Daily Devotional for Tuesday December 31, 2013
If Jesus is Not God We are All Dead in Our Sins and Most Sad Amongst Men
(John 1:1, 1 Corinthians 15:14, 17)
***ASK BILL: Pastor Bill, I was flipping through the channels the other night and came across Joel Osteen preaching. What do you suppose blinds so many (obvious in the stadium) people to his "feel good" preaching?
ANSWER: Sadly, the better percentage of the past 2 generations have never even been to church, and those who have, are mostly in churches that water down the Truth. We live in an age of Biblical illiteracy where people are fed sermons to make them feel good for an hour, and Osteen is the king of the "feel good," "motivational" preachers!
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1
If Jesus is not God, we are all dead in our sins and most sad amongst men! I am not shocked that 1 out of 3 professing Christians don't believe in the deity of Christ. Let me say this right up front that there is nothing more critical to the Christian faith than this issue. If Jesus is not God, then the best He could have done was go to the cross and die for his own sins, which means you and I are both still dead in our sins and lost for all eternity. YOU CANNOT DENY THE DEITY OF CHRIST AND BE A CHRISTIAN!!!
Forgetting all of their other false and perverted doctrines, this is the reason the Jehovah Witnesses are a cult and going to hell, and this is the reason Glenn Beck and the Mormons are a cult and going to hell. They both deny the deity of Christ!!! Again, if Jesus is not God, then our faith is in vain and everything we believe is a lie!!!
Scripture is FULL of passages that testify to the deity of Christ. As a matter of fact, the very statement the Jewish leaders of His day used to justify His death was when Jesus said that "I and the Father are one," a clear reference that HE WAS GOD! It may be difficult for our finite minds to comprehend, but Jesus was 100% man AND 100% God at the same time!
He was God who left the glories of Heaven to walk this earth as a mere man. He was born of the Holy Spirit, thus not infested with the sin you and I inherited from Adam, lived a sinless life, making it possible for Him to go to that cross and give His life as the perfect one-time sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.
This brings up another false belief held by many, and that is that Jesus sinned during His life. Again, the Bible in many passages confirmed He indeed DID live a sinless life, since once again, if Jesus sinned then the best He could have done was go to the cross and die for His own sins, not yours and mine!
In this same vein, the self-appointed Muslim activist group with ties to terror groups, CAIR, is now pushing the notion that Jesus was a Muslim. They are simply cashing in on the fact the better percentage of 2 full generations have never been to church, and those who do are for the most part Biblically illiterate and don't even believe what the Bible says.
Now do you see why I take such a hard stand on the Joel Osteens, the Rick Warrens, the TD Jakes of the world? I blame these men and other so-called Christian leaders who have compromised the faith for their own agendas, as well as the vast majority in the Christian media who have extracted themselves from the marketplace to reap the temporal benefits of this world by preaching to the choir!
It is the compromised preaching of our day, along with the seeker/purpose driven/emerging church/prosperity gospel marketing strategies that try fill church pews with warm bodies instead of converts to the faith by selling a watered-down and politically correct account of the Gospel and God's Word to not offend anyone. That is why you have so called churches that accept sins like homosexuality, abortion, and would actually support a man to lead this nation who is an enemy of God based on his words and deeds.
THAT IS WHY WE NOW HAVE AT LEAST ONE THIRD OF PROFESSING CHRISTIANS WHO BELIEVE JESUS IS NOT REALLY GOD!!!
I love you and care about you so much. Days like today remind me how much work there is to do. I truly believe most churches need to pull out their first grade Sunday School curriculum and start preaching from it. What children used to be taught at home by their parents, the most basic truths of our faith, many professing Christians don't even know. How can you even be saved and not believe in the deity of Christ???
I am starting to think that in addition to the marketplace where the lost live, I need to go to the church of today since there are probably just as many people sitting in pews who have never even been saved! The amazing thing is, the church doesn't want to hear from Bill Keller. It considers me too extreme. Pastors email me all the time and tell me to "tone it down," to "be more positive like Osteen," that "people don't want to hear about sin."
I submit to you that it is the gutless and compromised preaching in the VAST MAJORITY of our so-called churches today, that is responsible for one third of professing Christians not even believing the most basic tenet of our faith...that Jesus is God!!!
In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller