Why Will Every Human Being Eventually Bow to Jesus?

We always appreciate so much your letters, and of course your financial help, you know prayers, and your concerns for us as we travel. We just ask now that you continue to pray for us as we minister the Word, and that the Lord will continue to open a lot of hearts. Of course all of our past programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, or videotapes, and if you're interested in any of those things, we don't push them with the idea of making that big a business of it, but if you can use them in your home Bible studies, or in Sunday schools, or whatever, we've got quite a few that send them overseas to missionary friends, and I think it's in Uganda where some missionary friends are actually using those tapes in junior high schools, and the kids are loving them. You can't do it in America, but we can do it in Africa. We'll come back to where we left off in Philippians chapter 2, and again in case you're new to the program, we have just been coming up through the Old and the New Testaments, and so we go pretty much chapter and verse, especially in Paul's writings, because you want to remember Paul is the Apostle of the Gentiles. He is the one who has everything that's apropos for us today in the age of grace, and that's why we spend so much time in Paul's writings. We came down as far as verse 8, and now we can go on into verse 9. Now you know that's one of Paul's favorite words, isn't it? And flip side is mine, but wherefore is Paul's? And he says, wherefore. In other words, because of what we just explained in our last program, how Christ was the Eternal, All-Sufficient, Omnipotent God of everything, and as such He could indeed take the sins of the world on Himself. No one else could have ever come close to Him, but He did. Ephesians 2.4a "...wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name." Now I had a gentleman call me the other day where he was all upset that his daughter had gotten into some kind of a false cult, where they worship angels. And he tried to tell her, that is not the truth. The Gospel is that Christ died. And you know what her answer was? She said, Daddy that's all old fashioned. Isn't that sad? Well hope and pray that maybe someday she'll have her understanding open too. But listen, there is no other name. He is the only one, and it's on in verse 10, that since God has given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee from Adam to the last human being on time, every knee should bow, things in heaven, the angelics. Yes the angels are going to bow to Him, because they are beneath Him. In fact I taught Hebrews up in Minnesota the other day, and a lot of those things are still on my mind. Come on over to Hebrews just a moment. Hebrews chapter 1, because if one is succumbing to angel worship, I'm sure there are many, many others, and maybe someone can hear this and be brought to their senses. Hebrews 1. And of the angels he saith, who maketh his angel spirits, and his ministers, a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, is for ever, and the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Drop on down to verse 10. And the heavens are the work of thy hands, they shall perish, but thou remainest, because he is everlasting to everlasting. They all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture thou shalt fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same, thy years shall not fail. Now then verse 13. Hebrews 1. But to which of the angels did he, that is God, say at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool? But unto the angels he hath not put in subjection the world to come. Angels don't have that kind of power. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou made him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. Why? Because he's the God of glory, he's the Creator of everything. And when he humbled himself and made himself subjected to the death of the cross, that then set him up to become even more the God of glory, and the God in whom we can place our trust. Coming back to Philippians chapter 2 for a minute, and then we're going to flip over to a couple of other portions of Scripture. For those of you here in the studio, look at this verse once again. Philippians 2.1-2 Acts chapter 4, verse 10. And this of course is Peter up in verse 8, filled with the Holy Spirit. And now in verse 10, Peter says, 10. And be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him that is through the power of Christ, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone, speaking of Christ, this is the stone which was set at nought or set aside of you builders, Israel. They rejected the chief cornerstone. You set it not of you builders, which is become the head of the corner, as a result of his death, burial and resurrection. Now in verse 12, which fits so beautifully with Philippians. Verse 12. And neither is there salvation in any other way. What is that? Exclusive! There is no other name, and there is no other way. And I don't care how intellectual, I don't care how politically correct they may get, there is no other name given among men, whereby we must be saved." That's what the Book says. And then if people come back as a scoffer and say, Yeah, but that's only what your Bible says. My book of such and such says such, but I put on this program umpteen times before, there is no other book on earth, not a one. None of the spiritual books or the religious books of any other can tell the prophecies that this one does. There is not another book on earth that foretold the fact that Israel would be dispersed into every nation under heaven, and yet at one day toward the end would be pulled back to her homeland and revive her Hebrew language. No other book on earth ever foretold that. This one did, and so we can rest on it that by virtue of the fulfilled prophetic statements, that when this Book says there is no other name given among men, this is truth. This we have to rely on, and all mankind is going to be held accountable to have they believed what the Word of God has said. First Corinthians chapter 3, and I can start with verse 9, and remember Paul always writes to believers. He doesn't write to the unsaved world at all. He writes to the believer, and of course as he writes to the believer, the message will go to the unbeliever. And so he says, we as believers are laborers together with God. You as a believer are God's husbandry, you are God's building. Now verse 10. Ephesians 4. According to the grace of God which is given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, another buildeth thereupon, including you and I. But let every man, regardless of who we are, what our station in life, whether we�re black or white, or Oriental or what from Timbuktu, that makes no difference. Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon, for other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. There is no other. There can be no other. And so you put all these things that we've been talking about today, and base it on the fact that Christ was the Eternal, Sovereign, Creator, Redeemer, Savior, God of the universe. And it�s on that finished work of the cross, that death where all the sin of the world was laid on Him, and consequently when He was victorious over that in His resurrection from the dead, in that victorious resurrection power, God can now declare that it�s at that name that every knee shall bow. Now I know some evangelists like to put it that you�ll either bow in this life and become a believer, or you�re going to bow in the next life and admit that you deserve what�s coming. Well that may very well be, but I�m going to have you come back with me now a minute to Revelation chapter 20, and this is indeed where every knee will bow that has never recognized Him before. Now for you and I as believers, we have no problem bowing before the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether it�s on our knees in prayer, or whether it�s in our mental attitudes, we have no problem kneeling before the Lord Jesus Christ. But the world out there tonight have nothing to do with Him. The great empire builders, they�ll never bow their knee to the Carpenter�s Son, but they will. I don�t care how powerful they�ve been, I don�t care how many armies they�ve marched, the day is coming when the other great world leaders are going to stand right here in verse 12. Revelation 20, and I saw the dead of all the ages, small and great, from the lowliest slave to the highest king. Here they are, small and great, and they stand before God. Now we know from other Scriptures that the Person of God will again be Jesus Christ. He�s been the Savior of mankind, but here He�s going to be the Judge. And so Christ here at the great white throne, and all the small and the great of the ages will come before Him, one at a time. He�s not going to deal with them in mass, they�re going to come one at a time. And as the Lord spoke in His earthly ministry, and what are they going to say? But Lord, didn�t I do this, didn�t I do that, didn�t I cast out demons, and what�s He going to say? He�s going to say, �Depart from Me, I never knew you,� individually. This is not going to be done in mass, individually, because you�ve got to remember we�ve got all eternity to get this done. And so all the small and the great will stand before Him, and the books, the record of their life. Now you know up until present day technology, this used to throw a curve at me. Maybe you never thought about it, but how could God keep a record of every detailed act of wickedness that the world�s billions have committed? Now somebody sent me an email the other day, and it was the technology, that they�ve got a chip so tiny that it can go under the skin with a hypodermic needle, but it has a transmitter and a receiver so powerful that messages can be picked up from quite some distance, and that chip has every detail of all your background, your medical, your financial, your insurance, all on one little tiny chip. Well now what am I trying to tell you? If man can do that, then God has no trouble whatsoever. His technology is still greater than ours. And so now I can read this, and I�ll say, �Sure, all he has to do is just punch the button and his computer will just put the whole thing on the screen, and there will be their whole life�s history, and they�re going to see that every bit of it is true, and when He condemns them to their eternal doom, then there�ll be no more argument, and every knee will bow before Him and recognize that indeed He is who He said He was. Now back to Philippians, verse 10 again, and I wish you could wake up and see this verse in your sleep. At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, rich and poor, great and small, things in heaven, things in earth, and things under the earth. And every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Now then, verse 12, we�ve got a couple of minutes left. What�s the first word again? Wherefore, because of all these things we�ve just seen in these preceding verses, because all the sin of the world has been placed on Him, and consequently through the power of resurrection God is raising from the dead, and has declared Him to be the greatest name that anyone could ever hope to worship. Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. Now stop a minute. I�ve made this point before. You want to remember that wherever Paul went in his evangelistic endeavors, in his missionary journeys, he was the first one in the town with the Gospel of Grace. He did not have any forerunners. He did not have advanced men setting up the stage. He had to go in unannounced, totally at the power of the Holy Spirit. Then when he would bring these pagans out of their pagan darkness, and he would establish this little group of believers, he could not hand them all a Bible and say, �Now just keep studying the Word, and God will be with you.