***
Key Scriptures on the Lord’s Name
New Testament: Mt 28:19; Jn 1:12; 17:11-12; 20:30-31; Phil 2:9-11; Heb 6:10; 3 Jn 1:7; Rev 3:1
Old Testament: Gen 4:26; Ex 3:1-22; 20:7; Num 6:22-27; Dt 5:11; Is 44:5
***
The Purpose of Censoring a Name
In Cecil B. DeMille’s movie The Ten Commandments, when Moses was banished to the wilderness, the character playing Pharaoh Sethi pronounced the following judgment against him. (This quotation is not in the Bible, and it’s not important to my point whether or not this part of the movie script is historically accurate; I only want to use the quote to illustrate something about censorship.)
Let the name of Moses be stricken from every book and tablet, stricken from all pylons and obelisks, stricken from every monument of Egypt. Let the name of Moses be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of men…for all time.
By censoring the use of Moses’ name, this Pharaoh sought to erase him from the mouths, minds, and even memories of the Egyptians. Secularism seeks to do the same with the name of Jesus.
Note especially that the censoring of speech is intended to censor much more than speech.
***
“Does God exist?” is a legitimate question, but a much more productive question is, “Has God spoken?” For if God has spoken, the issue of His existence is settled and you can focus all your research on what He has said.
***
The “gospel” (good news) is a subset of “the word of God” – the primary subset.
***
All Nations Should Be Christian
In Old Testament times, God only had one nation (Israel). Since New Testament times, it is the privilege – and responsibility – of all nations to be His. Those that heed this responsibility will be blessed, while those that reject it will be cursed. If you understand this, it will explain a lot.
(Psalms 33:12; 117:1; Matthew 28:18-20)
***
Celebrity Conversions
Celebrity conversions are always dicey, mainly because when a man seeks to become a disciple of Jesus, he needs privacy. The limelight works against him because he’s constantly and powerfully tempted to perform for the human audience instead of the divine one (Matthew 6:1). It’s always better to secure some success as a secret disciple of Jesus before becoming a public one.
***
Jesus has the worldwide exclusive franchise on God.
The Bible has the worldwide exclusive franchise on Jesus.
***
A Sun That Cannot Be Eclipsed
A total eclipse of the sun is not actually total. The moon is not large enough or close enough to us to fully obscure the sun’s light. A corona is still visible…like a halo. Similarly, even total secularism will not be able to fully extinguish the light of the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2). God’s righteousness is greater than our unrighteousness.
***
Jesus Is the Light – We Are Mere Reflectors
Jesus is the sunlight…and, when we relate to Him righteously, we reflect that sunlight. In other words, He is the source of light. We have no light in ourselves, but we can reflect His. Notice this Him-us relationship in the first two verses below; then notice it also in the second two. The first pair speaks of light; the second pair focuses specifically on sunlight. The first two are from the New Testament; the second two are from the Old Testament. Without Jesus, we’re living life in the nighttime; with Him, we’re living in the daylight. Secularism is nighttime because it eclipses the sunlight. Enjoy your life in the light of Christ!
- John 8:12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world…”
- Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world…”
- Malachi 4:2 “…for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise…”
- Judges 5:31 “…let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might.”
***
Jesus Christ and the Bible
Polls in the early 2020’s show that while 70% of Americans believe Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, only 6% hold to a biblical worldview. That’s a 10x difference! It means that 9 out of 10 people who believe that Jesus was raised from the dead don’t believe the Bible. The URL of this website is http://www.jesuschristandthebible.info, emphasizing the importance of both. Faith in one without faith in the other means missing out on both.
***
Your Personal Identity Doesn’t Matter
Salvation is found not in our identity, but rather in God’s identity…which is revealed in Jesus Christ. Alas, it seems most people these days are focused on creating, maintaining, or even changing their own individual identities. It’s sad. It’s a manifestation of the tribalism into which modern culture has descended of late. When a neighborhood deteriorates into a ghetto, residents seek protection (salvation) through association with a gang. The world has become one big ghetto where people identify as belonging to this or that gang – whether it be racial, religious, or political. I myself don’t have much of an identity: I’m male and I’m an American citizen. “But, Mike, don’t you identify as a Christian?” No, because that would imply that I belong to Christ while people who don’t identify as Christian don’t belong to Him. Everyone belongs to Him. In that sense, everyone is Christian…whether they want to be or not. Jesus paid the price for all of us with His blood; I couldn’t shut anyone out of that group even if I wanted to…which I don’t. God chose an identity for Himself and it is Jesus Christ. Understanding His identity is the only way I can truly begin to understand my own. His gang is the human race. Psalm 2:8 says that He received it as His inheritance.
My ticket to heaven got punched not when I believed in Christ, but rather when He died for the sins of the world. Faith doesn’t get you to heaven; what it gets you is assurance that you’re going to heaven. If faith got us to heaven, then Christ died needlessly…and our entrance into heaven would be a reward for our efforts instead of a gift of God’s grace. Heaven is most assuredly a gift of God’s grace and not an achievement of our doing.
It doesn’t matter who I am – it only matters who He is. It does matter what I am. I am a human being. Neither animals, nor plants, nor rocks make it to heaven. He didn’t die for them; He died for us.
***
Nothing Going on in the Middle East Today Is Fulfillment of Bible Prophecy
All the prophecies found in the Bible – including those pertaining to Israel – have been fulfilled in Christ. Therefore, whatever is going on these days with the nation of Israel – or America, for that matter – is not a matter of biblical prophesy. Those two nations – along with all other nations – are being judged by Christ. All nations are rising or falling based on how current generations are behaving. No nation – even America or Israel – will be given a pass on the one hand, or condemned on the other, because of what prior generations of those countries have done. All nations are to be disciples of Jesus are being judged righteously by Him according to the light they have. (All Bible Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled in Christ)
Let me emphasize that all the Bible’s prophecies have been fulfilled in Christ is not to say that God is uninvolved in what’s happening in the Middle East today. On the contrary, Jesus Christ is involved what’s happening everywhere in the whole world. He’s King of the nations! (Jeremiah 10:10; Revelation 15:3). That’s what the Second Coming was all about. Jesus is the One who is deciding which nations rise and which ones fall – and when. He has no special rules for America or Israel. There is no partiality with God. There was a time when He only worked through one nation – Israel. But Jesus sent His apostles to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19, emphasis added). America used to do better at that (making disciples) than we are now; that’s why we used to see America rising and now we see it falling. The world’s future is being determined by how nations are acting in the present – not according to ancient biblical prophecies that were fulfilled long ago. That said, the principles and patterns found in the Bible still apply because they are timeless. We just have to pray for the wisdom to be able to recognize “the signs of the times” (Matt 16:3).
***
Stupid Things People Say…That Are Dangerous
Here’s a list of statements that people today often make, apparently hoping to look smart. And, alas, there appear to be an scary number of people who will nod approvingly when one of these inane statements is made. Bible readers, however, know better than to fall for modern “proverbs” like these.
- “Perception is reality.”
- “Less is more.”
- “Love is love.”
- “My truth.”
What seemingly-profound-but-actually-empty statements like these do is chip away at the concept of objective truth. The cumulative effect from long periods of chipping away at the idea of objective truth is that a man can now call himself someone or something he obviously is not…without getting laughed out of the room (and/or getting privately scheduled for a psychiatric appointment by his loved ones). Once a conviction has been formed in a man’s mind that there is no such thing as objective truth, nothing but madness and murder is around the corner. Alas, this is not conjecture – we can see it happening right before our eyes.
***
The reason Jesus has so many names – Son of Man, Son of God, Savior, Lord, Teacher, Prophet, and on and on – is that there’s so much to Him.
***
Who Defines Christianity?
(Who Defines the Gospel?)
Far more people observe and define Christianity by Christians than by Christ. This leads to very distorted views about how God wants us to live. The only way to know what He wants from us is to go back to the primary historical sources for the life of Jesus, which are collectively called the New Testament. If these texts were only available in the original language on dusty scrolls in dank libraries we might have an excuse for not consulting them. As it is, however, we are without excuse because Bibles with New Testaments are all around us. If we are ignorant of what Jesus taught it is by choice.
***
When God Put Skin in the Game
When the apostle John wrote in his Gospel, “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14), we could translate that phrase into colloquial language by saying, “God has skin in the game.” It sounds odd, and maybe even crass…but does it not help communicate a relevant and important point? God did not stand aloof from us, even though He had every right to do so. God became a man – Jesus of Nazareth. The New Testament tells his story – the Old Testament prophesied it.
***
Three peas in a pod: Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard
Each man saw the success of Christianity, that it was based on Jesus and the Bible, and then launched his own religion – putting himself in the place of Jesus and his own book in place of the Bible. They may or may not have claimed to honor Jesus, but they all exalted their own voices above His. In other words, they mimicked Christianity by creating “antichristianities.”
- Muhammad and the Quran launched Islam in the 7th century.
- Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon launched Mormonism in the 19th century.
- L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics launched Scientology in the 20th century.
These three men were not messengers of light but rather messengers of darkness. One of the “tells” is that unlike Jesus, they produced their own books. Jesus relied entirely on a book that was written centuries before He was born. Another “tell” was, of course, that their lives were nothing like His.
By contrast to these ministers of darkness, men like Jan Hus (15th century), Martin Luther (16th century), and William Wilberforce (19th century) – no matter how much they themselves wrote – always pointed people back to Jesus and the Bible. They also served men rather than used them – as their Master had done. The Protestant Reformation, of which they were a part, was thus a return to Christianity – not a departure from it.
The difference between men like Muhammad, Smith, and Hubbard on the one hand, and Hus, Luther, and Wilberforce on the other, is the difference between Judas and Peter.
***
Comparing and Contrasting Moses and Jesus
Moses was a type of Christ. As Moses gave the Law, Jesus gave the Gospel. And as Jesus is so much greater than Moses, the Gospel is so much greater than the Law.
Heb 3:3 For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house.
The Gospel of Jesus includes law – the law of love – but it is not limited to law.
John 1:17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
***
Truth in Song
Whenever I hear or remember the lyrics of Imagine by John Lennon, it’s as if I can hear a serpent’s hiss in the background. It’s not that this famous man knew that he was providing an international anthem for Satan and secularism; he thought he was doing good. We always do, don’t we? That is, we humans can think we’re doing good when we’re doing Satan’s will. Jesus even invoked Satan when he rebuked Peter for setting his mind on man’s interests and not God’s (Mt 16:23; Mk 8:33). If Peter was capable of getting off track, how much more the rest of us. Lennon’s song is not harmless drivel. It is drivel, and dismal drivel at that…but it’s not harmless. It’s a “Lie in Song.” (Here’s an ointment to counteract the poison: In Christ Alone.)
***
True Christianity
Our society has wandered far from Christianity. We need to return to it. Not to “Churchianity.” Not to “Trinityanity.” To Christianity. The church wasn’t nailed to a cross. The trinity concept wasn’t nailed to a cross. Jesus was. Therefore, let Christianity be purified of its idols and returned to Jesus Christ.
***
Truth
At the root of everything is truth. Keep seeking the truth of a matter. When you find it, you’ll then be able to distinguish it from the lies that crept in and obscured it. That’s how it is with Jesus Christ…and with everything else.
***
As the proclamation between Jesus’ ascension and His second coming was “Jesus is the Messiah!” so the proclamation since His second coming should be “The Messiah is God!”
***
“It’s true: Jesus Christ, the Bible – all of it, it’s all true.”* (That is, they are reality – not the mere product of someone’s imagination.)
*What the aged Hans Solo should have said.
***
The greatest lie in the world is that God has not spoken through Jesus Christ. This is because the greatest truth in the world is that He has.
***
I learned about Charles Dickens in high school, but I don’t ever remember anyone teaching me that he said, “The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world.” I wonder why not? Apart from any religious implications, it seems worthy of mention what one of the world’s best writers thought was the world’s best writing.
Censorship is nothing new. It is the essence of secularism.
***
“God” is not His name; God is what He is. Jesus Christ is His name. It’s a name He made for Himself. May His name live on in us!
(1 Corinthians 3:11)
***
Secularism is the result of atheists convincing everyone else that we should keep all the lights turned off because, if we leave them on, it will be impossible to settle arguments about which lights are better than others.
***
There is no true relating to God apart from Jesus Christ our Lord. That’s why unbelievers cringe more when you mention the name “Jesus” than when you just say “God.”
(John 14:6; Act 4:12)
***
Do We “Make” Jesus Lord?
I’ve heard people say things like, “I made Jesus Lord of my life” or “I made Jesus Christ my personal Lord and Savior.” I think I understand the point they’re trying to make, and I certainly appreciate the direction they’re taking in life, but we don’t “make” Jesus Lord of anything, and we certainly don’t make Him our “personal Lord.” That makes Him sound like a butler.
As someone has rightly said, “Jesus is either Lord of all…or He’s not Lord at all.” Therefore, we don’t “make” Jesus Lord – we accept the reality that He is. We acknowledge it. We stop resisting it. Neither do we “make” Him our “personal” Lord and Savior – He is Lord and Savior of the whole world. We’re just dropping the pretense that He’s not.
***
The Father got us going1, and the Son keeps us going2.
1 by creating us
2 by redeeming us
***
If Jesus, facing crucifixion, could have a positive future, how much more He can give a positive future to anyone who looks to Him for it.
***
Jesus Christ said that John the Baptist was a prophet and one who is more than a prophet. We say that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and one who is more than the Messiah.
***
God’s life on earth as Jesus proves many things, but one of the most fundamental things it proves is that even when life is hardest, it’s still worth living. The increasing number of despairing people in the world is a natural consequence of the gospel of Jesus Christ being suppressed. Secularism is carbon monoxide displacing oxygen.
***
Through ancient Israel and its Messiah, God made a name for Himself: Jesus Christ. That name will never fade away or be surpassed.
(Act 4:11-12; Eph 1:10; Phil 2:9-11)
***
Colossians 1:17 says of Christ that “in Him all things hold together.” It’s also true that without Him all things fall apart. That’s why we see American society falling apart.
***
Psalm 73:28 says that “the nearness of God is my good.” This truth has many facets. One is that it implies, and rightly so, that “secularism is bad.” Another is that there can be no greater manifestation on earth of the nearness of God than His coming here as Jesus Christ.
***
God has communicated Himself to the world through Jesus Christ.
***
“The” Word of God Is “Christ”
If God were to only speak one word to us, it would be “Christ.” For in that word, everything important is summed up.
***
Jesus Christ came to govern human hearts. Just think how much can be accomplished through that one step!
***
Jesus doesn’t send us to the Father; rather, He draws us to the Father…through Himself.
***
The First Exodus and the Second Exodus
The first exodus was led by Moses; it was from the land of Egypt to the promised land of Canaan and included all Israelites. The second exodus is led by Jesus Christ; it is from the earth to heaven and includes all human beings.
***
The King of Israel and the King of the Nations
Jesus became the king of Israel by virtue of His resurrection from the dead, and He became the King of the Nations by virtue of His return in glory.
Here is another way of saying this: At His resurrection He became King of the church, and at His return He became King of the world.
***
The Quarterback Who Caught His Own Hail Mary Pass
God was the quarterback and His team was backed up to their own goal line with time running out in the game. We know it was God because “GOD” was on the back of His jersey. He took the snap and was forced by the blitzing defensive line to the back of His own end zone. From there, He planted His feet firmly and threw a pass that traveled – to everyone’s shock – the full length of the field! And when it finally came down in the opposite end zone, who was there to catch it…but God Himself! The fans in the stadium were delirious with joy and could hardly believe what they had just seen with their own eyes – but there it was, the quarterback outrunning His own pass…and being there to score the game-winning touchdown when the ball finally came down! Oh, and one other thing the crowd noticed: the name on the back of His jersey had somehow changed at some point during the play, for it now said “CHRIST” where it used to say “GOD.”
God had done many spectacular things as quarterback, but this was the day He really made a name for Himself.
***
Jesus of Nazareth was the greatest man who ever lived. Sure, He is God, too. But that doesn’t change the fact that he was the greatest man who ever lived. What other human life even comes close?
The Duty of a Man 