Ministries of Wayne Weaver > Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus?

We have heard the Name. Do we know the Man?

Who is the Man Jesus?

This is from a message preached by Wayne Weaver of the power in Jesus’ Name, as well as Wayne’s personal experiences with seeing the results of engaging with that power.

Why is it that sometimes the demonic powers do not respond to the people who call themselves Christians. Though the Bible says everything we ask He will give it when we receive it and it’s done in Jesus Name. Still we see many so-called Christians for whom it is not working. People pray and often don’t seem to find answers.I remember that frustration in my life in the early experience of my Christian walk. I’d often rebuke the power of the enemy and nothing happened.I remember one time I was standing in front of a satanist high priest where they asked me to come to Cleveland to deal with him. He wanted to be set free from bondages. His appearance and dress were so that when I came into the room where they brought me to deal with him, the evil appearance and the evil things that were on him were almost devastating to my faith.
 
He was very powerful according to my thinking. On the other hand, I knew as a  young man that I could come and basically face him in the Name of Jesus like David faced Goliath. I knew that I really had no armor or natural understanding or ability that could drive out the devil from him so that he could give his life to Christ. I remember that emptyhandedness that I felt. This was one of those times when I said to God, You have to teach me in these things because I see others who are trying to do the work of God, but things don’t happen. We pray a lot and we ask a lot, but nothing happens, especially in these types of situations.
 
Then God started to teach me. I knew if I had enough faith, I could remove a mountain because the Bible says that but my prayer was, Father teach me on faith, teach me what I need to have in faith so there would be more power in my life.He took me to the moment when Jesus looked at the centurion and said faith like this is not found in all of Israel. I never really heard this explained to any degree, but I looked into it and I saw some pictures of things that I submitted myself under, and I noticed after some time that God gave me power over a lot of those powers that I confronted in those years.
 
Now I want to draw on this story and speak about the authority that is in God. I would like to look at where we are compared to where satan and his power are so that we can deal with those things.
 
When I recall those days, I found myself coming back to Jesus, coming back to Jesus, coming back to Jesus, and so I’m going to start with speaking about Jesus.To me, it’s extremely powerful when we read the prophesies that the prophets spoke concerning when Jesus will come, who He will be, and what He will go through. I would like to paint that picture as clearly as I can, to bring better understanding of how we as human beings are wicked by our own nature and how we are naturally repulsed by God.
 
We are naturally repulsed by holiness. We are naturally repulsed by faith. We are naturally repulsed by the work of God. That is something that is natural in man, and it is even so that we could not love God if He did not love us first. Only now that He loved us first, can we love Him. Even our own nature could not love God. We cannot love God naturally and so that is a confronting battle that we continually face. Anytime that you backslide in your Christian life or you draw back from God, you will naturally walk away from His love. Also, the fire that is in your heart will cease burning because you will naturally not love God.When you’re in a backslidden situation, God is really kind of out of the picture. God is someone Who you don’t adore. God is someone Who you don’t really think a whole lot of. So then what happens is satan takes over in someone’s life and brings great discouragement to them to the point where they turn into a form of religion. Often in that form of religion, they continue to go until they die. Not having the fire and that burning desire in their heart anymore because they’ve turned to some other normality so they can somewhat have some expression of religion instead of faith.This is the tendency of all human beings who know God, or that knew Him at one time and know enough about Him to somewhat put up a face or a front. Now we become just a form of what we used to be. This is a very dangerous thing. This is why so many people are powerless.I would like to go to Isaiah 53:1.I wanted to take a look,  and paint a picture for us.Who has believed our report? This is the prophet speaking now. And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? I think even at this moment, we should almost stop and take a look at that. To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? The arm of the Lord is, I believe, Christ. I believe it’s the power of Christ, I believe it’s the redemption power of the plan because now man was in a fallen state. Man was in a state of unbelief because of Adam and Eve’s choices in the garden.
 
And now the prophets speak about someone coming someday Who will bring redemption and be able to buy us back and bring us under the power of God so that we might be called children of righteousness; trees of righteousness, people that God can accept, having their sins fully forgiven.
 

Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? I wanted to take that a little further even and say it this way, is the arm of the Lord revealed to you as an individual? We know about Jesus, but do we see Him as the arm? He’s the arm of God, and who has this been revealed to?And then it speaks a little bit about what this revelation is. Who was this messiah? And what did it look like when He came? Was He one Who was naturally accepted? No, He was naturally rejected. He was one that was despised. And then it elaborates further on this.

 
Let’s just think of this for a moment. We’re talking about God. We’re talking about God, the Creator of the world. We’re talking about how the world was void and empty and was basically a ball floating out in what we understand today as the universe. That was before there were stars obviously, before there was moon and sun.There was this ball, it was floating out there and I don’t know was it from some prior existence. Perhaps, maybe so, I do not know. We do not know, we can speculate, we can form some ideas, but the Bible is not very clear on it.
 
Somehow with this floating ball of a mass of void and emptiness— a marshy mess of no substance and the Spirit of God saw the possibility of taking something that was nothing and that if He could come upon this globe and start doing His work, He could make it into a beautiful thing if the word would be spoken.So now, according to the word, God somehow in Christ created the world. I will show you verses for that. He created the world and the things that were in this world. He created them by the Son of God. Now we often think that God Himself did this. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one. We’re talking about an understanding and a knowledge that goes back (in our terms) millions and billions and billions and billions, and I could say nothing more today than billions and billions and billions of years and billions and billions and billions of years, and I would not reach the edge of where eternity is because it doesn’t describe it. But when we look at this, the wisdom and the power that was in Jesus, that was in God, that was by the Holy Spirit, the power and the knowledge and the understanding and the wisdom, and I can just repeat it over and over again. The wisdom the power and the knowledge and all the experience they had from the eternities. Now at one point it’s speaking of putting all of this in the form of a human being and sending Him to walk on this earth.What will it look like when this God becomes a man and He walks amongst us. What will it look like? Will he look like a man who is much taller than us? Will he look like a man with ten fingers on one hand rather than five? Will he look like a man who is twenty feet tall rather than our average size? Will he look like a man who will walk as a king and ride as a king and reside in a king’s house? What will this man look like? Because within Him is all power and all knowledge and all understanding and wisdom and all holiness and all truth and all love.Within this man is all of this and it all originated in Him, so when He comes to earth, what will He look like? How will we observe Him? What will we do with Him? How will we accept Him? Will we bless Him? Will we walk after Him? Will we see Him in the sea and will we follow Him? Will we somehow adore Him and cling to Him to the place where we almost become kind of like Him? Is this what we will do with Him?When God in all His presence and all the treasure houses of God in heaven folds into a man and walks amongst us, how will we accept Him? How will we love Him? What will we do with Him? What will happen with Him, and in the wisdom of God, how will He make this creature, this man Jesus, how will He bring Him to our presence? What will be the presentation? Will it be something of great eloquence, something of great demonstration and power? Will it be something unlike anything we’ve ever seen?
 
What will this man be? Because this man is God, this is the one Who formed the earth. This is the one Who spoke the word back in the garden of Eden. This is the man Who originated all kinds of wisdom and every wisdom that ever was originates out of this system where He comes from, where He is, where He dwells, that which surrounds Him. What will this man look like when He comes? How will we use Him, how will we love Him?The prophet spoke with great boldness because in our imaginationwe have an expectation that when God becomes man and is the Messiah, the redeemer of that which was lost in the Garden of Eden, how and what will we expect this man to be? The prophets spoke weird things according to the natural understanding. It is still to this day, I believe, that most of the Jewish people are expecting a king in full pomp and glory being arrayed in greatness that the world has never seen. They expect this more than spiritual things. And they’ve been looking for this and have missed Him because that’s not the way He came.
 
These prophets spoke of the coming Messiah as a grim picture that is typically not expected when we think of God. This is what we read in Isaiah 53:, For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. It means there’s no lineage that is of any value. He will not come through a strong lineage. He will not come through a lineage of natural kings.He has no form of comeliness. That means that when this God manthough He will have human features He will not be very attractive. He will be one that most people are a bit ashamed of. They’re not drawn to Him. They would rather not be friends to Him. I’m talking about God.And when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. There were no women who would have desired to marry Him based on His looks. And according to some other verses, would’ve even been ashamed to associate with Him because of His looks.Verse 3, He was despised. He is despised. He’s rejected of man. He’s a man of sorrows. I’m talking about God. I’m talking about the One Who is full of all wisdom, full of all knowledge, and has all power. He’s created everything. But when He is in the form of a man, His presentation is a man filled with sorrow and acquainted with grief.
 
