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Jack Hibbs: There's nobody else in the Bible where the Bible says that you must bow and confess his name. For the Bible says it is at the name of Jesus Christ that every knee will bow, both angelic and human.

David J.: This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David J., thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible.

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On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack begins a new series called "The Life and Times of Jesus Christ" and a message titled "Christ and Eternity." This is a series about who Jesus really is—not the Jesus of popular opinion, but the Jesus of the Bible, God himself, who was sent into our world. We'll begin where he began: before time itself ever was.

You see, we live in a generation that prides itself on knowing more—more than anybody in the past. Yet, we have less and less of the truth coming to light. The world is uninformed about who Jesus really is, and sadly, so much of the church is too. But knowing him changes everything. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that when the Bible calls Jesus the Son of God, it means he is fully God, equal with the Father. It's at his name, and his name alone, that every knee will one day bow and confess that he is Lord. Now, with his message called "Christ and Eternity," here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: No one has ever been able to determine how is it that those little things keep their orbit at a certain distance and don't collide into each other and are so wonderfully ordered and they don't fly apart. It's a mystery that they don't fly apart. Did you know that if we were to reduce this pulpit, it would be a little speck of dirt on the platform here if we were to remove all the space between the physical matter that's here? You are looking at it, your eyeballs see wood, but there is more space between the wood than there is wood.

That's a scientific fact. You look and you go, I don't believe what you just said because all I see is wood. I know that's all you see, but there is more what you can't see than what you can see. Isn't that weird? And if you were to remove the space of what's between these wood molecules, this pulpit would be about a quarter of an inch tall and I would be very small. Isn't that a wild thing? He is over all of these little atoms. He holds them together. Who does? Jesus. He's the atomic glue. Who says? Bible says. God says.

He's over the physical creation. He watches over it. He's orchestrated, he put it into motion. It's us, man, that tampers with things. You know, I had this weird thought. It's just one of those weird thoughts. I recently was in New York City, and you look at all the cement that's on Manhattan, the island, what you and I visually would say is New York. It's just a little island. All the concrete rises, if you'd put it together, miles and miles and miles into the sky.

And I was thinking, gosh, all this weight, all this stuff was taken from some other place and was stacked on one island and lifted up, all of these buildings. And you would think, wouldn't that throw the world off on its rotation? Everything is so perfect that if we moved the sun five miles closer, just five miles—you know the sun is 93 million miles from here—and if we moved the sun five miles closer, we would all melt right now. In eight minutes, we would melt. If you moved the sun five miles further away, in eight minutes, we would freeze to death.

Isn't that weird? So if we build all that stuff in New York, doesn't it throw the earth off on its very specific rotation? No, Jesus is holding it together. And by the way, if you read 1st Peter, he's going to tell you what's going to happen. Peter says in the end Jesus is going to let go. He's going to say, "All right, I'm going to relax." And it says that the elements will bombard, collide one to another, and it says that the universe will begin to melt with a fervent heat. Why? Because Jesus is going to relax his grip. That's how much control he has.

Don't you just want to sing him a song? Don't you want to say thank you, Lord, for holding things together? Did you notice how beautiful yesterday was and it looks like today's starting out just like it? It was perfect outside. And because I was preparing this message, I went out there and I said, "Thank you, Lord. Thank you." I love what the Bible does to my heart and your heart. It causes you to think differently. Last night, as I think it was Saturn was setting, it's the big bright star in the summer sky in these evenings. As it begins to set, the beauty of that thing—thank you, Lord. You're so great. Isn't that exciting? It's so wonderful. Jesus is holding it all together.

Let's keep going. It also says in Colossians chapter 1, verse 15, that he's the firstborn over all creation. That word simply means the preeminent one, the architect, the orchestrator. He's the one. It doesn't mean that he was born and had a beginning. He's pre-existent as we saw. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 26, tells us, "Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number," that is the stars of the sky. "He calls them all by name." Isn't that great?

