KNOWING THE LORD
By Brother Elliott Nesch
Previous Section | Spiritual Writings | Life In ChristGOD IN THE FLESH
Hopefully you are beginning to see what makes Christianity different from all other religions. For one, Christianity is the only religion with a real God. The Holy Bible is the only book on earth with prophecy. The Bible declares what will happen before it happens by naming names, places, years, the rise and fall of kingdoms with such precision it could only be God. Many theological teachings or religions claim that humans are okay or perfect just the way we are while the Bible declares we are in sin. Anybody with the knowledge of good and evil can tell you that we are in sin, that we're not perfect, because there is a right and wrong and most pursue wickedness. Essentially, there are only two religions on earth, one of works and one of grace. All religions besides Christianity declare that a person can get to heaven based on what they do, based on their righteousness or their works. But the Bible says all of our righteousness are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64: 6). The Bible says salvation cannot be earned but it is a gift from God by His grace. Many don't like gifts because their proud and arrogant. They want to believe they are good and their works are good, but these people are an abomination to God. Even when you've accepted God's gift of salvation and continue in good works, you're only doing what you're supposed to do. You're only doing what God made you to do. It'd be like receiving a brand new house worth $50 million as a gift from your father-in-law, but you saying to your father-in-law, "I can't accept this as a gift, here's a nickel. Take it, I'll feel much better about accepting this gift if you take this nickel." That's how you're works are perceived to a holy and perfect God. Grace cannot be earned, bought or won by the creature. If it could, it would no longer be grace.
Another fundamental difference with Christianity is the incarnation. God became a person. Now, I will tell you why God had to do this. This incarnation was essential for the entire creation, it was the foundation. And the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, necessary so the glory of God could be manifest. Christ is the firstborn of every creature, also the firstborn in the resurrection (Colossians 1: 15, 18). God's eternal purpose was accomplished in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3: 11). This was the plan and will of our all-knowing perfect Creator.
I will attempt to make a final illustration ending where I began with the following question: Do you know God? God is holy. There is no person or thing comparable to God. As God swore in the Old Testament, He swore by Himself because there was no other name to swear by (Isaiah 45: 23). In Moses' encounter with God, he asked, "Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3: 14). God could not compare or liken Himself to anybody or anything so He said to Moses, "I am who I am." Today if we were to ask God the same question that Moses asked, God would reply, "I am like Him, Jesus Christ." Christ is the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1: 15). Just like our eternal Creator, Jesus Christ is same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13: 8).
Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God and all He represents of wisdom and truth. Another fundamental difference of Christianity compared to all other religions is the incarnation, God becoming a person. As Jesus was baptized by His forerunner John the Baptist, John bore witness that he saw the Spirit descending from heaven upon Jesus (John 1: 32). And there was a voice from heaven saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3: 17). Jesus said as He stood before Pontius Pilate, "Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" He then told the Jews, Christ's accusers, that he found no fault in Him. How ironic! Pilate asks a question, "What is truth?" when the answer was standing in front of his face. He was standing before God Himself, Jesus Christ. Those who looked upon Jesus, such as Pilate, were looking into the eyes of God.
We read in Isaiah about the sin-bearing Servant, Jesus Christ, that, "His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men" (Isaiah 52: 14). The scourging, the torture, the punishment of Jesus Christ was so severe, He was not recognizable as a man. Yet, it pleased the Lord to bruise Him (Isaiah 53: 10). It pleased the Lord to bruise His one and only Son. How can this be?
Earlier we talked about God's character. God is love and God is just. God's love is so beyond words that it can't be explained. Once you stand in His presence you'll see what I'm talking about. You'll see that God is love and in Him is no darkness (1 John 1: 5). You'll see God's hatred for wickedness and sin. You'll see that evil has no part in God's presence because God is good and holy. You won't know whether to be crushed by His love or by His hate. You will simply be crushed by His presence unless He supernaturally preserves you. God is holy and nothing compares. Nothing compares. It is humanly impossible for us to even ponder a thought of God's love. Not even a thought in the wildest of imaginations can capture this love, just as no thought can imagine His wrath towards sin. Because we know nothing of the sort, it's out of this world, it's holy. By the time most experience it, it will be too late.
God's holy law demands that the sinner must die. If not, God is unjust in His character and no longer perfect. Once a sinner escapes the law's punishment, God is no longer just, no longer infallible, no longer perfect because He's broken His own word. Listen closely because this is very important: the only way God may remain holy, remain perfect in love, mercy and justice, the only way God can forgive sinful people who have broken the holy law is if God (who made the law and demands satisfaction) comes and pays the penalty Himself; if God, who made the law, fulfills the law and pays the penalty for those of us who broke the law. The only way for God to forgive the wicked is to die in the wicked's place. That's truth and justice.