If He would’ve been your neighbor, you would’ve thought, ‘Why is this Man always in some grievous situation?’ It seems He’s surrounded with grief. Everywhere He walks, everyone gives Him grief. It seems grief is one of the things that best describes Him.And we hid as it were our faces from Him. When He came by our driveway, when He walked by our pathway, we quickly looked the other way because we didn’t want to associate with Him. We hid our faces. We didn’t want Him to look at our faces because He didn’t look that good.
 
He was a man of sorrow and He was acquainted with grief. I’m talking about God. I’m not talking about a sinner today, I’m not talking about someone who has killed people. I’m not talking about a person who has killed many people and is in prison. I’m talking about God. I’m talking about one Who is filled with the power of God. one Who is God. one Who knows all things.
 
He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. We looked down on Him. He was despised. He would be one of those that if you were passing through the same aisle you would just naturally turn away.There is a man in the community who has always despised me. Always has and He still does to this day. I meet him on the road quite often, and when I get so close (and I’ve even had people sitting with me witness this) he looks away. He always does. As soon as he gets close, he looks away. Just yesterday he did it twice. He despises me, for some reason. I never did him any wrong.I hardly know Him. But I do know he despises me based on remarks years ago that he has made.I’m not complaining about it. I’m just saying this is what we did to Jesus. And if He walked down the road, most of us think He would have been our friend. We would’ve gone to Him and we would’ve put our arms around Him and loved Him. We would not have been embarrassed.
 
Let me tell you, it would’ve been very unusual for us to respond that way to Him. Unless He loved us first, we couldn’t have loved Him back because there was a natural thing in us that we could not break through and love Him because we despised Him. We didn’t want to be named amongst Him. We esteemed Him not, that means we put Him down. We never said good things about Him. We always would find fault to speak. We’d find things that we just didn’t like about Him.We didn’t like the way He walked or the tone of His voice. We didn’t like the color of His eyes. We didn’t like that He hung around the sinners. We didn’t like that He healed people.
 
You say, well, I’m different. I don’t know that. Surely, He has borne our griefs. He has carried our sorrows. He took the grief that was due to me and the grief that was due to you, and the sorrow that was due us, and He carried them, and He walked through this earth.

And we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. That simply means, that we esteemed Him and looked at Him as someone who has been rejected by God. We esteemed Him stricken and smitten of God. This is how we would’ve looked at Jesus.This is nobody that you’d want to keep company with. This is someone who it seems all those around Him are people who are rejected—people who find no acceptance.

He’s stricken. Even God seems against Him. Even God doesn’t like Him. He seems that way because He’s always so filled with grief and He’s always filled with so much sorrow. And so, we esteemed Him as stricken, and smitten of God.

It’s like He seemed to have a blight on Him that even God would not like—that even God would be repulsed by. Even God could not love someone like this. Even God would have a problem with a man like this. But it was God. He was God. And God in His wisdom, chose to walk amongst us like this.I’m not talking about someone who has deserved it. This man never deserved it. He was smitten of God, we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. Just constant afflictions with this man. Everywhere He went He caused conflict. They tried to throw Him out of places. They tried to chase Him out of places. They wanted to argue His points. To show that He is a nobody, but they could not understand His power because He had so much power.Something that was so unusual was that when He spoke, it left something in the hearts of the listeners. Some people sensed a burning, which is conviction. There was something so vastly different that it caused the majority of people to stand against Him. They did not like Him. He was an issue wherever He went. He made issues wherever He walked. What a controversial man.He was God. I’m not talking about a sinner.

