1019 James Tour, US, Scientist

January 19. James Tour. James was already brilliant when he entered college. But he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know Christ, and the language of the Christians around him started out confusing, but he soon became intrigued.

James is still brilliant. He is now a nanotechnologist and a Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, and Professor of Computer Science.

In 2008, James won the Feynman Prize in Experimental and the NASA Space Act Award. In fact, if you type up his list of awards in 12-point type, the list is six-inches wide and a foot long. Today’s story begins with James in his first year in college—when he was still confused about those Christians.

The heart of the problem is a problem of the heart.

Having grown up in a Jewish community outside of City, James Tour was unfamiliar with some of the catchwords he kept hearing in his first year at college. One was: was “born- again.”

Born-again—what’s that?

One day, in the dorm’s laundry room, he asked a football player, “What are your plans after school?”

“I want to do lay ministry,” the guy said.

Lay ministry. He didn’t know what that meant either, but he figured this guy must be ‘born-again.’

The football jock asked if he could draw James an illustration showing how to have a right relationship with God, and James agreed.

The football player whipped out a sheet of paper and quickly sketched a tall cliff on the left side of the paper and a stick-figure MAN standing on top of the cliff.

On the right side of the paper, football guy drew another tall cliff and labeled it: GOD. Between the cliffs, a chasm stretched from the base of one cliff to the base of the other. And he labeled the chasm: SIN.

“Sin separates man from God,” he said.

“But I’m not a sinner,” James said. “I haven’t murdered anyone or robbed any banks, so how can I be a sinner?”

The guy pulled out his bible and showed James a verse. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “All” meant everybody—everywhere—anytime.

In that steamy room full of spinning washers and dryers, God was exposing sin—a kind of dirty that didn’t come clean with soap and water.

The jock showed James another verse where Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28, NRSV).

The words hit James like a punch in the face. How did he know? How could this man Jesus know about James’s addiction to pornography?

The trouble had started when James was fourteen and worked at a gas-station. When his co- workers ended their shifts on Fridays, he fished for the magazines they’d thrown away so he could look through them.

Now, in the laundry room and listening to the football player, James heard how Jesus died for his sins and rose again to make a way for him to find peace with God and eternal life.

Jesus bridged the gap between God and man. Jesus was the bridge from one clifftop to the other. And it wasn’t a toll bridge. A man could trust that bridge and walk right across.

But James didn’t accept all the guy had said right then. He studied the Bible himself. He discovered that the prophet Isaiah foretold how the Messiah would be whipped and executed. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. ...Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:6, 12, NASB).

Gradually James became convinced Jesus was who he said he was—the Son of God.

He got down on his knees in his dorm room and prayed, “Lord, forgive me. I’m a sinner. Come into my life.”

Later, he described it. “All of a sudden Someone was in my room…I opened my eyes. Who was in my room? That man Jesus Christ, he stood in my room. This amazing sense of God …”

The sheer kindness of God’s forgiveness washed over James. And he no longer felt compelled to mess with pornography.

Today James is an acclaimed scientist, researcher, and professor, but his passion is sharing his faith. God uses James to help people know about the man on the cliff separated by SIN from the God who loves him—and Jesus, the bridge, the way for the two to connect.

Have you realized we are all sinners? Have you discovered the remedy who is Jesus Christ? The heart of the problem is a problem of the heart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szbli4m11Lk Video program published by Shalom World December 26, 2018, Dr. James Tour, Star of the World https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/march-2019/renowned-chemist-bold-witness-for-christ/ article by Richard Greene, Renowned Chemist is a Bold Witness for Christ, March 4, 2019, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNGLZvtRoiU youtube video, One for Israel.org

Would You Like to Learn More About This Man?

In an article in Scientific American "Better Killing Through ," which appeared a few months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Towers, Tour highlights how easy it is to get what’s needed to create chemical weapons. Story written by: Toni M Babcock, https://www.facebook.com/toni.babcock.1