Herbert W Armstrong

   When I say the word or the name Jesus, a certain image, a certain personality leaps into your mind and you instantly feel that you know who or what Jesus is? But what is that image that leaps into your mind exactly? What kind of personality? About how tall do you think he might have been as a man? What color hair? How long was it? How would his voice have affected you? Would he have been a tenor if he had sung in a choir, or a bass, or what? Which would you rather? What about skin and complexion, color of eyes? What about the date and the time of his birth, and why he came, and what he said, what his message was, and how he called his disciples, the manner in which he did it? How long he knew them before he said, "Come and I'll make you a fisher of men" to Peter? How much do you know that you can pass on to someone else just from hearsay, let's say, or from having read personal eyewitness accounts about a person called Jesus Christ to someone else?

   Now, I said back at the beginning of the Jesus movement, if you want to call it that, that the young people searching for a Jesus Christ of Nazareth, that I could hail, that I could definitely applaud the search for Jesus. But I put it this way, the young people in our society are turned off. They were and they are about society. They feel it is hypocritical, that it has double standards, that many old cherished traditional values are not worth even the time of day, that government is guilty of lying and double-dealing and chicanery and cheating. The values of our society that a lot of people over 40 or 50 hold dear are just not in the thinking and the minds of most teenagers and young people today.

   And so, by the millions, only a few years ago as the Jesus people movement began, young people began searching for a Jesus, the real Jesus. They didn't want some false Jesus. Well, I put it this way to those young people: since you feel that all of society is of double standards and is of no real value and is meaningless and has been hypocritical, why accept the establishment Christ? Could it be that you're making a mistake when you say the establishment has heard, has made a huge mistake in all of its law, in all of its jurisprudence, in its executive branch of government, in all of its history where the great Christian ethic nations have waged war and killed human beings by the millions? And yet you turn around and say this hypocritical establishment had the right Jesus all along? Or could it be that maybe the establishment Christ is not the right one?

   When you come to the subject of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, it seems people know less about him, about his personality, his message when he came, and all the rest of it, than they do about anything else in the Bible. They can't agree on the date of his birth, on the manner of his birth—one great church believes that even Mary was immaculately conceived, meaning that she was born without original sin—they can't agree on why he came. The Bible reveals why. They can't agree on what his message was. I think the average person believes Jesus came to save the world. Yet you would think that even average logical reasoning would tell you that he didn't do it then; it certainly wasn't saved in 325 A.D. or 610 AD or 1490 or 1776. It wasn't saved during World War I or World War II, and it isn't saved today. And by the actual exploding populations of the world, the rift, you might say, or the widening of the gap between those who are supposed to be saved and those who are not, has been growing wider and wider. So, there were the hundreds of millions of people growing on this earth in the giant nation of China, let's say, of Japan, of the many nations of Africa, 650 million in China, 450 million in India who are not Christian in the broadest sense of that word. Then there are more unsaved proportionately on the earth today than there were during the time Christ walked the earth. How can people reconcile this with belief in a powerful almighty God who is trying to save the world? It actually makes Satan the devil appear as if he is far more powerful than God. But there's a pulling and tugging match going on for you. You're the stakes. God is up here trying to pull you toward him, and the devil is down here holding your legs trying to pull you down to him. Who's winning? Who's winning? Maybe not in your case, but in the broad majority of all of humanity.

   Well, Jesus said a lot of things that people just do not believe. So, very quickly, I want to go through a few things that people seem to overlook. Here in the book of Hebrews, chapter seven and verse fourteen (Hebrews 7:14), it says, "It is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood." That's a tribe—Judah, a son of Jacob, one of the twelve tribes of Israel, from which comes the nickname Jew and Jewish. Judah, Jesus was a Jew. I don't know what some of the organizations are, but I happen to see a couple of pieces of literature over the past few years of the so-called American Nazi Party. I'm thankful to say that that's a very tiny little group, and maybe it's even disintegrated by now. I honestly don't know. But there are people who, with racism as their staff and standard, would absolutely hate to acknowledge that Jesus was a Jew, and yet the Bible says he was. Over in John 4 and verse 9 (John 4:9), there was a woman who was a Samaritan. The Samaritans were looked upon as a low caste in that society, not by Christ because you remember his example of the good Samaritan and how he showed that these very low-level pariahs of society would actually go further than the Pharisees in living up to the principles the Pharisees themselves stood for. But the woman at the well who said, "How is it that you, speaking to Christ, being a Jew, should ask me, a woman of Samaria, to draw water when the Jews don't have any dealings with Samaritans?" Well, Jesus didn't deny it. Not only that, but you can look into his genealogy through Joseph and Mary. You can look actually back into the book of Isaiah about a rod that should come out of the branch of Jesse, and Jesse was David's father. You can trace the genealogy of David right back to Judah, and you can prove that. Why should there be any remote doubt in anybody's mind in the entirety of so-called broad evangelical Christian ethic, the mainstream of Christian thought in the United States, that Jesus was a Jew? The Bible proves he was.