"By the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one of them is missing." The Bible says that Christ in Isaiah 40, verse 26, has named the stars. He calls them out by name. He orchestrates them. He's the architect. Pluto, come out. Pleiades, come out. Orion. Job tells us that he calls Orion, Orion. Isn't that great? We caught up to the fact. Job, the oldest book—by the way, Job's the oldest book in the world, did you know that? It's in your Bible. Oldest book ever to have been written in the world. Oldest book in your Bible is the book of Job.

Job says that he calls out Orion, the constellation, and that God alone has orchestrated the Mazzaroth, Job tells us. The Mazzaroth, that's the Hebrew word for what Nebuchadnezzar polluted. When Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem captive, he took the Mazzaroth because it had 12 constellations in it and it described the deliverance of mankind. In the Mazzaroth, Nebuchadnezzar, who was pagan, didn't like it and he changed it and in its meaning put the Babylonian name to it called Zodiac. That's Babylonian.

See, you know one Babylonian word: Zodiac. It means the 12 constellations. That's why there's a Virgo. It's not Virgo, it's the maiden, it's the virgin that gives birth to the Son. Leo—it's not Leo, it's Judah. The lion from the tribe of Judah is Jesus Christ. That's why the Bible says in Galatians that God preached the gospel to Abraham. How did he give it to Abraham? In the heavens, the Mazzaroth, that 12 wonderful announcements in the sky to early Abraham. God's redemptive work. That's why Satan would love to get people to look at the Zodiac because it's been redefined and polluted, and it can lead you terribly astray. The Bible says stay away from it now completely. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 26.

The next thing that we see right here in our study is that Jesus is over all things, over the physical purpose as well. This is something that we're going to have to take by faith, very carefully, because this is where you and I can relate. That Jesus is over the physical purpose of things. If that's true, Jack, then why is the world falling apart? Because that's true. Jesus is over the physical purpose of all things in this world. And yes, they are falling apart. Why are they falling apart? It's because Jesus is over them all.

Listen, man has usurped authority and has violently treated this earth. Now, don't be afraid, I'm not going the way of Al Gore, but I will say that mankind has not taken care of what God has given. I think personally the Christian should be the greatest custodian of the environment because our Dad made it. Но the Christian is not to worship the environment because there's only one that we worship. And why would you worship the work of his hands when you can worship his hands and kiss his feet?

Are you saying that we should not protect the animals? We can protect the animals, but let's not make them gods. You know what I mean? Sorry, you can't build a house here, there's a kangaroo rat. Excuse me, but my Bible says that God has given this earth over to our dominion and to our power. Let's pack up the little rat and move him somewhere else. But see, when you begin to divorce God in your thinking, you begin to worship creation and you begin to make the kangaroo rat your god.

Oh, that's ridiculous. No, read Romans chapter 1 that says when we reject the concept of God in our minds, we begin to worship the creation, creeping things, things of animals and fowls and birds of the air, we begin to worship them instead. Man will worship something. He'll build an altar to anything. If we divorce God from our thinking, we begin to worship and serve the creation rather than the creator who is blessed forever. We begin to say things like we have to save this animal at all costs.

Listen, what I find interesting is how intellectually dishonest all that logic is. If you are an evolutionist—don't raise your hand because I don't want to indict you right now because I'm going to—if you're an evolutionist, why don't you get honest? If you're an evolutionist, stop trying to save the California condor. Because if you're an evolutionist, you believe that it's the survival of the fittest. So pluck the feathers off the condor and make a hat out of them and go over there and eat dolphins because you preach the survival of the fittest.

Why try to preserve something if evolution's marching onward and upward? It's because that's not it. It's intellectually dishonest. Yes, we should take care of the California condor. God made it, and we don't worship the thing.

The physical purpose, Psalm 96, verse 11, that Jesus is governor over the physical purpose. Psalm 96:11 says, "Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad. Let the sea roar and all of its fullness. Let the field be joyful and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord, for he is coming." Don't you love this? "He is coming. He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness." Isn't that needed today? "And the peoples with his truth."

The earth seems to be rejoicing at the fact that Jesus is governor. The Bible says in Isaiah again that the heavens are going to, or the book of Psalms says, the heavens are going to rejoice and the trees of the field are going to what? Clap their hands. What? Silly. Trees don't have hands. God considers the leaves on trees as hands. But when he comes, the trees are—can you imagine all the leaves clapping? And I'm not talking about like a golfer's clap. "Oh, John, that was a great putt from 49 feet." And there's just this little token thing. "Oh, Tiger, that was just nice, that was wonderful."

No, man, they're just going to, "Yes, God! Hallelujah!" They're going to clap, they're going to rejoice. We ought to be doing that. Jesus is governor over all things, even the physical purpose. He's got a plan. It's all marching to a very specific conclusion. Jesus is orchestrating it. Psalm 148, that's one of my favorite psalms. What a great psalm. If you're ever depressed, read Psalm 148. "Let the praise, let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is exalted. His glory is above the earth and heaven." Look around at what God has done.

David J.: You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. To learn more about this ministry or to catch up on some previous episodes, go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And now let's get back to today's message. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: The next and final point that we'll see this morning is this, and that is Jesus is the Son of God. We'll study more about this as we go through these weeks together. We'll touch on it a little bit right now this morning, but we need to understand something. We need to really clear up our thinking on something when it comes to Jesus being the Son of God. Everyone listen carefully. Don't you ever think that Jesus the Son of God means that he's less than God the Father or less than God the Holy Spirit.

You and I in our culture, we have been robbed. In our Western culture that we live in, we think that the son is less than the father, don't we? In fact, if we go to a place and it says "Joe and Sons Building Company" or whatever, and you walk in and you say, "I want to talk to Joe and Sons Building Company," and this guy says, "Hi, I'm Joe Jr.," you say, "Listen, I don't want to talk to Joe Jr. I want to talk to Joe Sr. I want to talk to the big guy."

Now, in our culture, we understand that. "I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to your dad." You see how we think? In the Jewish culture, in the Middle East, they don't think like we do. This is tough for us to grip. They don't think like we do. When you—and they have such a wonderful depth of understanding and posterity, the continuing on of life—if you're talking to Joe's son, if somebody says, "I need to talk to Joe and Sons builder," "Yeah, I'm Joe's son, I'm Joe Jr.," this is how they do it in the East: "Oh, great! Great! Then you have all the power and the authority to do what I need to have done." On what grounds? "You're his son. Whatever the father owns, you own. Whatever the father says, you say. Whatever the father believes, you believe. Whatever you are is your father. Like father, like son."

We have this saying in America, but we don't believe it. Like father, like son is only true of Jesus Christ. This is exciting. When the Bible says he's the Son of God, we blow it off in our Gentile reading. The Jews who in Jesus's time, when they heard that he was the Son of God, they picked up stones to kill him because they understood exactly what he meant when he said, "I'm the Son of God." Or when they said, "Do you, or are you the Son of God?" He says, "It's true." They went berserk because what they were saying was, or what they believed was, Jesus was saying, and he was, that God has now come in human form among mankind. See, you and I lose that because of our Gentileness.

We need to be careful as we study the Bible. It's very important news. All right, let's look at this now, very, very important: his unique purpose. Jesus has a very, very unique purpose. In John chapter 19, we can see here a witness of the people. In John 19, verse 6, the Bible says, "Therefore, when the chief priests and the officers saw Jesus, they cried out, saying, 'Crucify him, crucify him!' And Pilate said to them, 'You take him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him.' And the Jews answered and said to him, 'We have our law, and according to our law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God.'" You got that? That's John 19, verses 6 through 7. Very important. I'm going to give you a lot of verses, and we'll be done.

Luke chapter 8, verse 26. "Then they sailed to the country of the Gadarenes, which is opposite Galilee. And when they stepped out on the land, there they met him, a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time, who wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house but in the tombs. And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said"—this is the voice of the demon—"'What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.'"

