He
agreed and, while I found his arguments to be of course faulty, to my
surprise I genuinely liked him as a person, and told him so- it was the
doctrines that he preached that I abhorred. After that, I began to
wonder, 'How many Christians know-from scripture- the fact that Jesus
Christ, our Lord and Savior, is in truth Almighty God?
I
even heard a clip form a TBN broadcast in which an 'evangelist' had the
ignorance to day, "Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus actually say that
He's God!" Years back, I learned a few things from Dr. Walter Martin,
the ORIGINAL 'Bible Answer Man' on the subject, and I want to share them
with this audience, lest there be any confusion about Jesus Christ's
deity.
We need to understand- again, from scripture, that
Jesus is in fact Jehovah (YHWH). Isaiah 7:14 and 8:8, prophesying about
Messiah, refer to Him as "Immanuel", translated 'God with Us' in Isaiah
8:10. Let's go to Isaiah 44:6, "Thus saith the LORD (-All caps in Old
Testament translation of LORD is literally YHWH, the Name so Holy that
they would not even translate it literally) the King of Israel, and his
redeemer the LORD of Hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and
beside Me there is no God". Now we'll move to the New Testament, to John
8:57-59, "Then said the Jews unto him, thou art not yet fifty years
old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to
cast at him..." The Jews knew full well that the title, 'I AM' was a
designation of deity, and of deity only, having the same meaning as 'The
First and the Last, 'Alpha and Omega', and 'Beginning and the End'- all
titles for 'ALMIGHTY GOD', so they intended to stone Him to death for
'blasphemy'......
Let's look now at some excerpts from
Revelation 1. " I...heard behind me a great voice...saying, "I am Alpha
and Omega, the First and the Last"...And I turned to see the voice that
spake with me....And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he
laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, "Fear not; I am the First
and the Last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive
for evermore..." (Now,due to time constraints, these are only excerpts,
so please read the entire first chapter of Revelation).
You
can plainly see whom the resurrected Jesus Christ is claiming to be.
Dr. Walter Martin once told of how a former Jehovah's Witness came to
him and admitted that there was one scripture that frustrated him to no
end while he'd been a J.W., and it finally helped to bring him into the
truth of Christ's deity. Dr. Martin was curious and asked, "What
scripture was it?" The man replied, "Hebrews 1:6.-...when He bringeth
the firstbegotten into the world, He saith, 'And let all the angels of
God worship HIM'."
The man went on to say that Matthew
4:10b states clearly, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him ONLY
shalt thou serve..', and it suddenly all made sense to him- Jesus
Christ HAD to be God in flesh, for His Holy Word is clear that only God
is to be worshipped! The man became a Christian, and a staunch defender
of the faith, as most of those who come out of cults are....
It
is so important that we as believers know what and why we believe- to
realize just Whom Jesus is, and why He is deserving and worthy of our
praise, and all of our devotion! It's all in God's Word- Immanuel, God
with us- Praise His Wonderful Name!
En Agape,
Jim Ewing
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