Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: Jesus

  • Who IS this man?

    Isaiah 42:1-3

    Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
    I have put my Spirit upon him;
    he will bring forth justice to the nations.

    He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
    or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
    he will faithfully bring forth justice.

    He will not grow faint or be discouraged
    till he has established justice in the earth;
    and the coastlands wait for his law.

     Hebrews 1:3-4

    He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

    After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

    John 12:

    28 Father, glorify your name.”

    Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

    29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

    30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

    34 So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up?

    Who is this Son of Man?”

    All the questions had been asked before. “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?” [Mark 6:2]

    Luke 9:

    18 Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

    19 And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.”

    20 Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

    And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”

    21 And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

    23 And he said to all,

    “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

    24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

    Who IS this Jesus?

    We ask even now, who is Jesus? What man of flesh and blood has ever been raised from the dead? Who has more than five hundred witnesses of His resurrection that men might die rather than deny that Jesus IS… Jesus was not just a son of man like other men, Jesus IS the very Image of the One God!

    He IS the Existing One, the I AM, Jehovah, LORD!

    No man has ever demonstrated the very power of God on earth as did Jesus. Yet for us, the evidence of Jesus’ power and Jesus’ miracles are the fullness of the Lord’s compassion and love for those who are still sinners.

    No man can stand before a Holy God. No good work can replace the sins of our measured mortal days.

    It took God Himself to come to us as a Perfect Sacrifice for our sins.

    Christ Jesus IS the Living God sacrificed for our sins, for this is the love offers for us.

    Jesus suffered as a man, despised and rejected by those He came to save. He became the Lamb of God, the Perfect Sacrifice given for our sins. Christ died. Jesus was buried… just like you and I will be buried. His lifeless flesh was put in a tomb and laid to rest…

    He was sinless,

    Unlike you and me.

    He suffered yet more.

    He died as a man does die.

    He became sin on a cross.

    The Perfect Priest became a Sacrifice.

    He IS the Lamb of God.

    What love has the LORD for us, that God our Heavenly Father would send His only Son to the Cross for the sins of the world.

    Yet Jesus IS now, risen from the grave after three days separated from God the Father by death. A Perfect Son of Man sacrificed and redeemed. He IS and will return in victory, not only over death but over all sin and unrighteousness.

    Are you prepared to meet Christ Jesus?

    Jesus will judge every soul, separating those for eternal reward from souls receiving punishment for evil.

    Are you ready for the resurrection of the last day?

    Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ for bearing our sin on the Cross.

    Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit!

    As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

    Amen.

    Jesus Christ IS LORD!

  • A King Unexpected

    A King Unexpected

    Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

    Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” – John 18:37

    We want a King to fix what is wrong. The economy demands hard work, which is difficult to find and pays little. We demand a different leader. Forget that tyrant in charge now. What does the present King or Emperor or President or Chairman or Pharaoh care about us? What does God have to do with us? After all, our nation is devastated by the greedy and oppressed by the strong.

    Oh… does this sound a bit too much like our 21st century life and not like the same old politics of Jerusalem, Rome and the Nations for centuries long past?

    In truth, the Jews then and Christians now easily miss the point. We miss the significance of Jesus because He is not the King we expected.

    In fact, the Jews only begged for a King to be in charge so that they could escape direct obedience to the LORD. (Are we so different?) Moses had warned them, as Jesus has cautioned us to be prepared for His return to a new Jerusalem – as He has prophesied perfectly of the new heavens and the new earth.

    Deuteronomy 17:

    14 “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose.

    Years Later in the Promised Land

    1 Samuel 8:5b ” Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”

    … 7 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

    Saul was a popular King until things went wrong. David was even more respected as King, for David was a man after God’s own heart. Solomon became one of the most powerful kings on earth, yet Israel separated into two weaker kingdoms as his sons abandoned the LORD. The LORD even set kings of enemies of Judah and enemies of Israel against his own disobedient fallen kingdom and chosen people.

    It is the LORD who rejects those who reject Him. It is the LORD who rejects those who refuse the sacrifice of the Son, Christ Jesus. Let the reader understand the surpassing love of God and the final judgment of every man’s sin.

    Hosea was a prophet who lived and prophesied just before the destruction of Israel in 722 BC. He preached to the northern kingdom. https://bible.org/seriespage/1-hosea

    NASB (UPDATED) TEXT:13:9-11
     9It is your destruction, O Israel,
     That you are against Me, against your help.
     10Where now is your king
     That he may save you in all your cities,
     And your judges of whom you requested, “Give me a king and princes”?
     11I gave you a king in My anger
     And took him away in My wrath.

    The LORD punished by the hand of God’s enemies.

    Rome we know. Babylon and Persia and Egypt… Israel was no more.

    Judea, Syria, Palestine all provinces of conquering generals, pompous emperors and corrupt caesars. Ungodly men leading enemy countries by the might that would make right, the conquest that brings glory only to a mere mortal.

    They use religion as tolerance of diversity and intolerance of righteousness and truth. The fallen fall into the snare of the conquering culture, offering the bribe of peace and the negotiation of principle.

    Into Rome, into Washington, into Moscow, into Beijing, into Mumbai, into Lagos… into Jerusalem a man comes.

    Armies have destroyed and conquered before him. Kings and rulers have been killed and taken away in chains before. It is time to negotiate under the terms of our captors. We are not free to live in peace… to have hope for food and families and homes of our own. We serve no King. We serve noone… yet we cry out for a new King to our liking.

