Matt 24:4-5
4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. KJV
Especially in the last fifty years we have seen this prophecy come to pass. We have seen many cult leaders stand up to say they are the Messiah or another Christ. I read that in the 70’s there were many people who actually changed their name to Jesus Christ out in California. Some false prophets don’t use the name Jesus or Christ but they claim to have His power or authority and have ruled over and abused people under that premise. Sadly, some have led their followers into an early grave. Some are charismatic and have great oratory skills. Others act like madmen but manage to have women give themselves to them. Husbands give them their wives and parents give their daughters to the prophet, bishop or whatever grandiose title they choose.
How can people be so deceived we ask? Yet, many who would call themselves Christians in somewhat respectable churches worship a Jesus far removed from the Scriptures. They have another Christ and indeed another Gospel? Paul warned us about such Gospels.
Gal 1:6-12
6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. KJV
The song by Todd Agnew, My Jesus, asks some pertinent questions in language that may shock you but the Church and those who think they are part of it need a severe shock in these last days. Just which Jesus do you follow and where will H(h)e lead you?
Do you follow Jesus, the Teacher? Many people love to quote His sayings and praise His teaching methods yet they won’t follow them. Many brag today that they don’t preach doctrine and yet Jesus said that if any man would do His will they shall know whether the doctrine He taught was from God or man. He commissioned Paul to write the Church epistles filled with doctrine or teaching and called them commandments from God and authoritative to all who call upon the name of Christ. Anyone claiming to be a preacher of the Gospel that says he doesn’t preach doctrine is ignorant of the Word he is supposed to be studying and the definition of doctrine. He is teaching doctrine. The problem is where did the doctrine come from, man or God? Yes, Jesus was the master teacher of all time, but He was more than that. Only a teacher is a different jesus and different gospel.
Do you follow Jesus, the good man? So many look at the deeds Jesus did and hear His teachings and say He was a good man worthy of emulation. Yes, He was good, for as He said only God is good and He was God in the flesh. There have been many good men after the flesh to pass through the scenes of human history but none matched His goodness for none were God. They were all under the curse of sin and death. They all had the sin nature so that even their good works were tainted by sin. Only the sinless, impeccable Son of God was and is truly good. If He was only a good man He would not be very valuable to us.
Do you follow Jesus, the brother of Satan? Oh yes, there is a group that teaches that Jesus and lucifer were brothers. They both offered plans of salvation to the Father and Jesus won the contest. Because of this, like a jealous Cain, lucifer rebelled and became satan. Thus their Jesus is not the only begotten of the Father but just another son among many. That is a jesus that will not lead you to the Father for that is a jesus of another gospel.
Do you follow Jesus, the blue-eyed, soft and effeminate? So many paintings show Him this way and yet He spent thirty of His thirty-three years in a carpenter’s home. Do you think He did not help His step-father and even submitted Himself as an apprentice though His real life’s work would be building His Church? How many hours did he spend in the shop and on buildings working His craft? He did not come in Superman’s body. He got calluses, sunburned and possibly even “prematurely aged” though He is ageless. Blue-eyed? There is a teaching that Jesus was the son of a German soldier that raped Mary or which whom she had an affair. The blue-eyed blonde would match such teaching but it would deny Him of His deity and the Virgin Birth. Yes, this effeminate picture is appealing for it is not threatening. This is not a picture of a King returning in Revelation who will destroy His enemies or cast unbelievers into Hell. That is why Christmas is so popular because no one is intimidated by a baby. This effeminate jesus is a false jesus of another gospel.
Do you follow Jesus, a man on whom the Spirit came? One group teaches that Jesus was just a man used by God but the Spirit left him on the Cross so that only a man died for your sins? The Spirit came upon Saul, David and others and yes, they were just men. But if Jesus was just a man He could not pay for the sins of the world for He would have His own sins. It would be like a person in debtor’s prison offering to pay your debts to keep you out of bankruptcy. A holy God demands perfection. He threw satan out for one sin. He threw Adam and Eve out for one sin. He looked down the halls of time and could declare that all men are sinners so what man could be used of God to pay for sin even with having had the Spirit with him? None, it had to be a sinless man and all are born into sin so only a Virgin Born man could be sinless. Only God could create a seed without the sin nature. Only God Himself could manifest Himself in the flesh to do the job that was needed for only He could pay the debt. No a man deserted by God the Holy Spirit, at the time of God the Father’s wrath could not atone for sin. That jesus is from another gospel.
Do you follow Jesus, the weak, that needs you help? Many, many groups, sects and cults teach that Jesus was God in the flesh but He needs your help to save you and keep you saved. You must give Him a reason to redeem you and to keep you or else He can’t hold on to you. He doesn’t have enough righteousness in His account to cover all your sins or maybe His Blood only has a limited value. Indeed, one group thinks it is limited because they continue to crucify Him daily in unnumbered rituals worldwide. Yet the Word says that He needed to die only once and to crucify Him again would put Him to open shame.
