In the Name of Jesus

In the Name of Jesus - By Pastor Mike Taylor - http://pastormiketaylor.blogspot.com/2016/11/in-name-of-jesus.html

 

6"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

7If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him." (John 14:6-7)

 

9"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11)

 

11"For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

12So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." (Romans 14:11-12)

 

Of all the names written or spoken of in all of man's history on this earth, none has caused as much division among men, than the glorious Name of JESUS Christ, my Lord. Jesus was a historical, real person who lived in the occupied land of Israel by Rome some 2000 years ago, and since His birth, life, death, and resurrection, the secular world has tried unsuccessfully to marginalize the blessed Name of this God/Man who came into the world for one reason, to die for your sins and mine.

 

The secular world has a real problem with the only sinless man that ever lived and established His Church on this earth on the Day of Pentecost in every believer that receives His Holy Spirit. I know this is a broad subject, so let me in a few words try and express why the Name of JESUS causes so much conflict in this world and makes unrepentant mankind angry just at the mention of His Name and why YOU need Him in your life.

 

Note that there are two monotheistic religions that dominate the so called "modern" earth we live on, that being Christianity and Islam. Christianity in all its forms, some true, some not so true, comprise nearly 2.2 billion or 31.5% of the population and Islam (totally untrue) 1.6 billion or 22.3% of the population according the numbers posted on Wikipedia. Since Jesus ascension into heaven, men have attempted to suppress the "faith once delivered" to our fathers, but if you say the name of Allah, there is not even a peep from the secular world and they promote it as a religion of "peace and love". Really?

 

The world and its leaders take great pains to forward this message about Islam even as the adherents of this so called "religion" murder and rape all who will not follow their beliefs and embrace the false god, Allah. Right off the bat, there is a clue that this "religion" is not about peace and love, as all men claim God is love. But understand that religion is not God. Religion is man's attempt to explain what they think God wants, or their attempt to make themselves acceptable to God. I"ve often said that religion would be a great thing, if man were not involved in it. Why? Because men pervert the message to their own self-interest and make a mockery of Who God really is.

 

You can make anything your religion. Any old god will do..just pick one and make it your focus of worship. The world is full of false religions or man's attempt to justify himself, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, or about every "-ism" you can name or you can just make up one of your own to suit yourself. But its not about religion, as even the Lord Jesus emphasized when He met the Samarian woman at the well.

 

"Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. . . But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:21.23-24)

 

Jesus came to change all the religious traditions that had distorted the true worship of a Holy God and when on earth, although He was a God of love, His message did not promote "peace and love". He came not to bring peace, but a sword.'

 

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." (Matthew 10:34-36)

 

Jesus railed at the established religion of His day when He blasted the religious authorities for their hypocrisy and their "traditions".

 

9"And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

10For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:

11But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban ( sacrifical offering: my explanation), that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.

12And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;

13Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.. (Mark 7:9-14)

 

27" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

28Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity" (Matthew 23:27-28)

 

Followers of Jesus Christ are anything but a religion or traditions. It is a personal relationship with THE God that created the universe, based on the knowledge that all men are sinners are in need of a Savior.

 

But religion is a practice of trying to make yourself acceptable to God by your own endeavors by balancing the scales of good and evil by doing more good than evil. So when religious or political leaders use the phrase "peace and love" when they speak of Islam, they reveal they don't know what they are speaking of.

 

ISLAM IS HOLY???

 

During the present administration of the current POTUS, this "usurper in chief" has never failed to promote the "religion" of Islam. He can say that Islam is holy and the Koran is holy legitimizing "Allah" as holy and his "prophet" Mohammed as this "god's" messenger. Even with the belief of "separation of church and state" you will hear not a peep out of the ACLU.

 

All the organizations that battle Christianity and the mention of the very word "Jesus" in our schools and the Ten Commandment on any government property, promote Islam all day long without fear of lawsuits. Indeed, there exist in the American school system, MANDATORY curriculums that amount to immersion courses in Islam, complete with the taking of an Islamic name, studying the Koran, and practicing Islamic rituals. but goes bananas when they attempt to profess America "One nation under God". Why is that?

