Jesus, Jesus, Jesus… Sweetest Name I know.

WHO WAS and WHO IS JESUS?

WHAT DOES HIS WORD SAY?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God… All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  John 1:1-3

HE IS THE ONLY GOD

AND HE IS CREATOR, MAKER OF ALL THINGS

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.  Col 1:16

HE IS KING, NOT ONLY OF ISRAEL, BUT THIS WHOLE EARTH

The Messiah has come, and He is coming again, to claim His rightful throne.

33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?

34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?

35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?

36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

Some think of Jesus as just a prophet, or just a good teacher, or just a good man….

NO!  HE IS NOT!

If you think Jesus was just a good man, I have to completely disagree.  His Word is truth, and that is what you should listen to, He is fully man, and fully God.

He could NOT be a good man, IF He is not who He said He was.  Then in that case, He would not be a good man, but a liar and a false teacher, someone who cared about himself, but not others in the end.  

So many people went to terrible deaths believing on His every Word, being persecuted and sawn in two, crucified upside down, torn into pieces, burned alive, thrown in boiling oil, sacrificed to lions… They could have denied Him… If He was a good man, but not God and Savior, why didn’t He tell them the truth and save their lives?  I believe He did tell the truth, but more than that, they said they were EYEWITNESSES to the truth!

The JESUS I know, the Jesus of the Bible, is much more than who you think He is.

Do you think He was a prophet?  But that’s all?  

Which professing prophet/teacher of yours did no wrong?

Healed the blind?  The mute, the deaf, the leper?

Raised someone from the dead?

Which prophet of yours was sinless?

Which of your gods or prophet gave their life for you?….

Muhammad?

Buddha?

Krishna?

Joseph Smith?

Brigham Young?

Ellen G. White?

William Branham?

Charles Taze Russell?

The Pope?

Any of them?

None of these men, gods or prophets gave their life for you, and if they had, it would have been pointless since none were sinless save Jesus.  None of them can save you, and none of them has the correct message whereby you can be saved.

No one has fulfilled or given prophecy 100% correctly except Jesus and the Word of God.  Just His first coming alone, He fulfilled over 300 prophecies written of Him.  None was High Priest, able to offer a sacrifice for you. None came back to life again.

HE IS THE PROPHET

Moses gave a very grave warning (of course under inspiration of the Holy Spirit), as he prophesied about THE Prophet who was to come and the necessity of hearing Him.

I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He* speaks in My name, I will require it of him.   Deut 18:18-19  (*Jesus)

For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  Heb 10:30-31

Jesus was the SACRIFICIAL LAMB

The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  Now I believe almost everyone has heard that term.  What does it mean?

Listen, you know down deep inside you are not good enough to meet your Maker. You may not even believe in Him, but the fact remains, He is real.  None of us is good enough to ever be in His presence, unless we receive His Son by believing upon Him.  What He has done for us on the cross — Who He is (God, the Savior, come in the flesh) who lived a sinless life, and died for our sins in our place, rose again from the dead as He said He would.  Only belief upon Him (not belief upon Him + our works or + our church affiliation, these will not save).  Jesus had the power to take His life back up, because He is God.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  Luke 2:11

I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no Saviour.  Isaiah 43:11

Jesus was born a Saviour, God says there is no Saviour but Him.  Jesus is God and Saviour.

The wages of sin is death, the Bible tells us.  (Rom 6:23a)  We know we have all sinned (Rom 3:23)

It also tells us that the soul that sins shall die.  (Ez 18)

It is appointed unto all of us once to die (no reincarnation, no purgatory, no second chances) THEN the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS!

There is a way out.  JESUS is the ONLY way — NOT the best way, the ONLY way.  

JESUS is also the truth and the life… (John 14:6)

There is a FREE GIFT that He gave to those who would believe (Rom 6:23, Eph 2:8-9-also read in Romans 5, it is mentioned about 6 times).  If you want to be saved from eternal death, He offers you a free gift of eternal life.  

What must you do to be saved?

• Be really sorry for your sins?
• Turn from your sins? Repent from your sins?
• Promise to do better in the future?
• Go to church?
• Surrender your life to Him? 
• Make Him Lord and Saviour and confess Him?
• Ask Him to come into your heart?

NO TO ALL OF THE ABOVE! 

YOU CANNOT ADD ANY OF THOSE THINGS, OR ANY OF YOUR OWN WORKS, TO THE SIMPLE THING WE ARE TOLD TO DO OVER AND OVER AND OVER IN SCRIPTURE.  BELIEVE!  He does indwell us when we believe, we receive Him.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will receive forgiveness of all sins (Col 2:13-15_, His gift of justification unto eternal life, His gift of righteousness (Rom 10:4), His gift of the Holy Spirit which will seal you as His own until the day of Redemption (Eph 4:30).

Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. 1 John 4:13

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise. Eph 1:13

He gave His own life in your place with great love (John 15:13).