Remember one act of rebellion on satan’s part cost him his position and eternity in Hell. One sin cost Adam and Eve the garden and brought death into the world. Conversely, if one time we call upon Him in faith for salvation we are His forever. He doesn’t need a reason. He loved us and chose to do so. He seals unto redemption because He can do so and wants to do it. Should we walk in holiness? You bet, but not because He needs our works to deliver us. We are to be like Him but we can only do it because we are in Him and He doesn’t practice mutilation of His flesh.
One TV lad even said that God told him that God needed him. That is so wrong on so many levels. The self-sufficient God got along without us before He created us and He can do quite well without us. He gives us the privilege to be used of Him in this world but He does not need us. If your jesus can’t save and keep you saved or must have your help in any way then you are following a jesus of another gospel.
Do you follow Jesus, the non-Jew? Besides the blue-eyed blonde jesus I have seen many other depictions of Jesus. I have seen an African jesus, an Asian jesus, a Hispanic jesus and there may be other depictions of Him that I have not seen. I used the lower case for these jesus pictures for they aren’t pictures of the real Jesus. I understand how it may make people of various backgrounds more comfortable and more able to relate to Him but they are not true. He was a Jew and had Jewish features. Truth is truth and we need to be about truth so why distort the truth about the ethnicity that He chose to be born in? To be honest, we shouldn’t have any depictions of Him since we don’t have a real portrait of Him. We aren’t supposed to make images for worship. You say you are not bowing down but if you are looking at that picture during meditation or prayer or whatever you may well be getting close to idolatry. Indeed, it is an idolatry of race or at least racial chauvinism if He is not shown as a Jew.
Whenever someone says the name Jesus you know a picture of some sort pops into your mind. It is whatever picture you were brought up with be it Germanic, Asian or whatever. That is your picture of Jesus and it is not a close approximation of what He looks like. Even a picture of Him with Jewish features may be completely inaccurate. The long flowing hair is definitely in error as much as if He were shown with a crew cut, Afro or Mohawk. We walk by faith, not by sight, so it might be best if we just didn’t have any at all, but if you just must have one either have it with a shining face with no features like a bright light or at least make it Jewish. If you believe the true Gospel, then accept the Jewish Jesus of that gospel.
Do you follow Jesus, the racist? I must admit that this one would be laughable if so many did not follow this jesus. One of my friends from up Nawth was involved in ambulance clubs back home. When he was in North Carolina he saw a man with a patch on his coat with a red cross and three Ks. He was in Kernersville so he thought it meant Kernersville Koach Klub since where he was from they would use a K instead of a C for a club like that. When he approached the man to engage in ambulance talk he found out he was actually a Klan member. The lad tied to recruit my friend and looking down the hate list he noticed Jews were there. My friend said, “How can you call yourself a Christian organization and hate Jews when Christ was a Jew.” The Klansman replied, “No way, man!!” My friend said. “And just where do you think Bethlehem, Judea and Jerusalem are?” Hatred will blind you to many facts. Ironically that list once had Yankees on it and now the Imperial Wizard is from Chicago. I was chastised online by a White Supremacist from Pennsylvania for defending Jews. More racial incidents happen up North than in the South though usually only the Southern ones make the media due to a different bias.
The Gospel is to be preached to every creature regardless of color. I saw a cartoon of two Klansmen looking up at huge Black legs saying, “Gee, God we didn’t know.” As I mentioned earlier, He was Jewish but the cartoon spoke so well to the chutzpah of those who would hate people in the name of Christ that it is one of my favorites. I have often heard Christianity called the White man’s religion yet Jews are not classified as White. I was talking to some men in my Army unit about this and I said that, “If you took that average tint of each race and mixed it in a neutral base you might come up with the color of Jesus’ skin for He came for all men.” After all, we came from Adam and then Noah thus we are all cousins. Why all the hoopla over pigment?
All men are my brothers through the Creation but some are my eternal brothers through the new Creation. John asks us how can we love God whom we cannot see if we cannot love men whom we can see that are made in His image? You can’t and those who follow the jesus of bigotry have a jesus of another gospel.
