WHO
IS
JESUS ?
WHO IS JESUS ? Thousands of years ago God created the heaven and
the earth. He created the sun, the moon and the stars.
All the trees, flowers and grasses were made by the God
of Creation. He made the birds, the fishes and the
animals; but the most beautiful of all God's creation
work was man.God made a man and when He saw that this man was
lonely by himself, God also made a woman to be a
companion and comfort to the man. He called the man
Adam. The woman was named Eve by her husband.A beautiful garden called Eden was prepared by God
as a home for Adam and Eve. For how long they lived
in happiness we do not know, but we know that as long
as they obeyed God and did not sin, they were very
happy.In the Garden God placed two very special trees.
These trees did not belong to Adam and Eve. They
belonged to God. God wanted Adam as the husband-
man to care for these trees but he was not allowed to
eat the fruit from them. One tree was the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. The other tree was the
tree of life. To eat from the first tree made one to
know what was good and what was evil. To eat from
the second tree would mean that one would never die.-- 1 --
God did not want man to know evil so He did not
want His children to eat from that tree. Even as we
do not want our children to learn what sin is and to
partake of the evil things in this world, God did not
want Adam and Eve to lose their sweet innocence.
Innocence is pure and clean and holy.There was, before God created the world,
a place which God had prepared in the heavenlies, which
is called Heaven. God had made thousands upon
thousands of heavenly beings who served and wor-
shipped Him. These heavenly creatures are known
to us as angels. There was perfect order amongst these
great hosts. The captains in charge of them were
chief angels, which were called archangels.Some time during those bygone days one of the chief
angels whose name was Lucifer became proud and
rebellious. He won to his side a large number of the
angels and together they began an underhand struggle
to seize the power of the throne which belonged to God
alone. The outcome of this was that God punished
Lucifer and the angels who had rebelled by casting
them out of Heaven. God prepared a place of punish-
ment for them. This place of punishment is a terrible
lake of fire in a place called Hell.As a result of his downfall, Lucifer, who is the devil,
hated God and sought a way to "pay Him back" by-- 2 --
attempting to destroy God's beautiful work of creation.
He came into the garden in the form of a serpent and
by subtility and guile deceived Eve into eating of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge. Eve gave of the fruit
to Adam who also ate of it.God punished them by commanding them to leave
the garden. He did this because He knew they would
be tempted to eat of the fruit of the tree of life and thus
live forever in their sins. And God would never be
able to have fellowship with man whom He had created
for fellowship with Himself.The curse of God came upon the first family because
of their sin of disobedience. Since then, all their
descendants, the people of this world from then until
now, are born with a desire to sin. This sinful nature
manifests itself not long after a child is able to talk and
many times even before then.The sorrow of Adam and Eve when driven by God
out of their beautiful home, was very great. God,
however, promised them that He would send a man
child who would deliver them from the curse of sin.For thousands of years this promise was told
and retold from father to son. Generation after
generation waited for the coming of the Son who would
take their sin away and make them free from the judg--- 3 --
ment of sin. Every time the people became discouraged
in their waiting, God sent His messengers, the prophets,
to encourage them to have faith and to hope and wait
a little longer.During the time of the Roman Empire's world ruler-
ship, over nineteen hundred years ago, God fulfilled
His promise. The promised man child was called
Jesus, which means Saviour. God had said that this
babe who was to be born of Mary, a virgin, was the
promised and waited for, Saviour of the world. The
angel of the Lord visited Mary and prepared her for
the babe's arrival. The angel told her that it would
be a miracle birth for the baby had no earthly father.
Mary was not married at the time of the baby's concep-
tion, nor had she any sexual relationship with any
man. This was no ordinary child, for He was God's
very own Son, who had been with God from the founda-
tion of the world and had been willing to take on the
form of man, and to be born as a babe.Jesus lived 33 years in the land of Israel. He
showed the people the love of God by loving them. He
healed the sick. The blind were made to see, the
lame walked, the deaf heard and the dumb spake.
He cast the evil spirits out of those who were pos-
sessed by them, raised to life some who were dead
and did many other wonderful miracles. People loved
Him and many believed in Him and followed Him, but-- 4 --
the religious rulers were jealous of His great power over
the people and they sought to kill Him.One day they seized Him in the early hours of the
morning, brought Him before the religious and political
rulers, and after an unfair trial with false witnesses
testifying against Him, condemned Him to death by
crucifixion, which was the Roman method of execution
for their worst criminals.They rejoiced at their great victory, but not for long.
For, three days & three nights after His death, Jesus Christ the Saviour,
arose from the dead, came out of the grave and showed
Himself for forty days to His friends and disciples who
later bore witness of this to others. After this He was
taken up into Heaven, where He is today.Why did He die? Was it because He had no power
to save Himself? He could have called the angels of
heaven down to set Him free. He was the mighty Son
of God. But He died for a purpose. He died to
suffer the punishment of sin. He was judged by God,
His own Father, with the judgment we should have
had. He restored the fellowship between God and
man which sin had broken.This is no fairy tale. It may sound strange to you
if you have never heard it before, but to us who have
believed it, it has become our comfort, our joy and our-- 5 --
peace. If you will repent & believe that Jesus is the Son of God
and that He died for you, you too will receive forgiveness
for your sins and everlasting life. Jesus will become
your Saviour. He loves you. He died for you. He
wants you to love Him and to live for Him and tell
others this true story which I have told you.If you reject it and turn away from God's love you
will be punished. What will your punishment
be? You will be punished in the Lake of Fire which
was prepared for the devil and his angels. But if you repent
and believe, you will be saved from this terrible fate after
you die. "For God so loved the world, that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The
Gospel according to St. John 3:16.If, after reading the above brief account of the life
of Jesus and His death, you too want to become His
follower and belong to the great family of God, then
bow your head now and pray this simple prayer:"Father in Heaven, I come to You now. I confess
that I am a lost sinner. I know that I have done many
wrong and sinful things. I cannot change myself but
You can change me. I ask You to help me. Thank
you Jesus, for dying for my sins on the cross at Calvary. Thank you for taking
my punishment for me. Please forgive me now.
Please take my sins away. Make me a child of God.-- 6 --
I accept You now as my own Lord & Saviour. I will love You.
All my life I will live for You and if necessary I will die
for You. Change my life and make me pure and holy
as You are. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen."
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