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2000 years ago, a newscaster that we know of as Jesus Christ warned us about false Christianity. The warning was not against the devil but against false Christianity…about people who come in His name and deceive many.
I thought for today I would get into something that I was gonna do for a long time, and I decided to do it the other day. This is a recording, we’ll probably replay this. It’s about the real Jesus, and we’ve done shows on the real Jesus.
By the way, this is Bob Barney with The Plain Truth today, brought to you by theplaintruth.com. Many years ago there was a movie called Jesus, and it was entirely taken from the book of Luke, and Alexander Scorby, who is a very famous reader, or a person who reads the King James Version of the Bible. You buy his tapes and his cassettes, and nowadays you can download it offline. He has the probably the voice most known for the Gospels, and he always reads out of the King James Version only, but his recordings are very famous. But the movie Jesus was completely taken from the book of Luke, and it was a very good movie, by the way, and I think it was quite accurate because everything in it was taken from the book of Luke. If you take something 100% from the Bible, you’re not going to have very many mistakes, are you? Well, I’m going to go through a similar thing today, today’s show. It’s a little different than anything else, because I want to use one gospel to really sum up some points about the real Jesus that I’ve made hints to, or I’ve talked about in the past, but I’m going to show you exactly where in one gospel of the Bible you can find a wealth of information about the real Jesus, and about the real gospel, and about the fake Christianity that just covers the whole earth today.
I’m going to read a lot out of the Bible. This is going to be the New King James Version. It’s not my Bible, or the Bible of the Plain Truth Bible edition. I’m doing it on the New King James Version, because this is a word-for-word translation. Mine was basically a thought-for-thought with a lot of notes, bu…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This is John the Baptist. This man came for a witness, to bear witness, I should say, of the light that all through him might believe. He was not that light, but he was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which gives light to every man who comes into the world. I should say every person. King James is, you know, male-oriented, but it means any person, male or female. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.
He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. Very good concept there. Children of God, not angels of God, not other, you know, humans of God, but children of God. There’s a message there, and it’s very simple. Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace. And John bore witness of him, and cried out, saying, This is the man that I said. He who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. It’s an important concept.We’re going to talk about this. No one has seen God at any time. Only the begotten Son, who is from the bosom of the Father, has ever declared him, or seen him.So there’s a lot of concepts there that we’re going to talk about. One of the things I do want to show you, is there are many people, many theologians, many Christians, many people write books about how hard the knowledge of Christ is to unravel. And there’s this great mystery that you have to try to go through that author, or go through that minister, to figure out the Bible.And that’s not the case. Jesus Christ said he came to make the Bible, or to make his gospel, which just means good news in Old English. Very easy to understand, that a child could understand it.So why do we need concordances and all these things, if we just read the words of Christ? If we just read the words of red in the New and Old Testament, because the words of red in the Old Testament are the words of Jesus Christ, and we’re going to see this in the book of John, you’re going to find out that the gospel of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is very easy to understand, that a child could do so. And that those who attempt to make it some deeper hidden meaning, oftentimes just simply are missing the whole point. Christ did not come to confuse.Christ came to make it easy for those who would believe. The number one thing that the Lord God wanted in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, is that you would just believe.
Many sins can be overlooked if you would believe. There was a time when the Lord in the Old Testament, who is Jesus, and we’ll see that in a second, said to Moses of the people kept grumbling up to him about this thing or that thing, how long, he said, will these people not believe in me? And it was just dumbfounded that these people who he gave everything to and did all kinds of miracles for, still in the desert, did not believe in him. And God wants us to believe in him, and he made it quite simple. We’ll go on, and we’ll read some other things here. We all know the story of John 3, when Nicodemus comes to him at night, and he asked about the gospel, really, and Jesus said, most assuredly I say unto you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the same kingdom of God. And because he uses those words, born-again, everybody today thinks they’re a born-again Christian, when they don’t even understand what he was talking about. Neither did Nicodemus.