   Furthermore, he was an average everyday Jew of his time. He dressed just about like they all did. He was average size and height. The Bible plainly says that when you see him, there shall not be any form nor comeliness that we should desire him. It's back in the book of Isaiah. He would be a regular guy. So far as a man is concerned, you wouldn't be able to pick him out of a crowd. People couldn't. There are at least two times where huge crowds surrounded Jesus prior to his crucifixion when they wanted to kill him. When he said things that were so inflammatory to them, at least in their sins, that they wanted to kill him, it says, "And he passing through their midst passed by and so went out." So, Jesus looked like any average Jew of his day. You all know the account, surely, even by tradition, if you haven't read it in your own Bibles, about how Judas was paid the thirty pieces of silver, that he went out and bought the potter's field with—enough to buy a ranch, enough to set yourself up in business with. For what purpose? Why, to single out who Jesus was by a betrayer's kiss. By getting up close to him, close enough with the other men standing around that he could single out who Jesus was and so betray him for an illegal trial so he could be put to death.

   So, I said Jesus was a Jew, that he was an average, ordinary Jew of his day, and the Bible proves it—that he couldn't be picked out of a crowd. There was no halo and white robe, yet there was an expensive enough garment that Roman soldiers gambled over it and the undergarments as well, as the Bible says, right at the foot of the stake where he was affixed up there to die. I have said, and the Bible absolutely proves, that he was not born on or anywhere near December 25th, that he came to call his disciples to preach the gospel of the kingdom, to heal only as a witness and the proof of the authenticity of his Messiahship and of his office at that time, to qualify for the future King of the world, to die for the sins of the world—you and me and all of humankind. And the only way you can reconcile that in your mind is to understand that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the creator of all of humankind. You can prove that by just two chapters without anybody there to interpret a thing for you: the first chapter of Hebrews and the first chapter of John. It says, "The Word"—capital letter W—"became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his image like as unto the Son of Man who we touched with our hands." In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And all things were made by him, and not anything that was made was made without him. It says in the book of Hebrews that it was made in the exact similitude of God the Father—plain, simple scriptures.

   Well, there was a time when the great God Almighty divested himself and became of no report. And as the Bible says, "Counted equality with God not something to be grasped at and became fashioned in the similitude of man." If you can get that picture of the great God out in the blackness and the vastness of the universe who created a world, and one day knelt by a supreme bank and made himself a man with his own two hands and breathed into that man's nostrils the breath of life, and then in this vast plan later on came down to that same world to die for his own creation, I tell you, it opens up a picture. It opens up a grasp and an approach to the word of God in the Bible that is utterly unique. And it is not just some idea of a man, but it is a truth of God, that the God of the Old Testament that made Adam and Eve and was the rock that followed them in the wilderness, it says plainly that rock was Christ in I Corinthians 10 and verse 4 (I Corinthians 10:4).

   If you can understand, that the one that got down in the dust and wrestled with Jacob, and the one that called to Moses out of a burning bush, and the one that parted the Red Sea and cleansed the waters of Marah, and the one that did every great miracle of that day, that part of the Jordan and let the Israelites walk over dry shad, was the one who became Jesus Christ of Nazareth. How many people know that? But there it is: the first chapter of John, the first chapter of Hebrews. You don't need anybody to interpret that. You don't need me to do it because it just plainly says that that is a fact: "God, who at sundry times and in different manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom he made the worlds, the ages, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his"—the Father's—"person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."