� There was no printed New Testament. His own letters do not come about until 15 or 20 years after he begins his ministry. And so they had to be left to pretty much shift for themselves, and waiting for gifted men to come up in their group, that would again have the gift of speaking the truth of God�s Word. They didn�t have the printed page. When I look back on these things, and in all the pressure from Rome, from the Judaizers, from the mythology people, how did these little groups of believers survive? But for the grace of God, they wouldn�t have. They couldn�t have. But here they are under all this pressure, this persecution, with no Bible to take comfort from, and yet evidently most of them did not succumb. And so this is why he says, �Wherefore as you have always obeyed, not just when he was with them, but even in his absence those people remained true to what they had learned at the feet of this apostle.� Now just let that soak in a little bit. They didn�t have any spiritual guru to constantly keep them in order, and they were pretty much left to their own. Now of course there were congregations where Timothy finally comes in a little later on, and Titus and Barnabas go, but for the most part these early little groups of believers were almost left to themselves, and he would have to move on. Now reading on in verse 12. Ephesians 4. But now much more in my absence, he�s in prison in Rome. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now that does not mean that they�re going to work for their salvation, they�ve got that. But what does it mean to work it out? That it becomes a part and parcel of their everyday experience. And evidently it did, because you know that Christianity turned the Roman Empire inside out. How else could it have happened had not these little cells of believers been active in winning others? And that�s the way it went. They didn�t have big evangelistic campaigns, they didn�t have the Word of God, and so it had to be the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit that these little groups of ex -pagans were now literally permeating the Roman Empire in spite of all of its opposition. Ephesians 4.13b "...for it is God who worketh in you both to will, and to do of his good pleasure." And God can do the same thing today, but you know what�s wrong today? We�ve got too many other things that sidetrack us. We�ve got too many other things that occupy our time, and if we do have a little time we�d rather sit down and click the button and see what�s on that stupid television. But in those days they didn�t have all that diversion, they didn�t have all these CDs and tapes and what have you, and so they could go out into the community, and they met in market places day in and day out, buying their vegetables and their fruits and so forth, and I can just envision those people that every place they were in contact with other people, they were sharing the Gospel. And today even in our enlightened area, and in our so-called Bible Belt, my goodness we�re scared to death to mention the name of Christ. But they weren�t. Even though they could have been arrested the next day and put to death, they still propagated the Gospel. Next verse. Ephesians 2. Verse 14. Ephesians 2. Do all things without murmurings and disputings. Now the word murmur, just as soon as you heard the word murmur, what should that make you think of? Israel coming out of Egypt. And what did they do? They murmured, and they murmured, and they murmured, in spite of the presence of God on every hand, in spite of His miraculously opening the Red Sea, just as soon as they get on the other side and they go a day or two without water, they say, �Oh would to God you�d left us in Egypt.� And then He comes down on the Mount Sinai with the fire and the thunder and the smoke, and the first thing you know they�re making a golden calf. I mean it�s unbelievable, and when you read the account of their travels back there in Exodus and Numbers, every other word is, �They murmured, they murmured.� Well are we much better? A lot of times we�re not, but why doesn�t God do this, and why doesn�t God do that? Well maybe it�s why don�t we do something about it. But Paul�s admonition is, whatever you do, don�t murmur, don�t be in dispute, be blameless and harmless as children of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. Look where we are today, even in our beloved America. I can remember as a kid, I can remember very seldom men drawing up a written contract every time they made a deal. What was the contract? A shake of the hand. And people would never break that for anything. Now today, unless you�ve got it signed and witnessed by 10 or 15 lawyers, it�s always suspect that you still don�t know if you�ve got a deal. But why? Because we have become such a crooked and perverse nation. We are, let�s face it, we are no longer the Christian nation that Europe looks up to. You know the book Tocqueville wrote, and he went all over America, and he went back to Europe and wrote that America has been blessed materially in every which way, because America is good. Well he couldn�t write that today, could he? We have become more and more like these people in Paul�s day, a crooked and a perverse nation, but in the midst of the perverseness, in the midst of all the crookedness, in the midst of all the shenanigans of politicians and anything else you can think of, what are we to be? Like lights in a darkened world, and certainly if ever there was a time it�s appropriate as the Lord spoke to the disciples, you are the light of the world. You and I have the light. We too can be the salt, we can be the one that preserves, and we can be the one that enhances. But always remember these things that Paul wrote to Philippians are just as appropriate for us today as they were when Paul wrote them. Recall 1-800-369-7856. Remember all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldman.