JESUS IS REAL
Matthew 2:10,11; 17:1-7; Acts 5:29-32
My impression is extremely simple, very fundamental: it is that Jesus is real. Someone said to me a week ago that Jesus was real. Their daughter had been to Palestine and she had done the usual guided tours, then had come back and said to her parents that Jesus was real. But she missed the point. Jesus is real. The truth of that and the substance of it and the proof of it, you could say, is resident in the hearts of millions of persons. In fact over the past two thousand years probably tens and tens of millions of persons have known, and know, that Jesus is real. The vast majority of these persons have never been to Bethlehem, they have never been to Palestine, they have never seen all these historical sites, but they know the present reality of the fact that there is a Man in heaven. To them, Jesus is real. And the reason they know that He is real is because they have a personal relationship with Him, they know Him in a personal living way, they know Him as the One who has been here, the One who has walked here and did all these things that we can read about in the Bible. Two thousand years later, we can speak about Him as knowing Him because He is a Man in heaven, One who has been into death, One who has risen from the grave, One who has won the victory over death and the grave, One who has ascended. He is the Man we know.
What was said to me spoke to my heart of the simplicity of the One who is real, the One who came here as a Babe laid in a manger. When these magi saw that star, it says that they “rejoiced with exceeding great joy”. I think the lives of these magi would have been changed; they opened their treasures and offered Jesus gifts – gold and frankincense, and myrrh. There was One before them who was the Saviour of mankind, the One who was going to fulfil everything that God had in mind for man, the One who came here to express God’s heart of love in all its greatness and yet He came into this world in the form of a Babe. Even at that point, the Lord Jesus was rejected, that small Babe in a manger. Here we are all these years later and we live in a world which is still exactly the same, a world where there is apathy towards Christ; in many places there still is rejection of Christ. But nevertheless, the testimony to Him has gone on over these past two thousand years, it has gone on in power, it has gone on in a living way and it has gone on because it involves a Man who is living and His life is known in the hearts of persons. Is it known in your heart, is it known in my heart? As His life is known in our hearts, it brings about change; there is something seen in persons as they have to do with a Man in heaven.
What struck me in the next passage I read is that Peter said, “If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles”, but then the Father’s voice was heard “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight: hear him”. “This” is in italics for emphasis. What a voice that was! It was the acclamation of God the Father about His beloved Son, “in whom I have found my delight: hear him”. So as far as God is concerned, there is one Saviour, one voice, one way and here the Father was bringing before the disciples the distinctiveness and uniqueness of the Lord Jesus in all His greatness and all His glory. There is a personal touch here which I think would have emphasised the reality of the One in whose presence they were, the One with whom they had to do. “And Jesus coming to them touched them”. Think of that – the Lord Jesus personally touched them and they would have had a real sense of His reality and His love, and also His glory. The Lord Jesus stands out in all His glory as the One who is distinct, the One who is unique, the One who in Himself is a divine Person, and there He was before them. Think of these words; “be not terrified”. So they could lift up their eyes and see the Lord Jesus there as He said to them, “be not terrified”. At that point, they would have had a sense of peace as they had to do with Christ in all His greatness, and as well as His greatness, His accessibility. He was accessible and He was available to them. He is still the same Jesus and He is still accessible; He is still available now.
I know that this is not a gospel preaching but nevertheless this is the impression I have, that Jesus is real. He is to be real to our hearts, and if there is anyone here who is in doubt, maybe someone perhaps a little discouraged, I think it would lift our hearts to have a view of the One who is real, the One who can fill our hearts. When He does that, He fills us with a sense of divine love and that in turn would give us peace and rest and stability.
Where I read in the Acts, it says “And we are his witnesses of these things”. So if something is real to your heart and you know it to be real, then there must be some proof, there must be evidence and the evidence is in hearts, in persons who have been changed and have come to know the Lord Jesus in that way. These persons become witnesses. As we have to do with the Lord Jesus, we can know what it is to be able to be witnesses to Him. You might ask, ‘What does it mean to be a witness?’. Perhaps we would get an idea of what that would mean at the beginning of John’s epistle, because there it says, “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes; that which we contemplated, and our hands handled, concerning the word of life; (and the life has been manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness…)”, 1 John 1:1. That would involve what was substantially seen in the apostles, and there was evidence of it. The Holy Spirit would make that good in hearts now, He would make the reality of it good so it would be a real thing to us to have to do with a glorious Man, the One whom we can know as Saviour, the One whom we can know as Lord, the One whom we can know every minute of the day, every day of the week as a Friend. John said, “we have seen with our eyes”. You might ask ‘How can you speak about that now?’, but the Holy Spirit would give us the eyesight to see the Lord Jesus. He would lift our eyes to see Him by faith where He is now in all His glory. In a soon coming day, we will see Him in actuality and then it will be entirely real in every sense of the word, and yet in the meantime the Holy Spirit would make Jesus real now in our affections.
Where I read in the Acts, it says, “Him has God exalted by his right hand as leader and saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins”. What a message that is! That message went out from persons who had known what it was to be the recipients of it, to have been affected by it. They went on to become witnesses of it and that is how the testimony spread. Well, we can each have our part in that, as we become witnesses to the greatness of the Lord Jesus and all His glory and all His love; then we can have our part in the testimony too. The Holy Spirit would have in mind that the reality of that would be seen in persons as they go about their lives here.
Well, that was my simple impression – that not only was Jesus real, but Jesus is real. May He bless the word.
Word in a meeting for ministry, Grangemouth
17 December 2019
Phil Hogan