   Over in the book of John, it talks about the great Jesus Christ of Nazareth who was the Word of God, the spokesman, the executive member of the Godhead, who did the commanding and said, "Let there be light." Here it is. It's in your Bible too, there at home, wherever you have it. In the beginning was the Word. The translators knew they ought to capitalize that. They knew out of the Greek that's what it's talking about. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything 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 comprehends it not. And that's the truth of God today. The light shines, it's there. It's like a laser beam that pierces down the heart of people a lot of time, but they try to get away from it. They try to dodge it. And I guarantee you Satan the devil, as your Bible says, has deceived all nations, has done his advanced work very well. Because just as the Bible says, "If he that cometh preaches another Jesus which we have not preached," or as the Apostle Paul talked about, "If Satan the devil himself is transformed as an angel of light, it is no great thing that his ministers also appear as the ministers of righteousness." And the Bible says that all nations have been deceived. The darkness does not comprehend the light. And it says, "He was in the world." Listen to this. You don't need it to be interpreted. "And the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. And as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." That's the first chapter of the book of John. It says the great God of the Old Testament who wrote the Ten Commandments with his own finger, he is the Jesus Christ of the New Testament. No wonder people are confused if they think that a young man came along to abrogate his Father's law when they don't realize Jesus of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. He said he came to reveal the Father. And he said before that time, the Father had not been revealed to people, that they saw the Father if they saw him. The Bible is not all that difficult a book to understand, as you can see by some of these scriptures. It says in verse 18, now that first chapter, "No man has seen God at any time." But what about Moses, who was allowed to look upon the hind parts of the person that spoke to him in the bush? What about Jacob, who wrestled with the being that he said, "I have seen God face to face"? He is talking of the Father, that no man has ever seen the Father at any time. The Bible is harmonious. It's sometimes like a mathematics problem. You take two or three scriptures that are very, very plain, incapable of misinterpretation, and you take one scripture that seems to be possibly a little contradictory, and you put them all together, and the plain ones interpret the other one. We don't interpret it. You don't interpret it. I don't. What you need to do is to let the Bible interpret itself.

   Well, the Bible is the most ancient witness. And Jesus Christ of Nazareth had some buddies, some friends. He called John his friend. He called his disciples his friends. And he said, "You are my friends if you do that which I command you." And he says you're not as a servant because a servant doesn't know what his Lord does. But I have called you friends. And he began to commission them to go out and to preach and teach. They ate and slept and walked and talked with him for three and a half years. Here is their eyewitness account. Here is the Bible. Here's the book of Matthew, who ate and slept and walked and talked with Jesus and sat at his feet and listened to him, was in the boat with him when he rode across to the other side, was at the tomb of the Gerasene's when he saw that wild man come out there, was at the place where the Samaritans wouldn't let him go into the village. He was there when he saw him get on the donkey and ride into Jerusalem. He was standing back there when he watched them rear that cross or that stake up into the air. And the rest of them were scared half to death when it got so black and the earth began to roll and shake and lightning coming down and realized that that head dropped and that Jesus had died. And he was there when he saw that same being with great wounds in his body, a great spear wound in his side. These same men said, "We cannot but speak the things which we had seen and heard." They were eyewitnesses. But we want to read books sometimes written by men who wrote books about men who wrote books about men who wrote books about the Bible. And this is the most ancient witness: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You know, a few years ago, a survey in the United States proved that somewhat less than 50% of the people in this country could even name Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in that order, could even tell you what the Gospels are. They never read them apparently, they go to church. Somebody picks out a text, one verse, "Jesus wept," something of this nature, talks about it, maybe throws in a little bit of poetry. There are some beautiful speakers that do things like that. What about getting into the Bible and see what that is? Jesus Christ said, "I am the way." He said, "There is only one name given under heaven whereby men may be saved." And last night, I showed that he's interested in saving people alive, that he said the day is going to come when, except God would cut short those days, there wouldn't be a man, woman, or child left alive on the face of this earth.

   Back in the book of Luke, in the 13th chapter, in verses three and five (Luke 13:3, 5), Jesus talked of a sensational mass murder that those people knew about during that day. They were present at that time. Some that told him reminded him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. These people up at Galilee were sacrificing a lot of oxen or bullets, and some of Pilate's Roman soldiers caught them at it, and they weren't supposed to do it apparently. And they were all slain right there. And they told him about that. And Jesus answering said unto them, "Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners. They were the objects of God's wrath. God looked down from his heavenly armchair and said, 'I want those men killed.' You suppose that they were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things. I tell you no. But except you repent, you shall all likewise perish." Time and chance and circumstance happens to us all. He went on to say, "All those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them." They were sitting there one day, just kind of fat and sassy and happy, and all of a sudden this great old ancient wall up there—nobody had any knowledge of it—and a whole segment of it came loose and smashed. Now you sit in front of your television set, and you see some awfully horrible things. I don't want to have to look in my TV set and see people plummeting out of hotel windows. That burned itself into my mind, that horrible fire down in New Orleans. I put my head over in my lap and I absolutely wept. I couldn't stand it. It really did get to me. I'm sorry. But I'm enough of a soft-hearted human being down inside there someplace, I guess, that I don't like to watch a human being die. But the newscasters seem to feel that if it's happening, it's news. So, you got to see it. Well, there was this terrible hotel building blazing in New Orleans, and these poor people trying to cling for the last moment on these window sills, and you would see them plummeting to the ground, and it was just more than you could stand.