So, Jesus (God in the flesh), who kept the law, who lived a perfect life blameless in the eyes of God took the punishment for the sins of the world. Unlike Jesus, you are a stench in God's nostrils because cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them (Galatians 3: 10). We are cursed. We broke the law. We don't have to do anything to go to hell. All we had to do was be born and we have a one-way ticket to hell bought with our first sin. But God is offering us something beyond our wildest imaginations in exchange for that one-way ticket. Praise God if you have faith in Jesus because not only are you saved from sin and death, you're saved from God's righteous wrath which is completely just. He's done all He can to save you, a wretched sinner who's transgressed from the beginning. All of us friends of the world are enemies of God. You say, "Well, God's not my enemy." But you're still His enemy and this is His creation He made the world and gave you the very air you breath right now. He numbered the hairs on your head. Fortunately for you, God loves His enemies and He's offering you a chance right now to repent and trust in Him. If He didn't love you, you wouldn't be hearing this message. This is your opportunity to flee from the wrath to come. This might be your last chance to hear the Gospel and receive it. We live in a country where the Gospel is professed but never preached. We live in a country that provokes God's anger!
All God's wrath towards sin, all of it, from your sins, from my sins and everybody else's, He poured out upon His Son, Jesus. Jesus took our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was afflicted, smitten by God and wounded for our transgressions. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him. We have all turned our own way, and the Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. He was an offering for sin, holy and acceptable to the Lord (Isaiah 53). In order for God to forgive sin, He had to make the sacrifice Himself, the just for the unjust, and suffer under His own wrath and condemnation for the sins of the world.
Jesus was blameless. He was always doing the will of the Father. Even when Jesus was praying in the Garden about the cup He knew He would soon bear He said, "Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22: 42). He was in such agony and sorrow for what awaited Him that His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground (Luke 22: 44). The medical term for this is hematridosis, the excretion of bloody sweat. His suffering was so intense and extreme we can't even fathom because He was facing the sins of the world. As Jesus was on the cross crucified He cried, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" All of Jesus' life the Holy Spirit was upon Him. He was always doing the will of the Father. But at this moment as the beloved Son of God was nailed to the cross, God the Father looked away. Why? Was it because He couldn't bear the burden of seeing His only Son nailed to the cross? Why? It's because every lie, theft, murder, rape, blasphemy, every thought of covetousness, lust, every act of abortion, adultery, oppression, injustice, genocide, and war, every sin committed from Adam in the garden of Eden to the last man's sin before the judgment was being poured out upon Christ who was the willing sacrifice for the punishment of the sins of the world. God forsook Jesus and turned away because His Son was an abomination. He was justifying the wicked and he who justifies the wicked is an abomination (Proverbs 17: 15). And this is why it pleased the Lord to crush Him (Isaiah 53: 10). It pleased God to crush His own Son. The Atonement is the perfect display of God's holiness and abhorrence of sin.
I will use again the analogy of the unjust judge. If I killed and raped your family and you found me at the scene of the crime with bloodstained hands and I admitted guilt but the judge let me go, you'd be outraged because that's not justice. If the judge said, "I'm a loving judge, so my verdict is not guilty," you'd be sick. Well, the way of the cross is was the only way God could remain just and loving, everything good all at once. If God is just, He cannot forgive you. But God is also love. His justice and holy law declares you guilty and worthy of the deepest darkest pit of hell, but His love and grace declares you not guilty. God is a just judge and God is declaring the guilty not guilty. How? The only way these two attributes can coexist is if God becomes like you in flesh and lives a perfect life unlike you and takes your punishment. This is how God remains just and loving all at once, through Jesus Christ. That which His holiness demanded, His grace provided in His Son Jesus Christ. This is how God remains perfectly just, perfectly loving, perfectly righteous and perfectly holy.
The wrath that should have fallen upon the sinner, if God had not been pacified, fell upon the sacrifice. And good overcomes evil, remember. Jesus was good, He was perfectly righteous, He never sinned, never offended God, never broke the law. This is why death, the wages of sin, had no power over Jesus. God's Holy law found no guilt in Him so it had to set Him free. Jesus Christ conquered sin and death, and on the third day He rose again, just as He prophesied to His disciples before His death. He presented Himself alive after suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them for forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts 2: 3) Jesus has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1: 10).
And you, sinner, are still here because God loves you. His grace is still upon you and you are still in His presence so you can decide. It is His will that ALL are saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2: 4). God loves you more than a brother or sister, more than a parent, more than any lover. Not even the greatest author or poet could portray the love God has for you. God is love and God loves you. He loves you enough to blot out your transgression and guilt. Not by your works, but by your faith in the work of God's Son Jesus Christ, God sees you as not guilty. You, a guilty sinner and offender of the law of the Holy God who gave you your every breath have a decision of life and death to experience the wrath of God and go to hell or look to Christ who took God's wrath for you. God has done all He can for you in His grace and mercy to the point of taking on your guilt, taking your place as a sacrifice. You did not earn this pardon but God has given it freely in His love. Are you truly going to reject this free gift of justification, of eternal life? God has granted you another day, another hour, another breath so that you may take it freely from His hand which has been stretched out in charity your entire life. Humble yourself, sinner, and take it from the hand which was pierced, which is stained in blood for your transgressions (Isaiah 53: 5).
I fear the day of judgment when I will stand before the Maker of heaven and earth and give an account of my life, but I know that I am secure: by the blood of Jesus I am washed clean. How much more you should fear that day if you have rejected God's free gift of salvation. Not only that, but rejected God for the only way unto the Father is by His Son Jesus Christ (John 14: 6). In that day, poor soul, you will curse every day of your life, especially this one because you have heard the truth but said, "I want nothing to do with God or any of His gifts." I tremble for you; it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10: 27). Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10: 28). I pray instead that you would come to know Christ and confess Him before others, that He will confess you before the Father and not deny you (Matthew 10: 32 - 33). I pray instead that you would rejoice in this day because you knew you were received and forgiven by the only begotten Son of God. Right now, today is the day of salvation, tomorrow may never come (2 Corinthians 6: 2).
Christ has done it all and it is finished (John 19: 30). Good has overcome. God has done all he can for you and so have I in witnessing of the Gospel. I will never be able to put into words the ineffable love of God but I have done all I can and I have done my best. I will never be able to portray the reality of hell or the love of God which are both beyond expression but I don't have to because you can find it out for yourself. My faithfulness demands that I speak plainly about both Heaven and Hell, the love of God, and the wrath of God. You have provoked a holy God to anger, but that God loves you dearly and there is hope in Jesus Christ. Don't take my word for it but seek out the matter. If you don't know, it's because you haven't asked. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7: 8). It was this very word from our Lord that prompted me to seek the truth . . . and I found it; God's Word is true. If you haven't found it, then you haven't asked or you asked in vain. If you truly want to know the truth, seek it and you will hear the voice of none other than Jesus Christ (John 18: 37). If any man will do His will, he shall know concerning this doctrine, whether it be from God, or whether Jesus spoke on His own behalf (John 7: 17). This is a promise. Repent, turn from your sins and pursue righteousness, peace and justice. Seek truth! Seek the Lord and you will taste of living water. You will find and never be thirsty ever again.
How do you know when you hear from God? Trust me, you'll know. When God spoke to his people Israel at Mount Sinai, all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, and they trembled. They said to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die" (Exodus 20: 19). When God speaks, you know it's God. God has spoken to me and I am a living testimony that He is real.
How do I and my brothers and sisters know that God is who He says? How do we know that Jesus Christ is not crazy but exactly who He says He is: the Son of God? Because when God speaks, you know. I know that I know that I know because the Spirit Himself bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God (Romans 8: 16). Jesus said, "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority" (John 7: 17). Those who do the will of the Father know that Jesus is God because everyone who is of the truth hears His voice (Matthew 18: 37). Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5: 8). Everyone who seeks will find, and to him who knocks the door will be opened (Matthew 7: 8). Keep asking, knocking, and seeking. Jesus said, "I am the door" (John 10: 7).
Pour over His Word as if pouring over a lover's letter until you know that you are forgiven through His Son Jesus Christ, until you are reborn and all things become new (2 Corinthians 5: 17), until His Spirit regenerates you and you know the Scripture to be reality which states, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that their deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God" (John 3: 16 - 21).
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
I have tried my best to speak to you of things which cannot be put in speech. I have tried my best and failed because I cannot convey for the life of me the holiness of our God. Again, I speak to you seeking truth and you who profess the name Jesus Christ but do not know Him and He does not know you. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Are you professing Jesus Christ and having sex outside of marriage? Are you professing His holy name while professing homosexuality? Are you and adulterer or drunkard? I say to you: you will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6: 9 - 11). Such was I, a wretched sinner deserving nothing more than the deepest darkest pit of hell, but I was washed, sanctified, and justified (1 Corinthians 6: 11). "Washed" in the precious blood of the Son Jesus Christ. "Sanctified" by the power of the Holy Spirit. "Justified" or declared legally righteous through the mercy and grace of God the Father.
I pray that God has granted you understanding of these things. I pray that you are taking me very seriously at this point because I am speaking to you of something most sacred and with the utmost sincerity. I'm pleading with you. God is pleading with you right now; take heed because I tell you the truth! . . . And now I ask you one last time. Will you repent, or will you mock what is holy and sacred? Will you turn from your sins and turn to Jesus Christ nailed to the cross for you, in your place, or will you mock Him, scourge Him, and spit in His face with his accusers? Your sins nailed the Son of God to the cross. You can accept His gift or deny it. Not to choose is to accuse and deny. Unless you repent, you will perish.
In His Love,Brother Elliott
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