Nicodemus thought he understood, like the people today, what he was talking about, but Jesus was talking about what born-again really meant, which is the resurrection from the dead. Jesus is the only human being to ever be resurrected from the dead, so he is the first person ever born again. Had nothing to do with a religious experiment. And you can see this, but he says, do not marvel that I said you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it comes or goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Well, I got news for you. Are you invisible? Can you come and go and nobody see you, but only feel your presence? Well, that’s what you’ll be able to do when you’re born again. It’s just one of the biblical misconceptions that everybody has about what born again is. Now, another biblical misconception is in the same chapter, and everyone who thinks you go to heaven or hell when you die just simply does not understand the words of Christ, or do not want to know. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, there’s that belief again, should not perish but have eternal life. Now, what’s perish mean, and what has but mean, and what is eternal life? What it’s saying here in plain English, plain Greek in the original, is that when you believe in God, you pass from being a mortal being who is going to die and perish, rot away, never to be seen again, not going down to the hellfire and living forever and ever in hell, burning and sizzling like a steak on a grill. No, you’re going to just perish like something that dies and be gone with.
The exact opposite of that for those who believe but have eternal life. That means you don’t have eternal life right now. You don’t have eternal life unless you are of Christ and you believe in him. Then, eternal life is coming to you when at his resurrection. Now, if we go on to chapter 5 of John to verse 24, we’ll start reading again, just a simple gospel message here, nothing in-depth, nothing so hard to understand that only a scholar can understand it. Christ goes on, words in red, verily I say unto you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life. Is Christ a liar? Does Christ know what he’s talking about? If you truly believe in God, even though you’re making all kinds of mistakes, even though you may follow Christmas and Easter and you may follow Sunday because you’re ignorant of the fact you’resupposed to follow the Ten Commandments and the Sabbath day and God’s holy days, if you believe in him, you have eternal life.
That’s what he says. I’m sorry for a lot of the churches of God who wanted to be legalistic and say you don’t have eternal life unless you follow the laws of Moses, but that’s not the case. You’re supposed to follow the law, and your whole life is trying to make you better and better at following the law. And when you’re born again and you’re resurrected from the dead, God promises he’s going to write the Ten Commandments on your head, in your brain, and in your heart, in your inner being. When you’re a spiritual being resurrected into spiritual form, God’s true children, the law is going to be a part of your spiritual being. You will not be able to sin. God is not able to sin. Moses, surely, I say to the hours coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in their graves, and that’s where you are, Christian or not, until the resurrection of the dead, will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. And what is condemnation? Perishing, being done for, burned up, gone forever. And that is what the Bible says.
Again, we saw in the first thing that I read you, also you can find this in John 5, I have come in my Father’s name, Christ says, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, he you will receive. And then he goes on and says, it is my Father himself who sent me, has testified of me. You have never heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form. Later on he makes it clear that no man has ever seen God the Father. There’s a hint there, so who is the God of Adam and Eve, and who is the God of Moses, who wrote the Ten Commandments with his own finger? Who is the God of David, who is David’s Lord? And you’re gonna see who it all is in only the book of John. This is why this one gospel is my favorite gospel of all Gospels. You can’t read the book of John and not come away comforted when you know you’re a rotten, no-good, dirty sinner, that you can’t earn your way to salvation, and God is making it possible that you still find salvation through believing in Jesus Christ. Now, once you believe in Jesus Christ, and God fills you with his Holy Spirit, and you start learning things, then if you decide you’re gonna follow the ways of man and not the ways of God, you can disinherit yourself from the resurrection of the dead. You can actually go the other way. Believing is not enough in the very end if you, after you believe, which would give you eternal life, you reject God’s messages to you. That is a fast way back to where you came from.
And to find the preeminence of God, we go on to chapter six, and Christ says something pretty strange, and he says, therefore I have said to you that no man can come to me unless it has been granted to him by the Father. For that time many of his disciples went back and walked away from him. Christ started out with over 120 disciples, at least 70, but some people believe over 120 disciples. And he ended up with 12, maybe a few more, actually, but a lot left him because his message was just too hard to understand, and as he revealed more and more about himself, more and more people couldn’t understand. And even in chapter 7 of John, you find out that Jesus is real brothers, and yes, Jesus had brothers and sisters from Mary and Joseph. They were half-brothers and half-sisters because Mary was his mother, but Joseph was not his father, where his brothers and sisters were of Mary and of Joseph. No, the Catholics have it all wrong, and they know they do, honestly. Mary did not stay a perpetual virgin, and she’s the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven. She’s not in heaven, she’s in her grave like everybody else, awaiting her mother and child reunion, as Paul Simon has it in his psalm.
