6. Who is Jesus according to Albany Park Religionists?
Here are some other revelations about Jesus, taught by people in this very neighborhood. Strange things have been added to the record since the record first was published by God's men, the prophets and apostles, starting in the centuries before Jesus.
Now, if you believe in the living Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, He will give you His very Spirit, and that Spirit will tell you what is true and what is false.
The Bible says that he who believes in the Son of God has the "witness" or the "record" in himself! If you have the Son inside of you, you have life. If you do not have the Son of God, you do not have life.
So get in touch with this Jesus who now lives in you, if you have asked for His forgiveness, as you listen to these other ideas. You'll know immediately, as I do, that they are not God's ideas, but either men's or the Enemy's.
Idea 1: 600 years after Jesus, a man arose in the Middle East and claimed that God had given him a new revelation about the Son of God. In this new revelation, Jesus did not die on the cross. Obviously if He did not die on the cross, He did not rise from the dead.
The Bible says that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, you are still in your sins. We need a Savior who is willing to die, but able to be raised from death. That's the Savior we have!
But in that one teaching by this prophet of the 7th century, the entire Christian faith was shot down. For if Jesus did not die and is not raised, the world must remain in its sin before a Holy God, with no way to pay that debt.
Sin is an awful thing. And that religion formed around that prophet offers no way to overcome sin. No way to be saved except maybe if we try hard enough, maybe by chance this stern god of theirs will say, "All right, come on in." But only maybe. And only if you're one of them.
We say clearly to them today, Jesus is God the Son. The God of Heaven is a Father. He not only has a Son named Jesus, He has millions of adopted children who have been united to Jesus by faith, and fully accepted forever.
And we say to them, Our faith is not a "maybe" thing at all! This Jesus came into the world to save sinners by dying on a Roman cross. His mission was accomplished fully when three days later God raised His Son from the grave!
He's alive today, and He will save you today, if you let Him. He alone has been given the power to take away your sin.
Idea 2. In the 1820's, 1200 years after "Gabriel" appeared to the man in the Middle East, another "angel" appeared to a man here in the United States. Through a long complicated process of revelations, a long complicated understanding of who Jesus is evolved.
Yet if you ask these people today what they believe, their answers sound deceptively like those of the Christian Church. For example, they believe in the Father, the Son , and the Holy Ghost.
But they do not believe in a Trinity.
They believe that God and Jesus were separate physical people who lived on the earth. God was Jesus' father, and both men died.
Jesus is to them the literal Son of God and God's wife, begotten in pre-existent times. Jesus is to them the brother of Lucifer and all spirits. He is one of three separate gods, and the first one to receive a spirit body.
A very confusing Jesus, and a very powerless Jesus. Why powerless? Because in this religion, what Jesus did on the cross is not enough. You will only be saved if you are obedient to all the laws. That sounds like Moses, not Jesus. In Jesus, the real Jesus, we are saved by faith, and works follow.
In their religion, and most religions of the world, you are saved by trying real hard, and if you don't try hard enough, you don't make it. Very insecure faith.
The reason this religion is so confusing is because it has a different source of authority. They believe the Bible to be the Word of God only where it was translated correctly! And they decide where it is translated correctly. They also have another set of books that they believe are of equal value.
That problem of authority is the same in all three of these Albany Park religions, and in the church of Rome and the Orthodox church, also represented in our neighborhood. They all claim to believe the Bible... up to a point. But they have these other books, too.
Let's keep it simple, regarding authority: God founded His church on His Son and His Son's apostles. Those apostles passed on through their writings, the books we now call the Old and New Testaments, guided by the Holy Spirit, over these hundreds of years, all the Truth the church would ever need.
I have good news for you. No angel of God has come along and changed things. Paul said it: "Though we or an angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel than the one I have preached, let him be accursed." He not only said it, he said it twice! He knew that angels would be released to deceive the world's people. He knew they would promote another Gospel, which is not a Gospel at all.
It's bad news to believe your works are going to save you. You've all lived long enough to know you cannot keep God's laws. Don't be deceived! You need a Savior from sin who offers salvation freely, and motivates you from the inside to keep His Word. You need Christ and His Holy Spirit, not a religion that came from men and angels!
No other Book has been given from Heaven for us. God's Word the Bible is as secure today as it was when it first came from the mouth and the pen of the apostles. For the church to prosper, for this neighborhood to prosper, it needs to return to what the apostles said, and preach the same Jesus the apostles preached.
Idea 3. About 50 years after this last group came yet another group that denied the Bible's teachings about Jesus.
They eventually came up with a different translation of the Bible to support their ideas. In this new Bible, Jesus was merely a perfect man, and a person distinct from God the Father.
Yes, they allowed that He was the Son of God, but Son in a subservient way, that is, one who was not equal to God. He was, in their Bible, "a" god but not "the" god. Mighty, but not Almighty.
Furthermore, they came up with the idea that, before His earthly life, Jesus was a spirit creature, namely Michael the archangel, who was created by God and later became the Messiah, at His baptism.
No, friends, Michael the archangel was Michael the archangel, period. There is not one shred of evidence to the contrary.
And the apostle John assures us that it was through Jesus that all things were created! Jesus was co-creator with the Father, not a created being.
John also says that God was the Word. "Word" is another description/name for Jesus.
And this same John records how equal praises are given to the One Who sits on the Throne and to the Lamb.
John was very much into showing the early church Who Jesus is, for in his day, Jesus' Person and Deity were under attack just as they are today.
But God's true witnesses know better. I have listed at the end of this booklet 25 such witnesses who know that Jesus is and was God the Son, as I described earlier. And every one of them wrote a portion of the Holy Bible, the Book that came down to us from the prophets of old and the apostles of old, inspired by the Holy Spirit. There's never been a book like it, nor will there ever be.
7. The Gentle Shepherd
I am so very sorry that the message of Christ has been so complicated by other religions and cults among us. But God has a way of speaking directly to the heart when we cry out to Him. Call on His Name and he will show you Himself through His Spirit. We're not just dependent on a book or a teacher. God Himself will come to hungry hearts!
My personal favorite of the many ways of seeing Jesus in Scripture and my own life, is the picture of the Shepherd.
Many of you are familiar with David's famous Psalm 23 where he calls the Lord his Shepherd. There our God is depicted as one who supplies all our needs, gives us the rest our soul requires, makes us strong in the presence of enemies, even sees us through the valley of death. This Shepherd will take us eventually to the House of the Lord prepared for us in Heaven.
But wait! That's about God, the Father, is it not? Yes, but did you realize that Jesus also called Himself the Shepherd of the sheep? Not just "a" shepherd, but "the" Shepherd. There's no competition between Father and Son, just an eternal Oneness that lets you know that when you have seen one you have seen the other.
I like the powerful Jesus, the Eternal Jesus, but this Shepherd, this personal God and Savior, is the One I need every day. Sheep tend to wander off the path. The Shepherd gently brings them back on track. I need that.
I need someone as gentle and kind as Jesus in my life. It was said of the coming Messiah that He would never even break a "bruised reed" or extinguish "smoking flax." He takes us as we are and patiently makes us into what we ought to be.
This Jesus is the One Who said in Matthew's Gospel,
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."
I have been following this Jesus since I first heard Him call me to Himself as a young boy. I have learned of Him, and I want to share what I have learned with the people of Albany Park. Jesus is still calling people to Himself, teaching them His ways.
Let me know how I can help you.
Bob Faulkner,
bob.j.faulkner.72@gmail.com
847-852-6873
Appendix:
Read and see for yourself.
25 witnesses of the Lord all agree:
Jesus is God!
Genesis: 1:1, 26 ; 2:1-3 ; 11:7-8 ; 17:1Exodus: 3:14 ; 15:18 ; 32:33 ; 40:34,35Leviticus: 11:44 Deuteronomy: 6:4, 10:17, 32:4 I Samuel: 2:2,3 II Samuel: 22:2-4, 48II Kings: 3:14, 19:31I Chronicles: 16:33II Chronicles: 7:14Ezra: 5:11, 12Nehemiah: 9:5, 26Job: 19:26 ; 38:4Psalms: 1:8 ; 2:6 ; 3:4 ; 5:2 ; 8:1,2 ; 23:1 ; 27:1 ; 29:2 ; 40:17; 45:6 ; 51:4 ; 84:11 ; 119:89 ; 136:3-4 ; 139:7 ; 146:8Ecclesiastes: 11:14Isaiah: 2:2-4 ; 6:3 ; 7:14 ; 9:6 ; 40:11 ; 41:4, 14 ; 43:3, 10-11; 45:23Jeremiah: 23:6, 65:2-3Daniel: 7:9, 10:5-6Hosea: 13:4Amos: 1:2 ; 3:8Micah: 4:7 ; 5:2 Habakkuk: 1:12Zechariah: 2:10 ; 9:9 ; 12:10 ; 14: 3-5, 9Matthew: 1:23 ; 2:1-3, 11 ; 12:8 ; 14:33 ; 16:16-18 ; 21:1-11, 15-16 ; 23:37 ; 24:30, 31, 35 ; 28:18, 19Mark: 11:3 ; 17:2 ; 23:34Luke: 1:33, 47 ; 8:39 ; 17:16John: 1:1, 3, 14, 18 ; 3:13 ; 4:24 ; 5:18 ; 8:12, 19, 24, 28, 58; 9:30, 38 ; 10:, 11, 30 ; 13:31 ; 14:6, 7, 9 ; 16:15 ; 17:5, 9,10; 18:33-38 ; 20:28Acts: 1:12 ; 2:27 ; 3:14 ; 10:36, 42 ; 17:31 ; 19:5Romans: 2:16 ; 10: 9-13 ; 11:26I Corinthians: 1:30 ; 10:4 ; 15:47Galatians: 3:13Ephesians: 4:4Philippians: 1:19 ; 2: 5-7, 9-11Colossians: 1:13-15 ; 2:2-3, 9-10 ; 3:3I Timothy: 1:2 ; 3:16 ; 6:15, 16Titus: 1:3 ; 2:10, 13 ; 3: 4, 6Hebrews: 1:6-10I Peter: 1:10-11II Peter: 1: 1, 21 ; 3:18I John: 5: 7, 20Revelation: 1: 8, 11, 17, 18 ; 3:22, 23 ; 4:8, 11 ; 5:5, 12, 13; 11:15 ; 19:11-16 ; 20: 12, 15 ; 21: 6, 27 ; 22:7, 13