Interesting, the demon was scared to death about Jesus and the fact that Jesus was the Son of the Most High. Listen, it's admitted by Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 26, verse 63. "But Jesus kept silence, and the high priest answered and said to him, 'I put you under oath by the living God'"—oh, now Jesus must speak—"'tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.' And Jesus said to him, 'It is as you have said.'"

It's confessed by Rome as well. In Matthew chapter 27, verse 50, "And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And then behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks were split open, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had died were raised from the dead and coming out of their graves after his resurrection. They went into the holy city and appeared to many. So when the centurion and those with him were gathered around guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that happened, they feared greatly, saying, 'Truly this was the Son of God.'"

John chapter 10, verse 30 says, "I and my Father are one." Then the Jews picked up stones to stone him. And Jesus answered and said to them, "Many good works have I done of my Father. For which of these do you stone me?" Then the Jews answered and said to him, "For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy because you, being a man, declare yourself to be God." That's very clear, don't you think, in your Bible? It's very clear.

Acts 13:33. "God has fulfilled this for us, his children, in that he has raised Jesus Christ from the dead, as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'You are my Son. Today have I begotten you.'" That's Psalm chapter 2, verses 5 through 7.

And finally this verse here, and we'll go to the next point. We need to wrap this up quickly. Proverbs 30, verse 4. "Who has ascended into heaven?" God's asking you and I this question. "Who has ascended into heaven or who descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is the name of his son? Can you tell me?" Is that awesome?

The next thing that we need to see here, very important, quickly, is this: He has a unique calling. Jesus's calling is altogether unique, and you know it very quickly. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten, glorified, unique, one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. I have a string of verses but no time to give them to you. Isaiah chapter 41, verse 4, jot it down if you would, next to your notes. Research them later. Jesus is unique. It says there that he's the first and the last.

Isaiah 44, verse 6. He is again the first and the last. "And besides me there is no God." Isaiah chapter 48, verse 12. He is again the first and the last. And when he says the last, it is the word "there will be no other gods after me." The one and only for all eternity, of all realms, the one and only.

Hosea chapter 13, verse 4. I'll say it, I'll quote it to you quickly because it's important. "Yet I am the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no other God but me, and you shall bow down to no other God but me, for there is no savior but me."

Revelation chapter 1, verses 17 and 18. It says there that the great first and the last, the I AM, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, was he who was alive and became dead and behold he's alive forevermore. That's Jesus Christ. And Revelation chapter 2, verse 8, he says, "These things saith the first and the last, who was dead and came back to life." That's Jesus Christ, the unique call of God, his precious Son. Very, very important. And John says to us this morning in John chapter 20, verse 31, John says, "But these things have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name."

Very, very important. And finally here, people, his unique authority. And this is what I want you to focus on as we close. He has an altogether unique authority. There's nobody else in the Bible where the Bible says that you must bow and confess his name. Not Sun Myung Moon, not Rajneesh, not Joseph Smith, not Chuck Smith, not Greg Laurie, not Billy Graham, not John Paul. Jesus Christ. For the Bible says it is at the name of Jesus Christ that every knee will bow, both angelic and human, and confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and the Bible says there's only one Lord. Amen? Amen.

David J.: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio and his message called "Christ and Eternity." Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's new series called "The Life and Times of Jesus Christ." It's a series about the real Jesus of the Bible, God in the flesh, and why knowing him more deeply changes everything. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

So, as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you'd like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com/knowgod. That's K-N-O-W-God. And there you'll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you'll find in knowing God. Don't miss out. That's the Know God tab at jackhibbs.com.

Hey, thank you again so much for listening. And if you'd like to hear or see more of what we do here, you can always go to jackhibbs.com for all the latest on what's going with this ministry. And please, if you're ever in the Southern California area, come see us at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. We'd love to see you there in person. It has been so good to be with you today, and I pray you find yourself in the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. See you on the next episode.

This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in his word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.