But even his brothers did not believe in him. That’s important to show that. That’s his brothers of Mary and of Joseph. And also, in another place in the Bible, you find out he had brothers and sisters. Also, back in chapter 5, at the very end, we have another Astonishing Statement of Jesus, and you’ll understand more and more what Jesus and who Jesus really is in your Bible. He says, I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive. I believe that is a foreshadow of an Antichrist coming in his own name and being accepted by the Jews as the Messiah, and that is going to be the end-time Antichrist out of Europe. How can you believe who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor of the one that comes only from God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father.
There is one who’s going to accuse you. It’s Moses, he says, in whom you trust, because they believed Moses was a great prophet and that Jesus was a blasphemer. But listen to this next line, for if you believed in Moses, you would have believed in me, for he wrote about me. Well, how did that happen? How did Moses write about Jesus Christ, who was born in year zero, as some people believe? Well, you get to chapter 8 of the Bible, and the whole shebang comes unglued. He is being questioned by the Pharisees about who he claimed to be, and they did not want to believe who he was. And he goes on to say, I am the light of the world, he who follows me, this is chapter 8 by the way, he who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have it light eternal. By the way, walking in darkness and this idea of lightness and darkness, in my opinion, again, that is a symbol, a symbolic movement by Christ and his followers, that Christ is in the light and there is no darkness in him. The idea that the Jews and many Sabbath-keeping Christians keep an evening day, a day that begins in the night, which represents evil, is just not acceptable to God or found anywhere in the God’s Bible.
God is of the light. Let there be light was the beginning of the day, and God was that light, by the way. He goes on to say, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true. You judge me according to the flesh, I judge no one. And yet if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am, and by the way, he keeps calling himself I am, and we’re gonna find this over with here. I am the one who bears witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness of me. I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come. There’s another reference, by the way, that Christ is gonna go to heaven when he’s resurrected from the dead. We cannot ever go to heaven until we are resurrected from the dead when Christ returns at the start of the millennium. But anyway, the Jews keep saying that he is a demon in him, so the Pharisees say he’s a liar, and he’s not who he claims to be, and that he is a blasphemer, and Christ is going to reveal who exactly he is in Scripture. And they answered him, this is the Pharisees, we are of Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you will be made free, or set free? And Jesus said, verily, verily, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin, and a slave does not abide in the house forever, as the Son abides forever. Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
I know that you’re Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word is not in you. I speak what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have seen from your father. And they answered, Abraham is our father. And Jesus replies, if you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham, but now you seek to kill me. A man has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do that. Then they said to him, we were not born of fornication, we have one father, God. Jesus responds, if God were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God. Why do you not understand my speech? Because you’re not able to listen to my word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in any truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks, it’s a lie, because he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you don’t want to believe in me.
Which of you convicts me of sin? He who is of God hears God’s words. Then the Jews answered to him, do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? And Jesus says, I do not have a demon, but I honor my father, and you dishonor me, and I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks and judges. Verily I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death. Again, it’s very simple. Follow what Jesus says to do. Believe in him, and you’re 90 percent of the way there, and then obey him once you understand him. And the Jews said to him, now we know you have a demon. Abraham is dead, and the prophets, and you say if anyone keeps your word, they shall never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead, and the prophets who are also dead? Who do you make yourself out to be? Who do you claim to be, they’re saying to him? What exactly are you? And Jesus answered him, if I honor myself, my honor means nothing, but it is my father who honors me, of whom you say is your God, because it’s not their God. Surprise, surprise coming.
