DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE?
Have you ever wondered was there a man named Jesus, who was called the Christ, living in Palestine nineteen centuries ago, of whose life and teachings we have a correct account in the New Testament? With the idea that Christ was the son of God...God Himself in human form, that He was the creator of the bright brilliant shining sun, the moon, and the countless millions of glowing stars, that fills the infinite expanse of the Universe; that the forces of nature are the servants of His will and change their courses at His command. Genesis 1:1 tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Genesis is properly called; it is the beginnings, the seed-plot of the whole Bible, as it contains an account of the origin of all things. There is no other history so old. There is nothing in the most ancient book, which exists that contradicts it; while many things recorded by the oldest heathen writers, or to be traced in the customs of different nations, confirm what is related in the book of Genesis. With one decision, history began. Existence became measurable. Out of nothing came light. Out of light came day. Then came sky and earth. And on this earth, a mighty hand went to work. Stars were flung. A universe sparkled. The hand behind it was mighty. He is mighty. Probe deep within Him, before you deny that He never existed, explore every corner. Search every angle. Love is all you will find. Go to the beginning of every decision he has made and you will find it. Go to the end of every story he has told and you will see it. He created a home before there was a human dweller. This earth was a gift built by God for His ultimate creation, mankind. And God said, “It was very good.” If you want to know if God lives, if He is real, look at the creation of God’s splendor. Touch the flowers and see his delicacy. Listen to the thunder and hear his power, and gaze on humanity, and witness for yourself, and tell me what man could have done those things. In heaven nor in the earth there is no one who is greater.
Isaiah 45: 18 “For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it, He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.”
From Genesis to Revelation the Bible is a progressive unfolding of truth. Nothing is told all at once, and once for all. The law is, “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn.” From beginning to the end, the Bible has one great theme, the person and work of the Christ.
There are many who claim that this idea has been abandoned by every man of Science, and all who do not believe by faith in the word of God. It is sad to think that the divinity of Jesus Christ has been given up by so many, but this should not surprise us, for His word let us know, “that in the last days there will be a great falling away from the faith.” We should not be too surprised at this.
He also tells us that, “in the last days there will be scoffers.”
Peter said, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty,” II Peter 1: 16.
Some claim, Paul did not even exist. That he was not a real person. They claim that the gospel of Mark knows nothing of the Virgin birth. Mark may not have mentioned the Virgin birth, but there are the other three that do, so what about the other gospels and what about the Prophets of old? Do we just throw them away to be able to prove these great scholars point?
Records were carefully kept by the Jews, and showed that Jesus Christ was of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of David, according to the predictions of the prophets and the promises of God in the Old Testament, and therefore they exhibit evidence that he is the true Messiah, the Saviour of men.
The reason that there is a difference between Jesus’ lines of descent is that Matthew gives the line of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the legal line, and Luke gives the line of Mary, the mother of our Lord. As the Jews regarded only male descent, unless Joseph, the supposed father, was a descendent of David, the Jews would not have recognized the genealogy as a fulfillment of the prophecies that Christ should be the Son of David; while Luke, himself a Gentile and writing for Gentiles, was more specific to give the line that shows that Jesus is really the Son of David.
There is no contradiction between the two tables is shown by the fact that the Jews who best understood their genealogies never changed it. These tables were preserved with great care, for various reasons, until Christ was born, but it is acknowledged that Herod destroyed them. This genealogy is not a needless one. It proves that our Lord Jesus is of the nation and family out of which the Messiah was to arise. The promise of the blessing was made to Abraham and his seed; of the dominion, to David and his seed. It was promised to Abraham that Christ should descend from him, Geneses 12: 3, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
Genesis 22: 18 “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”
And to David that he should descend from him, II Samuel 7:12 “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.” I will set up thy seed after thee; the immediate reference is to Solomon, but in such a way that it includes also the whole royal line, at the head of which, after David, Solomon stood; and which finished in Christ, the son of David, according to the flesh, to whom God gave the throne of his father David. Jesus Christ is the great blessing of the world, the greatest that ever the world possessed.
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end,” Luke 1: 32-33.
The complete fulfillment, therefore, of this prophecy can only be in Christ’s everlasting kingdom. Unless Jesus is a son of David, and a son of Abraham, He is not the Messiah. Now this is here proved from well-known records. There are fourteen generations from Abraham to David. There are fourteen generations from David until the carrying away into Babylon, and fourteen generations from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ.
The book of Matthew was written in 37 A.D., by Matthew, also called Levi, one of the twelve apostles, a Roman tax collector. (Mark 2: 14) When called by Jesus he left all and followed him. He was the fifth called to follower Jesus, but like the others, he arose to the call, and went.
The word fulfilled is repeated many times in the book of Matthew, indicating that the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. People who do not believe anything in the four gospels, how can they believe the prophesy of the Old Testament, that speaks of His coming, that tells us of the Virgin Birth, and of His suffering. The book of Isaiah was written 740-680 B.C., and Isaiah was regarded as the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. These things were predicted around 700-years before the birth of Christ, and was fulfilled in Jesus, as recorded in the four gospels. Jesus suffered and died on the cross of Calvary, taking our sins to the cross, that we might have life, for these same men and women that say he does not exist. What a shame that they are so blinded.
Isaiah 7: 14, “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” Immanuel means, God with us. Compare the scripture that was prophecy about 700-years before this child was born to Luke 1:35. “And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”
The Bible, which is God’s word, was written down in a book, by holy men of God, for our learning, but it seems to be under more scrutiny today than ever before, which is not surprising, since we know that Jesus is soon to come.
The great scholars of today are even questioning, whether Jesus ever existed, that there is no such thing as His being born of the Virgin Mary. That it was all a well-planned fantasy. That He was not crucified on the cross of Calvary that he arose from the grave on the third day. They even discount the miracles that He performed. They claim that Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John are all fiction character made up, that they were not real.
The spirit of the Anti-Christ is in the land, deceiving many, even the very elect, if it were possible.
In St. Matthew 10: 32-33 Jesus said, “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father, who is in heaven.”
Don’t you think that Just in case the Bible is the true word of the one true God, we should be very thoughtful where we want to spend eternity? Are we willing to take the chance that all of the Bible is just a fantasy? Peter and the other disciples walked with Jesus, they were all eye witnesses to His miracles, Peter was on the Mount of transfiguration, they were with Him when He fed the multitude, Peter and John were even in the court of Pilate, when Jesus was arrested, he was there at the tomb with John to witness the empty tomb. Can they all be wrong? Scarcely an action or a work of Christ is mentioned, at which Peter was not present. Just in case the Bible is really the true word of God, what happens to us, if we refuse to believe? Are we ready to pay the consequence?
Did Jesus Christ really live? What do you think? Each person has to make up his or her own mind about the truth of the Bible. God in the Old Testament spoke by His prophets, and what they then uttered was the testimony of God, and they wrote as they were directed by God. Mark was written around 57-63 A.D., and he opens his book with the announcement that Jesus is the Son of God.
In Rome, in the year 93 A.D., about 55 1/2-years after the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross of Calvary, Josephus, a Jewish historian, born in Jerusalem of both royal and priestly lineage. His original name was Joseph Ben Matthias. A man both learned and worldly, he was a member of the Pharisees, and a public figure who, before the Jewish revolt against Rome, had made friends at the court of Emperor Nero, published his lengthy history of the Jews. While discussing the period in which the Jews of Judaea were governed by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, Josephus stated, “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For He was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned Him to the cross, those who had first come to love Him did not forsake Him. He appeared to them alive again, the third day restored to life. For the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about Him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after Him, has still to this day not disappeared.”
The Jews denied Him when they rejected Him as the Messiah. All who refuse to receive Him as their Lord are still denying Him, and those who deny that Jesus ever existed, that he was only a myth, are also denying Him. Jesus said, “him will I also deny.” The science and learned men of this world, remind me of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They saw Lazarus raised from the dead and still they refused to believe that Jesus was the Christ. People haven’t changed over the centuries, they still don’t believe. Those who do not believe in God, nor in a revelation from God to man, but for those who call themselves Christians to deny the resurrection, the virgin birth, the second coming, is absurd enough to make all the great science and learned men in Hades laugh and all the angels weep.......Woe to the so-called Christian who under the pretence of a science falsely so-called deny the reality of the revelation of God’s word. Like Esau, he has sold his birthright of the hope of eternal glory for a mess of pottage, the beggarly elements of worldly wisdom and pride. May God have mercy upon their soul.
Romans 1: 20 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly see, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” The invisible things of God are manifested by His works. Nature itself speaks of God: His eternal power and divinity are shown in His works. The earth and the heavenly bodies are effects, which must be due to eternal power and divinity. The existence, wisdom, and greatness of God are shown by the things, which He has made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that those who see these things and yet deny Him, are without an excuse.
By: Bro. Michael W. Neal
Intro:
(All text from the KJV unless noted)
(Romans 8:28) and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been Called according to his purpose.
(John 14:15)
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
(Romans 8:31)
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
(Romans 8:37)
37 nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors* through him that loved us.
*= 1) to gain a victory over; surmount; master; overcome: to conquer one's fear.
2) To be victorious, make conquests.
(Romans 8:38-39)
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I, Remember many years ago when I was a babe in Christ I had just been Baptized in the name of Jesus and just had received the gift of the Holy Ghost. I thought I was so strong so I read Romans 8:38-39 and thought I could do that easy, That Nothing could separate me from God and his word, boy was I about to be tried on those words! I never knew that I had to be tried by the words (Word) of God I spoke with such boldness. It has been more than 34 Years ago and I know now what power those words hold.
We must and will be tried by the word of God and yes, we must speak those words with both Power and Convection but make NO mistake that we will be tried by the word of God. I never knew that as much as I did when I sat by my Wifes' bedside as she was in the Hospitals' ICU. I looked into her Brown eyes as she asked me "Am I dyeing?” I knew that she was from what her Doctors' were telling me but what was I to say. I could not, would not lie to her so all I could say was nothing she knew from the look on my face.
So I sat holding her hand as we both were crying, a nurse touched my shoulder and said "I know it is a lot to take in" well that was the under statement of the year. She left the room and shut the door so we could be alone, I got up and went down to the Hospitals' Chapel and just sat down and cried and poured my heart out to my Lord and God. It did not take me long to touch the throne of Grace, I was NOT going to except what man was saying I knew God could and would heal her. So as I talked to God that day I felt him move within me as I told him that his word said "If we ask anything in your name" you WOULD do it!! I knew God stood on his word and so was I. God told me to use his name many years ago in all that I did and on this day, I was. As the tears was running down
My face I felt a great peace and at that moment I knew God had heard my Prayer and I could not shed another tear if I tried. I had become more than a Conqueror in Jesus my Lord and my God! and when I went back up to my wife the nurse said "Let's take her down a little on the med's" that they were giving her to keep her Blood Pressure Up so she did and her Pressure stayed up. It was not long before she was off that med and her Pressure stayed where it should be. As of this date, she is still got a long way to go before she is back to her normal self but she is not on Death Door like she was. I learned that day how to be more than a Conqueror and I was not going to let death, Nor life, Nor angels, Nor principalities, Nor powers, Nor things present, Nor things to come, Nor height, Nor depth, Nor any other creature, Was able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.
Not by my own power but Gods' it was his power, His hand, His Love that moved on both me and my wife (Donna) that day. How many time in a given day that we become more than Conquerors? We do not see all the little things we get the Victory over little battles, when we see them then we can and will become Victorious over the Big battles like the one I did. If and only if we have Jesus will we be able to be that Conqueror. We see that we must Love him and be call according to his purpose (v.28), then we see If God be for us, who can be against us? Then that answer would be No One would be against us, but we must be living in his purpose.
When I was young in Christ (A babe), I was not yet living in his word and purpose. The Purpose of Repent, of Baptism, And the Holy Ghost, Oh sure I had repented and was Baptized and had the Holy Ghost but I was not yet in his total purpose. We must check ourselves are we in Gods' Purpose he has only one and only one, and I say again only one purpose and that is draw us closer to him and following his word as he has laid down, by Peter, Paul, John and all those that laid down his path as he wanted. God can and will make us Conquerors and even more than Conquerors going a past what man thinks or what man can and will do.
There were many Nurse's and Doctor's that did not give my wife much hope but he showed them, and said See this is what I can and will do, And even more than this will I do for those that Love and trust in me and what My Word says. Remember that God says I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life (v.38), Shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (v.39).
What you must ask yourself what will be able to separate you from God? will it be that other Man?, or Woman?, A six pack of beer?, That lying tongue?, If we do not watch we can let just that one thing come between us and our Lord and God, we can be like I was when I was young and full of "Myself" and we leave out the one and only one that can fight our battles and give us the power to become that "Conqueror" I leave you with this, Do not let any thing in this world or any power, or even ourselves come between us and God.
Be more than Conqueror's for it gave me one of the things that I hold dear to me in this world, and what God gave me my "Wife". May you receive that Victory.
Bro. Michael W. Neal
(A Child of God)
