The revelation of Jesus Christ must involve much more than mere name recognition, or an assent to historical, scriptural facts. It includes who He is and what He has done, and what He stands for, and an intelligent acknowledgement of Him as our Creator first, our Savior, and our King, in this specific order of priority, for where there is no recognition of a Creator, a Redeemer becomes unnecessary. This is the reason why the everlasting gospel, as given in the last book of the Bible deals squarely with the issue of worship, for many people worship Christ as Redeemer and Lord, but not as Creator.
Thus it is that the entire Bible, from Genesis to the book of Revelation, is a continuous and increasing revelation of Jesus Christ, in His different roles, His different activities, and the different aspects of the gospel, which are pertinent to the different eras of history through which the human family have come. For instance, beginning with the very first verses of the first chapter of the Bible, the revelation of Jesus Christ begins to unfold. It speaks eloquently of Him in His capacity of Creator of the heavens and earth, and the following texts clearly demonstrate this first and very important point. Let’s read:
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Anywhere we see those two words “God said”, in most instances it’s Jesus Christ being referred to, for He is The Word, and thus, the audible voice of The Godhead. This fact is also clearly stated and corroborated in many passages of scripture, so as to leave no wiggle room in our minds as to His preeminence.
The reason why this first point is so very important is because some Christians in our day praise, and worship Jesus Christ, the God of the New Testament for His tender mercies and compassions, whilst the God of the old testament is sometimes viewed as being very strict in His dealings with us mortals. This erroneous view, the scriptures seek to correct, for the God of the Old and New testament is one and the same, Jesus Christ. Let’s read:
John 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me.
47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?
1st Corinthians 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Exodus 3:4 And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
14 And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.
Now that Jesus has addressed His own statement of fact about who He is, we can safely move on to the revelation of Jesus Christ as it pertains to what He stands for. God’s people have always been on the move, because just as truth is progressive in nature, Christ also made known His will in different stages, and various increments, as His people were able to understand, and appreciate His wise, intelligent and good purposes towards the human family.
The scriptures clearly state that the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more until the perfect day, therefore, in harmony with His method of incremental revealing of knowledge, God permitted His people to do things in times past that were absolutely not His ideal will. But then as time progressed, greater light concerning those issues was shed upon their pathway, and just as truth is progressive, the inhabitants of earth were required and expected to walk in the advancing glory of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Let’s take for instance the world renowned Bud light, Johnny walker black, red, red wine, and all other alcoholic beverages. Let’s read:
Genesis 9:20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
Genesis 19:30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.
31 And the firstborn said unto the younger”….
32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him”…
33 And they made their father drink wine that night”…
Genesis 27:24 And he said, Art thou my very son Esau? And he said, I am.
25 And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat: and he brought him wine and he drank.
Deuteronomy 14:26 And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household.
Even though Christ did not sanction the use of these alcoholic products, yet He obviously permitted folks to ingest them. But by the third and fourth book of the Bible, Christ begins to reveal incrementally, that He is not in favor of the use of alcoholic beverages, and what He stands for on this issue begins to come down in clearer and clearer terms. Beginning with the priests and those who handle sacred things, His revelation on the issue of alcohol become plain, to the point where it is written down as a statute. Let’s read:
Leviticus 10:9 Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations:
10 And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean.
Here Christ hints at the fact that one’s judgment becomes impaired with the use of alcohol, to the point where it becomes quite difficult to distinguish between the sacred and the common. But its only later on that He begins to reveal, in no uncertain terms, the adverse results of this age old habit of drinking. In the book of Proverbs, Christ lays out in the plainest language what becomes of the drunk, with the hope that the additional information about cause and effect will then cause earth’s inhabitants to reason soberly, and make those choices that are commensurate with sound judgment. Let’s read:
Proverbs 20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Proverbs 31:4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:
5 Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.
Proverbs 23:29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
Thus, as God’s will was fully revealed, and the dire effects of drinking alcohol were greatly exposed, Christ required and expected that people cease and desist from the age old habit He once permitted, for now, they were to reason from cause to effect, and thus make those decisions which were in harmony with His will. And if for any reason, the inhabitants of earth were to persist in the same wrong course of action, as they had done, prior to receiving the additional information, then the same activity that was once permitted, now became a sinful one, and terrible judgments were leveled against both the participants and perpetrators alike. Let’s read:
Isaiah 5:11 Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!
12 And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands.
13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge”….
14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
The same method of incremental revelation of Jesus Christ also takes place in the arena of worship, for anciently, folks worshipped Him, albeit through the medium of idols and symbols. This He permitted for a time, but He soon began to correct the warped misunderstanding of the issue of worship. When Aaron made the golden calves, he did not tout the consequent celebration as idolatry, but rather as a feast to the Lord. Christ then made it very plain that what He stands for, and what the people did, was crisscrossed.