Yet you have known him, but I do, but you have not known him, but I know him. And if I say I do not know him, then I’ll be a liar like you are. But I do know him, and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Then the Jews said to him, you are not 50 years old, he’s probably about 30 by the way, and you claim to have seen Abraham? And Jesus said to them, most assuredly, I say, or verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. And they took up stones to try to kill him for blasphemy. What did that verse mean that so enraged the Pharisees? Before Abraham was, he didn’t say I was already in existence, no, he gave a clue to them, and they understood exactly who he claimed to be. Before Abraham was, I am.
Where is the first place that you find the words I am in the Bible?
Well, you got to go way all the way back to Exodus, back in the days of Moses, when he’s ran away out of Egypt, and he’s living in the land of Midian, and he doesn’t realize it, but God is about to appear to him. And Moses kept a flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, this is chapter 3, I’m going to skim through it to save some time, and an angel of the Lord, that means a messenger from the Lord, appeared to him in a flame and from a burning bush. Then Moses said, I want to go and see this great thing. So when the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God, you notice it says no longer an angel of the Lord, that’s just a call letter for Jesus, God said to him from the midst of the bush, Moses, Moses, and he said, here I am. Then he said, do not draw near this place, take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground, because wherever God is, is holy. Moreover, he said, I am the God of Abraham, I am the God of Isaac, and I am the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon him. And then the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people in Egypt, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them to the land that is flowing with milk and honey, a place where the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites live. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, this is a pretty important guy, I am that I am, he’s gonna come up here. And he goes, come now, and I will send you back to the Pharaoh. But Moses said, who am I that I should go to the Pharaoh? And then Moses goes for the next chapter, and everything he can do to get out of going, because he’s afraid to go back to Egypt, because he knows it’s sure death. And finally, he thinks he found a way out, because no one knows the name of God. No one knows his personal identity. According to your Bible, Abraham didn’t even know it. And so Moses says, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and I should bring the children of Israel out? So he said, I will certainly be with you.
But Moses still didn’t want to go. So finally, Moses said to God, 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, what is his name? What am I gonna tell him? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. Now, do you understand how important of a character Jesus Christ is in the Bible? No, he’s not the stairway to heaven through bypassing him and praying to God the Father. God, God, Father, Father, Father, we hear in all these prayers, in Jesus’ name, amen. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Old Testament, the person who created everything. Go back to the first chapter of John, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And everything that was made was made by him who the Word, the messenger, Jesus, in his pre-existent form, as the co-equal to God the Father, who for the love of us, his children, he became a subservient to God the Father, lowered himself, and became a man never to be equal to the Father again, a sacrifice beyond his death of giving up his supreme existence, pre-existence with the Father in order to save us from our sins.
That, my friends, is the love of Jesus Christ for you.
Jesus Christ is the most important being in your life, and he brings you to the Father, yes, but it is Christ that is the Lord of the Bible. He is the God of Israel, and he’s the God who created everything. Revere Jesus Christ, understand Jesus Christ, understand that Christ is not just a stepping stone to get to a Father, God, to pray to him. That Jesus Christ is what you are, and what you can be. It’s all in his hands. All power has been given to him. Never forget that. Well, that’s about it for today’s show. I ran out of time, but read the book of John. We may even put, over a couple weeks, the book of John up, chapter by chapter, and maybe Alexander Scorby’s version of the original King James Version. It sounds really good. It would, you know, each show would have to be, there are probably five shows to do the whole book of John, but you’re gonna learn so much when you listen to the words of the book of John.You’re gonna really understand the true gospel of Jesus, and how simple Christ made your salvation.
Listen to him, understand him, obey him, and believe what he says about himself. Believe.
God’s biggest problem with all of us is, for some reason, we don’t want to believe. But if we do, we have a really unbelievable future ahead of us. Well, like I said, this is Bob Barney for the Plain Truth Today, brought to you by theplaintruth.com, the one place to go to every day to find out what is important in your life, what news articles mean something to you, which ones do not, what is the history of this nation, and of God’s people, and what is the future of all of us.
It’s all there. It’s in the Bible. Some of it’s hidden, some of it’s hard to understand, but if you seek diligently, you will understand it.