Do you follow Jesus, the Marxist preaching Liberation Theology? You might not know but the start of the Fundamentalist and other Conservative movements were to counter the Liberal movement or theology put in practice though the means of what was called the Social Gospel. That gospel basically was more concerned with the welfare of man and seeking social reform. Conversion was put on the back burner as more and more theologians accepted the higher criticism heresy turning the Bible into something man could change at his whim rather than having it change him. Eventually many who followed Karl Marx, the father of Communism, brought those concepts into this theology sugarcoating it with some Scripture, much like pop psychology, and creating something neither Christ nor Marx would approve. Indeed, some forms are mild and basically are following Jesus’ principles of caring for your fellow man but at the expense of not majoring on the need for the poor to be saved as well as fed. In essence, they follow Jesus the good man. Others are more radical and more deeply Communistic than Christian though the façade is still there. In recent times we learned of a more racist liberation theology. They demand social reform mostly for them at the expense of others and indeed hate others of a different race. One radical comment stated that any God not for them must be killed and that would include the Jesus of the Bible since He came for all men not just men of any one race. He came to bring true liberation to all men if they would only believe and receive it. Any liberation theology that does not liberate all is not true liberation nor of the Gospel but rather another jesus and another gospel.
Do you follow Jesus, the prosperity preacher? Todd said in his song that we have made Jesus “the poster child for the American dream.” We have become so materialistic that we are like the Jews who were shocked when Jesus said that scarcely would a rich man be saved. They thought surely that a man with all of this world’s goodies was blessed of God and righteous above all others. We have now made Jesus the great dispenser of carnal wealth. Yet, He had no place to lay His head and He sent Peter fishing for tax money. Today we have so-called preachers living in five-million dollar houses and with twenty-three thousand dollar toilets in the office.
The Apostles didn’t get a hold on the prosperity doctrine since they were martyred. They had been dependent on people for daily necessities not luxuries. Paul earned money making tents until he was jailed. After that, it was complete dependency upon God to send him what he needed via the few that stood with Paul until the end. John was exiled to Patmos, not the Athens Hilton. The saints in the last half of the Hebrews Hall of Fame didn’t get it either since they were tortured, sawn asunder and made to be vagabonds among many other not so prosperous situations. (Heb 11:35-40) They were counted as great saints of the faith even though they didn’t name it and claim it or found their miracle for the day. I would have to say that as they were being killed or tortured it would have been rough to tell them that this is your day. Of course, with Jesus and the Apostles telling people it is salvation through His name or Hell it is hard to get people to give you money or buy your book. They didn’t hem and haw afraid to offend someone.
Jesus had Paul write that you see your calling how not many mighty or noble are among you but rather that God has chosen the foolish, the weak and base among you. It would be hard to pay for mansions, jets, TV broadcasts and monolithic structures that will just be firewood in the Tribulation or at the last day with that crowd of people. The richest church in Revelation was the dead church that Jesus was knocking on the door to get in, but “the blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet.” Thus if your jesus is promising to make you a successful capitalist then you are following another jesus not the one of the Gospel.
Col 1:9-23
9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; KJV
Here is the Jesus you should be following. This is the Jesus before whom every knee shall bow no matter what jesus they were following or whether they followed no jesus but some other leader or philosophy. This is who He is, not the brother of satan or a man that is effeminate and weak but a good teacher used by God to reform the culture telling you to get wealthy or forcing you to share the wealth but only with one group of people.
Here you see power, not weakness. Here you get a real spiritual education about the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Here you see the formation of all things and how sin re-formed or rather deformed the entire universe. Here you see clearly the deity and character of Jesus. You see where salvation comes from and what brought it to pass. There is no need for help in any way by the puny man whom God has chosen to love and redeem. He bought us. He presents us unblameable and unreproveable in the sight of God and indeed all creation for none can accuse us when He justifies us. He is the Head of the Body that calls the shots and He doesn’t take commands from His people. He gives them. He hears and answers prayers but we don’t put Him or the Holy Spirit on call to work miracles at 10, 2 and 4 like a carnival act.
Which Jesus are you following and what Gospel do you believe? It is very important. Jesus said that His sheep hear His voice and they WILL NOT follow another? Have you been following the wrong one? Now is the time to get to know the real Jesus! You don’t want to stand before Him like those in Matthew 7:25 who did miracles and wonders supposedly in Christ’s name but were rejected as workers of iniquity for He never knew them for they never truly knew Him!!
Are you a partaker of the true Gospel and in the real Jesus safe and secure for all eternity? Then how have you been treating Him? Are you living for yourself? Are resisting His call to service? Are you sharing Christ with others and edifying the saints or sitting on your sanctimonious sacroiliac waiting for the Rapture? Shame on you! Where’s the gratitude? If you really understood what He did for you and how He wants to bless you then your obedience would be much higher. Quit hanging around the glory side of the Jordan river clutching 1 John 1:9. Instead grab on to 1 Peter 1:15,16 going in and possessing the blessing God gives to them that seek to be holy as He is holy resisting the devil and finding the way of escape from the temptations common to man that He promises you in 1 Cor 10:13. Fight the good fight! The rewards are well worth it.
Maranatha!