 

Well, the obvious answer to that question why Jesus and anything or anyone that mentions the God of the Bible producing a visceral response, is that Allah is nothing but a false god and its "religion" is nothing but a political movement. It doesn't really make much sense, when you realize that this false religion of Islam is promoting murder and mayhem all over the world, but you mention the name of Jesus and you get immediate revulsion that you even breathed His Name. Muslims worldwide are planning at this very moment their next murderous attack on the infidels that they hate so much for not bowing the knee to their hateful ideology.

 

But this so called POTUS, promotes Islam at every convenient moment he can, and he calls himself a "christian"? I think not.

 

Further, because Islam and its god is false, there is no threat from speaking or teaching about Islam...not to the world, and especially not to Satan as they are on the same side. Not so with the Name of Jesus, because Jesus is real and the True God of the Bible. To the secular world all the different gods are more or less the same, so who cares?

 

Except for Jesus. There is something about Jesus and they can't stand it.

 

JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY

 

True blood washed Christians are condemned by the political and secular world, because we make Jesus and the salvation He provides as exclusive. Since we know that is their reason, "I can identify with that condemnation on their part" because I concur with their assessment. Men don't like that Jesus as the only Way, and being so exclusive. They want to have many different ways to justify themselves. They push the idea, just like Oprah Winfrey did on her now cancelled show, when she expressed that there were many ways to come to God. She likened it to a hub with its many spokes on the wheel. Just as there are many spokes, or ways to come to the center of the hub, there are many ways to come to God, "Just be a good person" she quips.

 

Problem is with her analogy, is Jesus (for lack of a better explanation) is an exclusive way to God, or an "exclusive club". As the opening verse so aptly explains:

 

"....I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6b)

 

That's exclusive. There is no other way. No amount of good works, no belief in some other god or spoke in that wheel, no amount of giving to the church, no amount of confession before your priest, so exclusively there is NO other way, but Jesus.

 

The apostle John explained is so easily and completely when he wrote in his Gospel of John beginning with the 1st verses:

 

John 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.1:2  The same was in the beginning with God.1:3  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.1:4  In him was life; and the life was the light of men.1:5  And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:1-5)

 

The root and the trunk of the born again doctrine found in the bible is found in John's Gospel and centers on chapter 3.  The other gospel writers do not expressly say it, but provide supporting evidence of this essential truth. In this gospel, John proclaimed the divinity of Jesus Christ, as Jesus talks of light, darkness, baptism, and the Temple of God in the first three chapters of the Gospel of John.  Symbolism is used to illustrate the spiritual with the physical. Many of the symbols Jesus uses are understood by the people Jesus spoke to.

 

Then came the Apostle to the point of the whole of your Bible, when he wrote what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John chapter 3:

 

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosover believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life"

God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but the world through Him, might be saved."

(John 3:16-17)

 

When Jesus proclaimed the spiritual truth in a physical way to the masses in the synagogue at Caperneum, some couldn't grasp what He was saying:John 6:54-58 

 

"Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides [or "lives," or "dwells," or "continues"] in Me [That is, He is saying that it is a life-giving substance.], and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven-not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."

 

Thinking in physical terms, this idea repulsed most of the disciples and those who heard  and many left Him, as they didn't understand the spiritual application of the New Covenant of His death and resurrection and symbolized when we take the bread and the wine at the Lord's Supper and commemorating this act of total surrender for our redemption.

 

If you want to know the man, Jesus Christ, you need to start at the Gospel in the New Testament that proclaimed His divinity, His earthly ministry, and His death leading to His resurrection, as the first born of the dead. That Gospel is John. John uses the last days of Jesus ministry leading to the cross to illustrate who Jesus was, and what He did for all mankind. If you wish to understand how God the Son came down from glory and became a man with only one mission, to save mankind, then you must start at John and study the witnessed account of the life and ministry of Jesus the Christ up close and personal. Then read the surrounding gospels that support it, and read into the Pauline epistles of the man Paul, who met Jesus in His glorified state and how it changed his life.

 

COMPARE THIS WITH ISLAM

 

If you start dissecting the "religion" of Islam, you quickly discover that the basic concept is a "god of war", death and destruction. Led by an evil man who proclaimed this false god from all the polytheistic gods of the Arabian deserts and narrowed it down to one "feminine" moon goddess and made Allah male and a book of the Koran was written many years after Mohammed's death containing war verses of jihad, or holy war against infidels, or non-believers. Logically, if this "allah" is "holy" then how does one, being a mortal man come into his presence? By committing hideous acts of murder and conquest and becoming a abomination in front of other men? How does that logically compute? If "allah" is sinless and holy, then how does a murderer enter into his presence? Show me one place where this Allah was just, loving, or showed himself divine? Can't think of one? Neither can I, because there are none. Point being, Islam is not a true "religion", but a political ideology of evil men on a quest for domination of other men. What one entity that is described in your bible would compare to this description of Allah?

 

12"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

13For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

15Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

16They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;" (Isaiah 14:12-16)

 

8"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1st Peter 5:8)

 

 

You see, Satan hates anything that belongs to God. He hates Jesus because He saves men because of their trust and faith in what Jesus did for them on a Roman cross. It was Satan's biggest victory, that became his greatest defeat.

 

7 "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

8Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (1st Corinthians 2:7-8)

 

THERE IS COMING A DAY

 

For 2000 years, the Holy Spirit of God has been dealing with mankind, through all the false christs, all the false religions such as Islam and drawing a select remnant of the world's population to Him, those that heard the call of God and responded in human repentance and a broken and contrite heart, but as we see the world crumbling around us, that call for repentance during this Age of Grace we live in, will be cut off without warning.

 

51"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

53For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal mus tput on immortality.

54So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

55O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (1st Corinthians 15:51-55)

 

These describe the coming of our Lord JESUS, the One true God that will come and remove His church from this earth. Then will begin the most horrible time that mankind will ever experience. I have talked about that seven years of the coming Tribulation repeatedly and I won't go over the ramifications of missing the trumpet call that Paul speaks of in the preceding verses in this message. I have numerous messages covering that subject, so go there to get an explanation of what those years will bring to sinful mankind.

 

But the Name of JESUS, one day will be Lord over all the earth. My God, my Savior will come again to reign and rule for 1000 years, but not before He crushes all rebellion upon this earth with just a spoken word, the bible calls the sword of His mouth.

 

The bible is most descriptive of what Jesus will do at that time:

 

11 "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

12His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

13And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

14And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (sign of the saints, my explanation)

15And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

16And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

17And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;

18That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

19And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

20And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

21And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." (Revelation 19:11-21)

 

My God, the blessed Name of Jesus in person will come and destroy all false religions, all evil men who have taken the "mark of the beast" that I spoke of in my last message, and destroy the two evil men who proclaimed a "false god" and his messenger, the false prophet. Just as the prophet Isaiah spoke of in the book that bears his name, the prophet wrote down what those who remain and are fortunate to escape alive through the coming Tribulation will proclaim:

 

20Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.

21Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.

22Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I amGod, and there is none else.

23I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." (Isaiah 45:20-23)

 

9Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:10-11)

 

The two passage speak of the same glorious Person, Jesus Christ...one in the Old Testament and another in the New Testament, to God the Father's glory as God has proclaimed "JESUS" a Name above every name.

 

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH THIS GOD/MAN, JESUS?

 

I have briefly shown you that Jesus is God, that all other religions are false, including Islam. In comparison, there is no other God. Make no mistake about it. Jesus is coming, and may come very soon. Will you continue to ignore the drawing of the Holy Spirit and reject the free offer of salvation to your own eventual destruction, or will you humble yourself and call out to the only Person who ever lived that can free you from the bondage of sin and the penalty of eternal death and separation from God Almighty? God calls all people, but only a few will submit willingly to the call of God to repentance and turn around from their evil ways and follow "the Way, the Truth and the Life" ...the glorious name of JESUS.