And thus, after making His will abundantly plain by incremental revelations, He absolutely proscribes any counterfeit to the contrary, and ends in the book of Revelation with severe judgments against those who deliberately choose to do otherwise. Let us observe the pattern of His tolerance for a while, then making His will known, and then the adverse consequences which will befall those who persist. Let’s read:
Genesis 31:34 Now Rachel had taken the images, and put them in the camel's furniture, and sat upon them. And Laban searched all the tent, but found them not.
35 And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me. And he searched but found not the images.
Genesis 35:2 Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments:
3 And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.
4 And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand”… “and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.
Exodus 32:2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord.
6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
Acts 17:16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness”….
There is a false gospel being perpetrated now which has absolutely nothing to do with the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and it has now evolved to include such issues as global warming, income inequality, climate change, social justice, and many other such things, which are, in and of themselves good, but which do cause Christ to be shrouded in a maze of temporal concerns, so that the issues, the book of Revelation calls upon us to focus squarely on, is entirely lost upon the minds of the multitudes. This false gospel, together with the false Christ to which it points, was pointed out by the apostle Paul, with the hope that those who live in the last days of earth’s history would be enabled to distinguish clearly between the true and the false. Let’s read:
2nd Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
We will now focus squarely on the revelation of Jesus Christ, as brought to light in the last book of the Bible, for this is the Jesus that we will all have to meet and answer to, one day soon. In order for any person to worship Christ as Creator, we will need to worship Him on the day that is set aside for that specific purpose, and there is one, and only one law in the Decalogue which clearly designates Christ in His capacity as Creator, and therefore enjoins the worship that is in harmony with that great fact. Let’s read:
Exodus 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.
The word “Worship” is mentioned no less than eight times in revelation chapters 13 and 14, and the next event to take place after the spiritual dust has settled is the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven. So no conscientious person who reads those two chapters can avoid the conclusion that the final issue to be decided on our planet, is not global warming, but worship.
As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why we are now witnessing an unprecedented upheaval in the political realm, with no viable explanations for the phenomena, is because the issue of true worship is about to take center stage, and when it does, it will quickly wind down the probation of all of earth’s inhabitants, thus ushering in the new kingdom of glory, which the prophet Daniel spoke about. Let’s read:
Daniel 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
Revelation 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
This is not rocket science folks; the deciding issue being spoken of in these verses is obviously one of worship. The repetition of the word worship draws our attention to two distinct groups of people, into which the entire world will inevitably be divided and thus it is our decision to choose whether to worship Jesus Christ as Creator of heaven and earth, or to worship the beast via the substitute day of rest, just so that we may retain our economic privileges. This final decision no one will be able to escape, hence the reason why the Bible presents an urgent plea to all of earth’s inhabitants. Let’s read:
Revelation 14: 6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation”….
11 “And they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
And then, after the issue of worship has been finally decided in the mind of each person; after the choice is made to worship Jesus Christ as Creator, or give one’s support to the dragon and the beast, via the substitute day of rest, then the next thing to occur is not long years of global peace and security, with no more climate change or global warming, but the ushering in of the 2nd coming of Christ as King, to render unto every man according to their decisions. Let’s read:
Revelation 14:14 And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
16 And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.
17 And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
Jeremiah 25:32 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.
33 And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.
34 Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock”..
Excerpts from Pope Francis radio address, Vatican radio, August 15, 2015: “We must never be slaves to work but rather its master.” Nevertheless, “We know that millions of men and women, even children, are slaves to work. The obsession with economic profit and technical efficiency puts the human rhythms of life at risk” “Moments of rest, especially on Sunday, are sacred because in them we find God. The Sunday Eucharist brings to our celebrations every grace of Jesus Christ”. May we always recognize the family as the privileged place to understand, guide and sustain the gifts which arise from our celebrations, especially the Sunday Eucharist”.
In closing there is an important and urgent question we must ask ourselves: Could it be that we are on the brink of what John the Revelator spoke about, and if so, could it be that the counterfeit brand of worship is soon to be enforced, under various guises such as faith, family, and social justice? There are two, and only two clear choices before our faces, and our decisions on this issue will ultimately determine our eternal destiny. We therefore end with two passages of scripture, one which raises the prospect that many individuals who worship Jesus Christ only as savior, will be lost eternally, if no decided changes are made. And the next passage brings to light the sacredness of God’s original 7th day Sabbath, which according to the scriptures, will be perpetuated throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity. Let’s read:
Matthew 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Isaiah 66:22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.
23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.
God bless!