
when the baby appears,
is the time we should be tender-hearted.
He reconnects popularChristmas with Christianity.
It's all about redemption.
This book, again, goes viral.
("We Wish You A Merry Christmas")
- And to order your copy of the DVD,
just call the number or visitthe website on your screen,
1-800-700-7000.
Well, thanks so much for
joining us this week, until next week,
from all of us here atChristian World News,
Merry Christmas, goodbye,and God bless you.