He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. That time that we looked down on Him, and we felt despise for Him, we were never aware that this was the chastisement on Him which would later bring us peace.He was carrying our transformation with Him. This is what He was. This is what He was doing. When He opened His mouth, they were always trying to catch Him. Because out of His mouth came life. Even at one point all the disciples wanted to leave Him because He spoke some things about drinking His blood and eating His flesh, and it became a gossip story. Even His disciples didn’t want to follow Him anymore. And finally, Jesus looked at one of His closest disciples and asked Peter, Are you going to leave me too? And Peter said, where else are we going to go? You’re the one that has the words of life. There are a lot of prophets, a lot of things out there, but you’re the one that has life. It’s the only thing that Peter could think of to remain.Yes, Jesus you’re an embarrassment. You said some things probably that weren’t very wise. You know some things that you probably shouldn’t know. He was knowledge. You should probably use some psychology. He was the master counsellor of all the universe, of all the ages, of all eternity. He was the one. And now He was in a body. He looks like a man. He is a man. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. It didn’t go well with Him.How many of you have been depressed already? He was oppressed. I’ve dealt with people who you can see it in them—they are oppressed. They have that look on their face, that there’s something wrong. There’s a deep pain, deep inside them. And it’s oppressing them. And you can see it written over them. My heart always reaches out to try to help those people because there’s an oppression. The kind of oppression that maybe there’s a higher authority than human, maybe demonic that is oppressing someone and causing great discouragement, and great harm to someone’s soul. To someone’s spirit. To someone’s emotions. To someone’s thinking. It’s oppressing them.Here it says, it’s not like that. It says He was oppressed, not depressed. If we would’ve looked at Him we would’ve said, He’s an oppressed man. Looks like the devil’s on Him. Must be the devil’s against Him, the devil hates Him. He’s got some issues we would say. He was afflicted. And yet, He didn’t complain about it.He has all these things that looked so wrong in the eyes of man, but He wouldn’t talk about it.That is big. Sometimes when we have difficulty, we want people to know about it. I’m going through a difficult time. Be patient with me. Or don’t look down on me right now. It’s not my fault. I’ll be alright. Give me some time. We like to say that. Not so with Jesus, He was oppressed, He was afflicted. And in all those things, He wouldn’t justify anything. He wouldn’t open His mouth about it.He was brought as a lamb, not a sheep. There’s a big difference, there are a lot of people who walk as sheep. The Master, God of all eternity and the realm of all reams, He was a lamb when He was here. And He was brought like a little lamb that comes before a shearer where they wrestle them down and cut off their wool.

As a sheep before His shearer is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. He didn’t put up a fight. He was taken from prison, and judgment.The word I want to stress here more is judgment. That means there was a place in His life I believe, where He was so pushed into anguish that even His judgment wasn’t quite clear. Have you been there? I have been there. To the place where you think you’re going to lose it. Where there’s such an imprisoning of your heart, of your soul, that even your judgment almost vanishes so that you don’t even know for sure who you are and what’s going on.I’m not talking about Wayne Weaver. I’m not talking about any other person  here. I’m talking about God. We had such a spirit of persecution and such a bias against this God that we almost robbed Him of His judgment. Think of the vileness of the human flesh, of the human man and what a man can do. How evil we can become that we can rob God, and we can oppress God, and we can put Him through stresses.

Who shall declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living. If there was any life to get, He was cut off from that. When you’re cut off the land of the living, that means the land that supplies the living this He was cut off from.
 Again, I’m not talking about a person in prison. I’m not talking about a person who went and killed people. I’m not talking about a murderer or a thief. I’m talking about God. A Holy God, A Righteous God. A Just God. He was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was He stricken. He went through this because of our transgression.

 This is the reality of what we bitterly cost Him, but it’s the amazing story. This is God. God took our punishment. God took all that was due to us. He took all our evil, our hate, all our dislike, all these things. He put it all on Himself and He lived through it. And He made His grave with the wicked. We didn’t even give Him an honorable grave. We put Him where the wicked die. And where they get their grave. He was not buried with the kings.

He had done no violence, neither was any deceit found in His mouth. He was for real. There was no deceit in Him. He wouldn’t pretend to be anything He wasn’t. From Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; And it put Him to grief. When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed and He shall prolong His days. And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.The main part—it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, and it put Him to grief. God, the Father in heaven, looked at Him, and He was pleased with that situation. Now that one I don’t understand. About all I know to say in this is that God saw that if I put Him through this, it suffices and pays for all those thousands of people. It pays for all those people sitting in this church who now don’t have to go through it. And it pleased Him that one man can bear all this for the entire world. And it pleased Him. Verse 11, He shall see the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied; By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities. There’s the plan. We shall see the travail of His soul. We see that he’s travailing. He’s crying. At Gethsemane He was shaking all over. He was sweating so hard and so strong that all at once, the sweat turned into blood. We saw him there in this travail of His soul. There were witnesses with Him.