   Well, we live in a time of assassinations, of sensational mass murders: Richard Speck and the eight Chicago nurses, Juan Corona and about twenty-five itinerant workers, the fellows down in South Texas—that macabre scene of a combination of homosexuality and even cannibalism of many, many people buried in shallow graves in the sand down there near Corpus Christi somewhere, the fellow, the sniper in the Texas tower. We know just like today, if Jesus were walking the earth today, you could come and say, "There were those who told him, 'Well, what about, Lord, since you're talking about life and death and the hereafter and how to live and how to stay alive and about protection, what about these poor people Juan Corona beat to death and hacked to death? Why did they die?'" He would turn to you and he would say, "Do you suppose that those itinerant farm workers were worse people than you are, that God singled out for some special zap, some special object of his own wrath, because they were just so terrible they didn't deserve to live?" And he would tell you, "I tell you no. But except you repent, you shall all likewise perish." Time and chance and circumstance happens to us all. I don't believe in "fear" religion. I don't believe God does. I believe He believes in love religion and mercy religion. I believe God says, "I want mercy and not sacrifice," because he does say that, that He wants mercy. He wants justice tempered with mercy. He wants to shovel out and to give mercy. He wants to forgive. He doesn't want to condemn. But he says, "Except you repent, you will all likewise perish." Time and chance and circumstance happens to us all. It is given to all men to die once. And when Jesus came to this world, he said, "You've got to repent." And what does repent mean? Repent means you've got to be sorry. It means deep down inside you've got to come to that time in your life where you know where you stand in the sight of God. Not just some, some strange document, some strange argument, some doctrine, some idea that "all have sinned" and come short of the glory of God is just mumbo jumbo, a few scriptures that don't mean anything to you. But a deep personal realization that you desperately need to live a different kind of a life, that you need God, and that you need Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I don't tell you to repent; Jesus Christ does. He told me to, and he still does every single day.

   I'll tell you there's a Psalm that means a great deal to me. Back in the book of Psalms, after that very lengthy 119th, and I turn to that and look at it. I'm going to apply this to every one of us here tonight because I think it applies to all of us, very definitely. In Psalm 130 verse three (Psalm 130:3), it says, "If thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, if he started to walk among us with a writer's inkhorn and a pen and just make a check mark on all of our foreheads as to those that had iniquity and sin that they needed to repent of, if thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who should stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. I wait for the Eternal, my soul waits, and in His word do I hope." The God that gives you every breath of air you breathe, who presides over every beat of your heart, who causes the vegetables to grow in the ground and causes the process of osmosis to create the very life-giving oxygen you breathe, that God tells you, you've got to repent, that you've got to change your entire approach and attitude toward your fellow human being. If there's anything God hates, it's a lofty, sarcastic, sardonic look. He says in the book of Isaiah that the time is going to come when the lofty looks of man are going to be brought down. And he says, continually in that chapter of Isaiah, that he wants people to change their entire way of life. In this chapter, he says, "Hear ye the word of the Eternal, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear unto the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah." And he says, "Wash you, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do well." A little later on, he says, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. They shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land." So meaningful to us right now, today, as we enter the greatest national climax, the greatest national trauma since World War II, a test of our national character and of individual character. And if we don't have God to see us through this test, we're surely going to fail it. And he says, "If ye refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword, for the mouth of the Eternal has spoken it." And in the next chapter, the eleventh verse, he says, "The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Eternal alone shall be exalted in that day."

   Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the real Jesus, is a completely different personality than the one you always heard about. And he's the one in your Bible. And Garner Ted Armstrong doesn't have any private corner on that knowledge, and that is not my knowledge. It's not my information. I had to read it and get it out of here, and I didn't have to pervert it or twist it or misunderstand it or misapply it or misinterpret it. All I had to do was read it and come to understand that there's a great blazing figure up there, sitting at the right hand of God, that is on a countdown from heaven. And he said he's going to come again to this earth. And that begins to get right down inside of me and make me realize there's something he's telling me to do. He's got the power and the say-so over my life and my eternity and over yours too. Jesus is telling you, you've got to repent. The question that you answer as you sit, you reason and you think, is whether or not you will. You can. He knows you can, and I know you can. The question is, will you?

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