Messages from Pastor Leo

October 15,2007

    We learn from history that John lived longer than any of the other disciples, and that he wrote his gospel years after the fact.  The reason he wrote after the fact was that, as with any true thing from God, if the devil can’t stop it, then he begins to join it and counterfeit it.  And just like today in Christianity where there are all kinds of different branches, denominations, and abominations, and all sorts of people that say that they’re “in Jesus,” but say and do many things which are contrary to the written word – so it was in John’s day.

    So John writes and says, “I was there.  I touched Him, I handled Him, I spoke with Him, and I am going to set the record straight.”  That’s the purpose of John’s gospel – to set the record straight.  He tells us right off, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.”  John 1:1-2   And he tells us again in the very last sentence, “these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”  John 20:31   John was once and for all putting in their place the doubters and the devil and those who would corrupt the church.  He knows that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ.  Jesus is the one who fulfills over 300 prophesies of the Jewish scriptures.

    Yet, there are still those today who claim to be Christians, but who dispute the facts.  Let’s see how simple we can make it for them.

    “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”  John 1:3-4   The Bible teaches that Jesus is the creator of all things.  Now, listen to me carefully, it’s going to almost sound silly when I say this, it’s going to sound simple - but that’s because when you’re born again, you have the spirit of God giving you discernment.  And because it is this simple: if Jesus is the creator of all things, that means that He isn’t created.  Let me say it again, if Jesus is the creator of all things, that means that He isn’t created.

    He isn’t a created being as the Mormons teach; He’s not a created being as the Jehovah Witnesses teach.  If Jesus is the creator of all things then He can’t be created himself, because He created all things.  Very simply, what this means is that Jesus is God in human flesh, just as John tells us.

    And that’s the difference that we, the Christian church based on the foundation of the Bible, believe - that’s the difference between us and all other religions.  We claim that the Bible teaches clearly that Jesus is the Christ, or the Messiah, as prophesized in the Jewish scriptures, but He is also God incarnate, God in human flesh, and no one else - no one else - teaches this but us.  And it’s the measure by which we discern whether or not all other philosophies and religions are true.

    The Bible is true.  Jesus Christ is God.  You’ve just got to keep reading to see this truth repeated again and again throughout scripture:  “He was in the world, and the world was made by him.” John 1:10   “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the ministry, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ”. Ephesians 3:9   “God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets.  Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things (What’s it say?) “by whom also He made the worlds.” Hebrews 1:2

    Jesus is God and He created all things.  Period.  The Bible makes it very clear.  You just have to read it for yourself.

May The Lord Jesus Christ Be Magnified!

Pastor Leo A. Giovinetti