    Will this man overthrow Rome? Will he use His evident power to defeat the enemies of our own lusts for sin?

    Into Jerusalem rides a King who will act when He will.

    He came once as the Son of Man to be sacrificed on a Cross for our sins. He was raised from the dead, in body and soul! He IS and will be.

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John:

    1:7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

    Revelation 5:worthy is the Lamb
    6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne…

    Revelation 15:

    3 And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

    “Great and amazing are your deeds,
    O Lord God the Almighty!
    Just and true are your ways,
    O King of the nations!

    4 Who will not fear, O Lord,
    and glorify your name?
    For you alone are holy.
    All nations will come
    and worship you,
    for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

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    Is Jesus the King you expect?

    Therefore I ask you, as we celebrate a weeklong festival of Passover about to be celebrated by the crowds entering Jerusalem… a conquered Jerusalem without a godly king some two millennia ago:

    Do you expect Jesus to return as our King?

    By your life and witness, is Jesus your King?

    For He IS and will return unexpected.

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  • Follow After Me -4-Evangelist

    I looked then, and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him, and he asked, “Wherefore dost thou cry?”

    He answered, “Sir, I perceive, by the BOOK in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment, and I find that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second.”

    John Bunyan, “The Pilgrim’s Progress

    “I am condemned to die and after that to come to judgment,

    and I find that I am not willing to do the first,

    nor able to do the second.”

    The crux of our dilemma, the eternal choice of our mortality. You will die. Your life will end. You will breathe your last breath!

    Then what… O, tortured mortal soul?

    Are you willing to die?

    Are you able to come to the Judgment of Almighty God?

    We are condemned to die! AND what if, as the Good Book says, ‘we must face the Judgment.’ Are you prepared for eternity?

    This, of course, is one of the questions of the evangelist, the unwavering believer in Christ Jesus who stands before you with a Bible in hand and asks, ‘Do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?’ (For the gravity of Hebrews 9:27 weighs as heavily on his heart as your sin for a time burdens yours.)

    The Heart of the Evangelist

    Our Eternal God broke with tradition and chose to live among us as a humble Son of man for a brief three decades two millennia ago. Jesus chose twelve Apostles to witness the last three of his life on earth. They heard his teaching and knew his love for them first hand.

    After our Lord rose from the defeat of the grave, Jesus appeared to the eleven remaining Apostles and to many followers several times. Christ, now risen from the dead, the Son of God who had walked on water and worked many miracles among the people had words of rebuke for the eleven followers. Jesus cautions us against unbelief and against hardness of heart.

    Mark 16:

    The Great Commission

    14 Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 15 And he said to them,

    “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

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    Jesus rebuked the closest of his earthly friends for the hardness of their hearts for not believing He IS. The Lord then sends us into all of the world to preach the Good News to others, that they might also be saved from death and judgment.

    Preachers and Bishops are nothing more than mortal men and nothing less than God reaching out though scripture, faith and love to embrace new souls into the arms of Jesus Christ.

    Perhaps an evangelist has come to you and asked an uncomfortable question or two about your eternity. Maybe it was a simple as, “Do you think that ____ (so & so, a loved one who has just died) will go to heaven?”

    Maybe someone asked you to come to church with them. Or possibly another “member” of your church commented something like, “We haven’t seen you on Sunday for a while.”

    Do you have a hard heart when it comes to mention of Jesus Christ or church or Christians?

    Are quotes from the Bible anathema to your social circles?

    Is the written word of Scripture hidden away in your home and lost to your heart?

    The evangelist loves you as he loves all souls hidden in selfishness and lost in sin. One who cares for the very future of your soul reaches out to you with the very word of God from the Bible and offers eternal hope for your salvation.

    Who else has cared so for your soul as the one who embraces you with the love of Jesus Christ?

    Do you have any hope of heaven, for an eternal life of joy, for love after the death of your failing flesh?

    The evangelist or Christian mentor pointing you in the way of Jesus Christ wants your love to blossom and live beyond your days.

    Matthew 7:

    13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few…

    15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits… 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire…

    21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord… 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

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    Do you follow the crowds or will you follow Christ?

    “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. – Matthew 7:13b

    The Apostle Peter, who had denied knowing Jesus three times just prior to the crucifixion of our Lord on the Cross, received Christ’s forgiveness, commission and new covenant for all who will believe. Peter writes in a letter to the church for us to read and believe scripture.

    2 Peter 1:

    19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

    An Evangelist come to one in darkness, Bible in hand and as a light in the darkness. Peter, John, Paul; others including Stephen, Lydia and Timothy, all quoting the truth in love from scripture, have been evangelists to the generations. Is it not also your calling in Christ Jesus?

    Second Letter of Paul to Timothy

    Preach the Word

    4 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

    3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

    5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering,

    do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

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    Beloved believer, dear lost soul seeking the solace of Christ,

    Will you not come nearer to Jesus in these hurried last days approaching the judgment of the world and all souls? Will you only believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and our Savior, your only way to eternal life? Follow Him, by whose love for you, He ransomed your soul by the Blood of the Cross.

    Jesus Christ IS.

    Though I am a mere mortal, I proclaim the grace of God’s love though Christ.

    Dearly beloved soul looking to Jesus, won’t you follow after Him?

    Amen.

    To be continued…

    NEXT: Obstinate