Look at who this man was. I’m not talking about Charles Manson. I’m talking about the Holy Son of God. I’m talking about God. I’m not talking about the MS13 people who are slaughtering people. Who are cutting up people. I’m not talking about those vicious, vicious murderers. I’m not talking about the guilty who sit in prison because they’ve taken someone’s life. They’ve taken someone’s child from their parents and slaughtered them and killed them. I’m not talking about someone like that.I’m talking about the holy child Jesus, the Father of all glory, the creator of all things. How does wisdom look when it’s displayed like this? How is wisdom understood, how is knowledge perceived when it looks like this?In Colossians we read some more things. Colossians 1:15. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn of every creature. 16. For by Him were all things created. Understand this, for by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth. Visible and invisible. Whether they be thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, all things were created by Him and for Him. So, we notice that Jesus created all things, and He created them by Him and for Him. That’s what it says.Now in verse 17 it says, He is before all things and by Him all things exist. So, this Jesus, this man who the prophets just described, He is the one that contains everything. He is the one who keeps everything together. He is the one who is given the life-flow of all things. He is the one who has created all things. And now He walks here as a man. And look what we did with Him. I’m trying to paint a picture. And it’s a picture that’s not more extreme than what it really is in reality.Verse 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—or the supremacy. Jesus became the supreme human being in the form of a human man. But He was God. So that He could be, and have, the supremacy of the church, the body of Christ. So that the body of Christ would all be under His authority. Jesus being the King, Jesus being the head, is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. This man who walked here, who we misunderstood, we misinterpreted, who we took as an individual of extremely decayed human-nature with no earthly good. We took Him as one who had no real roots of any royalty in Him.This King today at this minute, this hour, is sitting at the right hand of the Father. And the purpose is so that He can be the head of the body of Christ that is still here.

Verse 19. For it pleased the Father, that in Him should all fullness dwell. So, all the fullness, anything that fulfills and is fullness by knowledge, by wisdom, by understanding, by counsel, and you name it. Joy, peace, love. All this is in the fullness of Him. But when He brought it here on earth, and presented it to us in shoeleather, it looked like I just described, according to the prophets.How does the wisdom of God come up with this kind of a description of a vehicle for God to walk in when He comes here? You see, it seems that God is not troubled by suffering. God is not troubled by being dismayed. By being cast-down. Even by being oppressed. He’s not troubled by this for Himself. But He is troubled when He sees others go through it.This is why He sent the forerunner that He would become all things so that the church could operate on an authority, and a power, that has never been before.This is part of the reason, I believe, that the Bible says among men born of women there was nobody of more importance or greater than John the Baptist. But then it says that the least among you in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist. The reason being because of the redemption and the salvation plan.

We understand that Jesus was the creator of all things. In Ephesians 3:9 we read some more. And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world was hidden in God who created all things by Jesus Christ. Here we go again, so He created all things by Jesus Christ. Now it’s referring to the beginning. Which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God. This truth has been hidden in God – that Jesus created all things.Verse 10, To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.Let’s go to Revelation 4:10. The four and twenty elders fell down before Him that sat on the throne. This is after the fact, at the end of all things. And worshipped Him for ever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying, thou art worthy, oh Lord, to receive all glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things. Here it is verified again. For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are created. Jesus has created all things. And everything is sustained by Jesus. And He has created all this for His pleasure.Then for the 33 years when He walked here, look at the displeasure that He walked through in order to fulfill His purpose. He created all things. He created principalities and powers. According to this, He even created Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. He created them. All for His pleasure.

In Psalm 148:2 and 5 and Nehemiah 9:6 we read that the angels were created. So, He created these three but one of them fell away. And He was called the old dragon, or the old serpent, later revealed on the earth as a serpent in a tree. But He was created, and it was for the pleasure of God’s intention.He spoke light to darkness and fullness and order to void and emptiness. It was at this one moment in all of time. If we go back now, while the earth lay in solemn wantonness, where everything seemed silent, hey were questioning whether they’ll ever see a Messiah.