He laid down His life for you.  NO ONE took His life, He gave it willingly. (John 10:17-18) But you MUST believe upon Christ and Him crucified for your sins.  Who He is and What He has done.  You must realize that since you are a sinner, you can never be clean enough or good enough on your own to face a Holy and Righteous God on your own.  

Think you have to turn from sin, clean yourself up?  Not good enough — Only one sin, you are done — finito — the wages of sin is death.  If not yourself, do you think your priest can offer anything for your sins?  NO!  Jesus Christ is the HIGH Priest who ONCE for ALL paid for all your sins by ONE sacrifice.  Your priest can NEVER take away your sins.  But Jesus did, by ONE OFFERING, perfected believers forever.  Who will you place your faith in?  What He said, or what your priest tells you He said?  Your priest cannot stand in front of you on that day.  He cannot pray for you (and have any effect) once you are dead.  In fact he is in for a worse punishment if he hasn’t placed his faith on Jesus sacrifice ALONE and is turning to other things to receive forgiveness of sins. He is trampling the son of God under foot, and treating His blood as if it were not Holy, and insults the Spirit of Grace with his offerings for sin or each Mass which they hold as the same as Christ’s sacrifice  (See Heb 10:29).

By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:  But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;  From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.  For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

You NEED Jesus Christ in your life.  Not as a religious icon on a metal cross hanging in a church building, but as a RISEN SAVIOR, who you place your trust in ALONE to save you. 

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. John 6:35

I know I am not good enough and never would be.

None of us is good enough to approach a Holy God. I needed Jesus Christ to come into my life which He said He would do if I would just believe upon Him.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.   And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”   She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

The GIFT of God that I was speaking of, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 6:23b)

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Romans 6:23

But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”  Romans 4:5-8

 Jesus Christ died for you and for your sins

What great love He had (greater than any man), that He would willingly lay down His life for us (John 15:13). While we were still without strength in our sin, Christ died for us.  Yes, while we were still sinners, He commended His LOVE for us.

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:6-8

Seeing fully every sin you had ever committed, and which sins you ARE committing and even more than you know — He knows the sins you WILL commit in the future, and He forgave you at the cross.

You MUST believe in Him and Him only, and you will receive that forgiveness.  Repent (change your thinking about religion or unbelief, or whatever has kept you from the truth) — and believe upon Him.  Repent is a change your mind (in salvation) about how you can be saved and even who God is.  God was not man who became a god as Mormon’s teach.  And we will not become gods as Mormons teach.   There is only one God, if you look upon Him, but know a different Jesus, that Jesus cannot save.  Only you and He know what is holding you back from believing.  Seek the Lord while He may be found.

 Are you religious?  Is that Good?

Do you have faith in the fact that you are a very religious person?  Perhaps you were born into a certain church, raised in that religion, tradition or philosophy.

What good will it do you my friend, if you know nothing about God or His Word but what they teach you?  And you don’t even search the Scriptures to see if what they are telling you is even true…. (Acts 17:11)  Maybe you yourself are very studied, and yet, you are still empty inside.  Is it because you do not have His Spirit?

And many of you don’t even know WHAT you believe — and when asked, many cannot put into words what you must do to be saved.

JESUS said, HE was the ONLY way.  

(The Way, the Truth and the Life) by which no man would be able to come to the Father except through Him. (John 14:6)

So is He a good man if you think you can come by another way?  Or is He a liar?  God is not a man that He should lie.

If you believe on Him, He will come to you, and He will dwell in your heart by your faith, and He will make you part of the body of Christ forever, and you will never be lost no matter what you may do.  (Rom 8:9; 1 Cor 12:13; Eph 4:4-6)

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.   My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.   I and my Father are one.  John 10:28-30

Before we believe: We need to hear the Word of God, faith comes by hearing .  We are born again by the incorruptible seed, which is the Word of God (1 Pet 1:23).  We are made children by God’s will for us to become children by one way believing His Word, His testimony regarding His Son Jesus (see James 1:17-18, Rom 10:17, Rom 1:16-17, 1 Cor 1:17-18; 1 John 5:9-13)

After we believe: He will begin to effectively/effectually work in those of us who believe in His Word.  (I Thess 2:13).  He will give you the Holy Spirit right when you believe (Eph 1:13) sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph 4:30).  He will keep you.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  1 Peter 1:3-5

Look around you  

Look at the men/women you take your teaching/preaching/religion from.  Your priests, your nuns, do they seem good?   How about your bishops, or your quorum of twelve apostles (Mormon)?  Are they wonderful, kind people?  How about your rabbi, preacher or pastor?  All of them may very well be very good, nice, and kind people; but remember, ALL have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.  They are not good enough to stand and not be condemned by God if they have placed their faith in the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, (or any church) or being a Child of Abraham.  Their faith must be in Jesus Christ alone as Saviour of the World, the Son of God.    

The following is from the Catholic Cathechism Paragraph 460.  (Like Mormons, they are teaching we will become gods.  Satan’s first deception was the same.  He wanted to be like God.)

• The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4).  For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of Man: so that man by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship might be a son of God.  For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.  The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods. 1
  

Mormon church on multiple gods and becoming gods.

Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-22

19 And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, …Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection; …and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, …and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.

20 Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.

21 Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory.

22 For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me.   (Sound like a little plagiarism straight out of Matthew 7?)

People, do you want to look into or depend on Eastern Mysticism?  Hinduism?  

Who will you imitate?  Who is worthy of being imitated?  A guru? An avatar?  One who cannot or will not clean up after himself, he will allow others to feed and even wipe him after his toiletries, he will not speak to his family?  What kind of love is this? What kind of God teaches this kind of life?  To what end?  If you are involved in Eastern Mysticism, the Bible is the best place to start if you want to find the only Savior, the only way, the only reason for living… His name is Jesus.  I recommend also, “Death of a Guru: A Remarkable story of one man’s Search for the Truth” by Rabi R. Maharaj and Dave Hunt.

 Muslims, can you measure up really?  

Your god is pretty fierce.  Does he love you?  Can you trust him? Did he give his life in your place, that you might live with him forever?  Are you good enough?  Will you make it, or will you burn in hell forever?  Jesus is not just a prophet.  He is not just the Son of God, He is God.  Does that offend you?  No prophet can save you, and if your prophet was wrong once, how can you trust Him?  Get yourself a Bible, start with the book of John and go to Romans.  Find out a little about the life of Jesus, pray, humble yourself before God before it’s too late.  It is not God’s will that ANY should perish, He loves you…

 Jews  

Do you know that the whole of Daniel’s prophecy has not been fulfilled?

Do you know the time of Jacob’s trouble, how serious it will be?  How many of you will survive if you even live to that time?

Have you REALLY looked into the claims of Jesus, or have you listened to your Rabbi’s claims that Jesus did not fulfill the Messianic prophecies.  Really?  Have YOU looked at the prophecies yourself?

Verses referring to Jesus are “mistranslations”?  Really?  Have you checked into the reliability of the manuscripts? The Dead Sea Scrolls?  Daniel’s Prophecy?  Isaiah 53?

Don’t wait.  He is your Messiah.   He made the New Covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah first, Gentiles were grafted into those promises for you.   Don’t reject your Messiah.  Check on your own.  Prove it to yourself.  Ask God to show you the truth, no matter where it takes you.  Don’t wait to hope to survive, to then look upon the One you pierced and see Jesus… (Zechariah 12)

Atheist

He is real.  Even demons believe and tremble.  Because they know who He is.  Trouble is, He is not their Savior.  It is not too late for you.  Many of you are very intelligent, but this can cause pride and actually a closed mind.   Consider the stars, the moon, the skies, the handiwork of the heavens. 

Please, look into it for yourself…after you die it will be too late, and it will be forever.

Now, there is a simple gospel…

God loved us so much, He sent His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. As the scriptures foretold centuries before, they witnessed to the Savior who would come.   All of our sins that were against us were blotted out on the cross (for those who would receive that forgiveness by believing upon Him).  Now Jesus rose again in three days, just as He said He would, and just as the Scriptures prophesied He would.   This proved not only He was God as He took His life back up again (John 10:17-18) but that He had the victory over sin and death.  He was seen by the women at His tomb, then by His disciples then by over 500 others at once. (see I Cor 15:1-8)

…Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.   1 Corinthians 15:54b-56

He will come to raise us to live again to be with Him (again, only those who have believed upon Him alone).

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  John 11:25

His Holy Word (that people ridicule and attack constantly), was written over a period of 1600 years, by 40 different authors, who came from at least 11 walks of life.  It was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek in 6 countries, penned in 8 different literary styles.  No where have you seen such a move to destroy a book, to punish people for having it, to keep it from the masses, yet to this day it has the most surviving manuscripts of any historically accepted novel.  Look into it, don’t just argue –  parroting what you have heard another pseudo-intellectual tell you, actually read this book for yourself in prayer and sincerity.  You will start to see the absolute harmony and beauty that comes from fishermen authors to Kings, tax collectors, even murderers.  History most wouldn’t want to repeat, amazing poetry to prophecy fulfilled and yet to be fulfilled in the near future.  Look into the prophecies fulfilled in Daniel.  Don’t wait until it’s too late…

Jesus rose again, to show us that we too(all believers) will rise again from the dead to live in eternity with Him.  Don’t be one that rejects His free gift.

►There is a hell.  

►There is a day of judgment.  

►It will be a terrible thing to have Jesus say this to you: ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Remember this was said to people who did ‘wonderful works’ in His name.  Jesus didn’t deny their wonderful works, He denied ever having known them).

Jesus came that we might have life, and that we might have it abundantly.

You may have a very good life with many things in this world.  You might have a very nice house, wealth, family, who knows?

But what will it profit you, if you gain the whole world, and lose your soul?

I pray that you will be one that will look to the Lord, and seek Him while He may still be found.

Please feel free to email me if you would like to know more.
I can also recommend some good teachings for those who would like to grow in His Word.

Citations:
1 – http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a3p1.htm