Numerous times I stood in Bethlehem and saw the very hillside where this cloudburst of heavenly, holy angels came forth and proclaimed their message to all of this earth. They said, Glory to God in the highest and on the earth peace and goodwill to men when Jesus, the son of God, comes forth and walks in the very thing that the prophets have spoken. This is now the arrival of a King.Immediately within the unseen forces and with the other king, Herod, the challenge was felt. I believe it was a challenge because of the satanic influence that was upon Herod. Immediately he wanted to put an end to this other king because there was an eternal kingship and eternal priesthood that was bound up in this man who has just come to earth. His name will be called Jesus, and He will be born in a manger, and He will be in Bethlehem. He will be birthed out of a woman from Nazareth, and they called her name Mary. And here comes Jesus.

The Messiah of the world, the one who we only prayed to, we never really saw. But we heard and we have heard of things that He did. But the one that would be refused in His hour, in His day, naturally. It’s these angels who made the announcement through a star that was seen high in the heavens. It was several stars over top of each other, according to astronomy. It looks like at that point in time there could’ve been three stars lining up, including planets, for a several day period making one star look really, really, bright.It was only several years ago that we heard that these stars are possibly lining up again. One evening as I was leaving our church house on my way home, I thought there was an airplane in the west and I thought it was coming down. It was so low and so bright that I thought it perhaps wanted to land on the highway. And there’s nothing wrong with my eyes, I have good eyes except for close range.

I was looking and wondering what it might be. As it went down I thought it must’ve been a planet, but I’ve never seen a planet this bright. Later I found out it could’ve been those very same stars lining up again. I’m not saying that it was, but I saw there were three of them on top of each other, millions of miles apart looking at me. I saw the brightness of that and it lasted about three days.

 Tmight have been what the wisemen saw over in Ethiopia as they crossed through the deserts, traveling because they believed in some things they saw in scripture. But even before the wisemen came, there was already an informant to Herod, and the informant must’ve been something of satanic value influencing Herod to destroy this young man because He is a potential king, or He is the King. And so, He immediately put out the order. But they couldn’t catch Him. He went over into Egypt and that’s a whole story on its own.Why did Jesus have to go to Egypt? Why did the children of Israel have to go to Egypt? And there’s more to that. And the story goes, and the songs are written, to us a child is born. Beautiful star of Bethlehem shine on. We read in stories, and we sing songs around Christmas time about this that our Redeemer was born, and a Healer was born.

He was a world counsellor and the counsel of the whole world lay upon His shoulders. He was a good man, He was a sinless man, and He was from heaven. He was the Eternal Life and is the Eternal Life. He had perfect love. He was Perfect Love and man hates that. Man finds all kinds of fault with that. There’s never been a man so perfect, never so close to God. He was God. Never a man so wonderful. Never a man so powerful, so filled with love. And it was perfect love.  Never a man so misunderstood by human ideas. Never a man so rejected. So good a man, so bad a man. So bright a man, so dark a man. A perfect man. But not good enough. He was a perfect man. God saw Him, and He was pleased with Him. He loved Him, He loved His son. He opened the heavens at times and He even spoke to Him. And we killed Him. We took Jesus and we nailed Him to the cross. Because we found fault in this perfect man. What’s wrong with the human race? Think of it.Today we put people on trial who have caused murder. And there’s capital punishment in some states and laws that will not allow them to live any longer. But this man dies because of all His good. Because He was God. I mean think of this, people, He was God, He was not another man. He was God. And He was incarnate, and we couldn’t stand the man. We had all kinds of problems with this man.

What is with us human beings? It’s our own nature. It’s our common nature. It’s what we’ve been born with. We do not like good by nature. We do not love life by nature. We took the life of God! The One who created us. The One who has all promises, all understanding. Who knows every detail, who is everything, who is the creator of all things. And we took His life.I know, the story is He gave His life. Yes, He did give His life. He could’ve called 10,000 angels, and they would’ve come to His rescue, and He could’ve gone home. But He loved us deeper than that. He loved us so much, He could not spare His own life. He lost His life. But for the joy that was set in front of Him, He endured the cross. He despised the shame, and He was nailed to the cross for the church.Because in all His wisdom and all His knowledge, He saw a picture much more vast than one man. God walking in the form of a man. He saw a whole body behind Him that one day could sit with Him, could be His bride and be in heaven. He saw that picture. He saw into the distant future of all eternity and He said, I will not sit there alone. Because he’s created all things for Him and for His pleasure. He saw that He needs to make Himself a woman. A bride to be married to throughout eternity. He saw that picture, and He said, I’ll do what it takes because it’s for my pleasure. It’s because I love those people. I’d give my life for those people. I created them for me. I even made them look like me. I put eyes in their heads, and I put a mouth on their face, and I gave them a nose, and I put hair on their head. And if you read in the book of Revelation, we even look kind of like Him. But we look much better because He didn’t look so nice. He became the ugliest so that beauty could be His. He reached us. He reached out of all that despair, and He reached into our heart, and now He’s changed us to be called the body of Christ. Because He’s all knowledge, He’s all wisdom, and He is the counselor. He knows everything. He knows everything by design, all for His glory.

Today, we are the bride of Christ. We are the ones who have been blood-washed. we are the ones who have been blood-bought. We are the ones who come before His throne, and we are speaking to Him saying, Jesus, Lamb Of God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, I come to you and I give you my sins. I give you my problems, I give you my struggles. I give all those things that you have died for, Lord.

You were not esteemed when you were, but it was through this that you made me to be somebody that is higher. Someone that is important, and someone that you wanted in heaven, and you wanted to live with for the next millions and millions and millions and millions and billions and trillions and trillions and trillions of trillions and trillions of years. I want to live with these people. Because He saw a picture we didn’t.We saw a man, He saw eternity. We saw a problem, He knew He had life. Don’t think for one minute that Jesus didn’t die for you. Don’t think for one minute that Jesus didn’t love you, He loved you. He has a plan that is much broader than any paint brush we can paint with.He saw into the millions and millions and trillions of years that these are people I want by my side because there are some other things that we need to do. I want them because I love them. When I came to earth. I did not want to be married to one woman—I wanted to be married to the world of women, called the bride of Christ. So I made myself one.People, you’ve not fallen into a trap with Jesus. You’ve been rescued out of a trap. We are not trapped into a religion. We are not trapped, we’ve been caught up, and one day we will be caught up with Him in the air, and we will see Him. We will see Him as He is, and we will see that in the internal parts of our being, there is much character and much likeness in many ways because we will see Him as He is and we will also see that we have similarities.One of the things that He will have with His bride He has plowed every field that is necessary to make this bride pure so that she can be presented to Him without spot, without wrinkle, without any such thing. So that it might be told throughout all eternity that out of all of the corruption that you and I have faced in life, and have even touched and failed and have sinned and messed up our lives—even out of all that, He has the power to clean us through the blood of Jesus. Through the resurrection from the dead. He will take us and He will present us to Himself and He can say this is my people. This is my man. This is my woman. This is the one I will be married to for the rest of all eternity.

You know how I’ve been talking about parking in someone else’sparking spot and about not understanding authority. You know what we did? We parked in His parking spot. Think of all that was in Him. All the classified material that has been blessed on Him. He was many things that we don’t even know. Books could have been written about what all this man was. The world couldn’t even contain the books and the details of things that happened, even before He was here, and happened while He was here. The books could not contain this.There’s a huge legal document that is signed around the corners of the earth about who Jesus is and why He has so much power. Why He’s given the church so much power, but we robbed Him of all that He was. We did not see Him for who He was as the son of God. We did not look at Him as being God because He looked worse than we did. We brought judgment on Him and whispered about Him. We gossiped about Him. We spit in His face. Yes, we spit in God’s face! We even tore up His heavenly robe that was seamless. We criticized His perfect righteousness and said the man’s not good enough.He was God, and we disregarded Him in all things. In 1 Corinthians 12:27, it says, Now you are the body of Christ and members in particular. I want to talk about the church for a little bit here. I have 7 points about the church, the body of Christ. 1. They are the assembly and the splendor of the redeemed. 2.The company of Saints. 3. The children of God. 4. They are the most significant and powerful of all world History. 5. They are more than any other group, organization, or even nation. 6. The saints, called children of God, are a society that will always be. 7. They’re eternal souls; they’re aaints. They will never fade into the distant past, they will always be alive and always be strong and always be glorious because it is for His glory. None other have won the longest, deepest, and strongest battles on earth and yet remained faithful. It’s only the church.

When the Lord saved you, you became one of the saints. Those little battles that you face during the day, those temptations, those hard trials (seemingly). You are the ones that win them, and you will continue to win. You will win, and you will win. You will win, and even in death you will win. That’s because our head, the God of all gods, Jesus the only Christ, has given His life that we can have what He was. Those little battles that seem so tall. Those strong, blistering things that you endure, are just for a moment. But the church will go on. They will endure to the end because they are saved. They are protected from the wrath of God. They are protected from eternal flames. They will never go to hell. They will never live where the devil does. They are secure because of Jesus Christ.No others in the entire world, in all of history, have a full and complete representation at the throne of God like you and I do. He is awake at the midnight hour. He is open 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week, 365 days-a-year. He’s always there. He is always waiting. He is always listening, and He will hear a thousand cries at once. He will hear a million cries at once and He can hear a trillion. That works because He is all things. Your little problem is not too big for Him. He will give you His attention because He’s paid for it all. He loves you, mighty army of God. Be strong and faithful and endure to the end.We just all deserve to die, whether in battle, or whether in field. This one never deserved to die because He was God. We say like this, and I want you to take this serious, let’s look at how we have used Jesus when He was here.It’s easy for me to argue the point that if I would have been there in the day of Jesus, I probably would have been an exception because I would have never rejected Him. I want you to hear this last part of this message. I would not have ever rejected Him because I would have loved Him. Yet the Bible says without His love, we could never love Him. And by the way, His chosen disciples were invited by Him. He told some of them to leave their nets and come follow Him. He personally invited them, and they responded. I believe still to this day that without this personal invitation, we cannot follow Him. That’s what the Bible says, that we cannot come to Him unless He draws us. So then, here’s a big challenge, people. Here’s a really big challenge to the thought that we would never have used Jesus like this. That we would have been kind, we would have been sympathetic to Him because we would have pitied Him, a man that has such looks, to cause Him to be so rejected and so misunderstood. But understand in that line of thinking, we thought we understood Him because we didn’t accept Him as God. That part was somewhat disguised and could only have been received and believed by faith.

Here’s the test: how would we have treated Jesus if He had walked around us? Matthew 25:41, And then shall He say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And here it is, For I was hungry and He gave me no meat, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you took me not in, naked, and you clothed me not, sick and in prison and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer Him saying, Lord when saw we thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister unto thee? Then shall He answer them saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it unto me.

Never say that you would not have done it to Jesus, yet you have no problem doing it with one another. The Bible says if you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it to Me. I am the body of Christ, this is my body. The head’s up there in glory. The feet down here. We are the body.Think of this the next time before you criticize someone for their life, for their faith, for their walk. This is according to the Bible. It’s time we walk with each other in the way we would want to treat Him. We have the opportunity this moment, and the rest of our lives, to accept Jesus. We’ve accepted Him, but have we accepted the body? Have we accepted one another even though we don’t look alike, or might not even think alike? We might not even be alike but internally we are alike because we have the same God. We have the same Father with the same salvation.

It is interesting that the concluding factor between sheep, and those who are goats, is all found in these last verses. That the way you treat your brother or your sister, is the way you treat Him, and it defines the difference between the goats and the sheep. Sheep will always accept those who are living among the Shepherd, and the goats will reject them. It’s very interesting. Let’s take it as a very valuable lesson and may you begin to gain a greater understanding of how we’re to live.

See, we come from a religious-natured back ground, so we have all our—how should I say—channeled opinions and channeled ideas of how things should be. This is what the Pharisees did, they all had that same idea of who the Messiah should be but when He came, they never detected Him. I saw this truth about ministering to the body of Christ. It’s easy to pass an offering for someone very poor and to even send people into Muslim countries to help those who don’t believe in God Yahweh, but to minister to those who have Jesus has brought me the strongest opposition that I believe I have ever had. This is exactly what the Bible is saying. Remember those who are amongst you and have Jesus, and you fully know they have Jesus. That’s what Mary did. Mary poured her oil. She poured all she had upon the feet of Jesus. Jesus said wherever the gospel is preached, this is to be told as a memorial of her. I believe that it is simply saying, wherever we go, bless the Jesus in the lives of the others. Do not criticize Him, but bless Him. Amen.