Chapter 10 “Miracles, Protection, and Love–Lessons in His Name–YAH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY

Knowing His Hebrew name opens up many wonderful realms to us.  The power to perform miracles and do mighty works, the ability to show forth His astounding love, the unifying factor for the whole body of true believers–all these things and more open to us with the key of the knowledge of His name.

In John 10: 22-39, Yahshua said that the works (the miracles) that He was doing in His Father’s name testify as to His Messiahship.  The Jews approached Him in winter during Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication.  The Messiah was walking in Solomon’s porch.  They were accusing Him of making them to doubt as to whether He was the Messiah or not.  “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

He then said that He had already told them, and they had not believed him.  “My deeds done in my Father’s name are my credentials” (NEB).  The miracles that I do in My Father’s name, He was saying, speak for Me, testify on My behalf that I am the Messiah.

And then He explained why they did not believe Him.  “But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you.  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (v. 26-27, NKJV).  They were not the people “whom He foreknew and had predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.”  It was not given to them from heaven to believe in the Messiah.  Their names were not written in heaven–(“Rejoice not that the devils are subject to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven…”).  The Pharisees could not believe Him, for they were not of His sheepfold.  But his sheep believe Him and He gives them “eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.  My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.  I and My Father are one” (v. 28-30, NKJV).  Messiah’s hand was the Father’s hand, for they are one.

That did it for the Jews.  They just could not see it that the Messiah and the Father are one.  They picked up stones to kill Him.  Messiah said to them, “I’ve done many miracles in you midst.   Which one are you stoning Me for?”

“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”  They just could not see that God was inside of the man, the mortal shell, and was doing the miracles.

Under great stress Yahshua continued to rain love upon the unjust.  Look, He was saying, “is not it written in your law, in the book of Psalms, ‘I have said, You are gods.’  If He called them gods unto whom the word of God came, what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?  Why then do you me of blasphemy because I said, I am God’s Son?  Don’t believe Me unless I do what my Father does.  But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (v. 34-38, NIV).  By believing the miracles, we may know and understand that the Father is in the Son doing those miracles.  The Son can only do what He sees the Father do.

His Name brings unity

In the Son of God’s prayer of intercession in John 17, He stresses the importance of the name of His Father.  He says in v. 6: “I have revealed You Name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world.  They were Yours, and You gave them to Me, and they have guarded Your Word.”  He made known the name of His Father, Yahweh, to His called-out ones.  And in verse 11, the Messiah asks that the Father “guard them in Your Name which You have given Me, so that they might be one, as We are.”  We see that the name of Yahweh is a shield and protection needed so that they, the disciples, the children of God, might be one, as the Father and Son are one!  Guard them in Your Name.  His name has protective powers for us.  Us being under the banner of the name of Yahweh preserves us until we all are one as the Father and Son are one–“till we all come to the unity of the faith, unto a perfect man.”

And in verse 26, Christ says, “And I have made Your name known to them, and shall make it known, so that the love with which You love Me might be in them, and I in them.”  At least three major points are made here.  First, the Son reveals the Father to whomsoever He will by revealing the Father’s name to them.  He told them that Yahweh was the name of the Father.

He then said, “And shall make it known…”  He is giving prophecy here.  He will make the Father’s name known once again to His followers–to a select people to whom it is given in these last days.

Third point: I have made your name known “so that the love with which You love Me might be in them, and I in them.”  The revealing of the Father’s true name is so important that it is a pre-requisite; it is a necessary thing that must take place before that same love with which the Father had loved the Son might be in us.  Making His name known is necessary to others so that the Spirit of the Son will come down and be in His followers!  “So that the love with which You love Me might be in them, and I in them.”  That is why knowing and declaring His name Yahweh is so important!  [And yet, no preacher stands in the tens of thousands of pulpits across this world and teaches this!  Why?]

What we have here then is the key to the Father’s love that He loved the Son with!  He’ll make his Father’s name known to His disciples and show them how it is a “strong tower” and a keeper and a guard for us, allowing us to eventually tap into the Father’s unfathomable love.  “Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”

All this then would indicate that our Father’s name Yahweh is our unifying attribute.  Our Father’s name is now our name; children are given their father’s surname.  We then look forward to the time when we by the thousands walk with Him in white and He in us and we in Him, and the Father in you all.  The Holy Spirit will someday fill us, His temple, when we have no sensation that we are there anymore, and He will dwell in us fully.  All of our ego foibles and mortal earthly thoughts will be at last swept from His temple, which is our bodies, and something greater than the temple will be here, and we will no longer glory in that we are the temple of God.  We will not think and strive as a blade of grass and as the potsherd we are today.  We will sit still and know that He is the great Yahweh of old, and He will move mightily through His temple.  And many will look on us and think that we have done something grand, and we will say, “Someone much greater that I is here.”

How were the miracles done?  How will the unity come?  In the Father’s name, Yahweh.

Eulogy for My Mother

[I spoke these words at the graveside service]

My mother passed away June 6, 2011.  Louise Billups was 85 years old.  For those of us who knew her, we lost a great treasure and a walking, breathing example of love, caring, and kindness, not only to her family and friends, but even to strangers.

I remember the time about three years ago in August, Mom and her husband Marion were riding back from town and saw a poor elderly man pushing his delapidated bicycle loaded down with all his worldly possessions up Whetstone Hill on Highway 60.  She said, “We gotta help him.”  So they went home and returned fifteen minutes later with a quart of good old homemade southern sweet iced tea and a sandwich for the man.  That was my Mom.

There’s an old proverb in the Bible: “It is better to be in the house of mourning than the house of mirth and laughter.”

I’ve often wondered why?  Because when a loved one passes away, we mourn for them. Our hearts become broken. The Bible also states that God is near to them of a broken heart. He is that invisible Spirit of Love that penetrates the cracks of our broken hearts and heals us and helps us. God can only get closer to us if we are humbled.

And a death of a loved one humbles us. And so God is near.

We are gathered here now to pay our last respects to a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, a dear and kind friend, and most important, to our spiritual sister in Christ. And spiritual is the key. For the loved one that we all now mourn was a kind and loving spirit who inhabited this earthly body laying before us.

But this today is not the end. The Holy Scriptures says that we shall see her again–not in this old body but in a new, wonderful, everlasting spiritual body that will look like her in her vibrant prime.

We will see her again, for Christ has promised a new body for his followers upon His return to rule this earth for a thousand years. And so, let us take solace that her present pain and suffering has at last ended and her spirit now rests in God’s bosom. Without this truth, we wander around lost in not only sadness for this departed soul but in the solemn inevitability of our own mortality. Our resurrection with Christ upon His return is our only hope to escape the dusty tombs of oblivion.

But now today, we all have lost a priceless treasure in her departure, and that is Christ’s spirit of love actually walking around in another human being. That was my mother and spiritual sister in Christ.

My mom left us here on earth a few days ago. Her spirit went back to the Father who created her long ago. All that remains now lying here is her earthly body, a temporary vessel that God provided her to love through. Mom manifested the love of Christ by giving all to others.

And yet we can’t help but mourn the passing of this dear one, my very own mother, the vessel God used to usher in my entrance into this cruel old world. And she nourished me on her knee with warmth and food and milk and ran with me through the grass and held my hand as I grew up. And most importantly, she fed me the milk of God’s word which nourished my embryonic spirit within me when I was just a little boy.

And that Word she shared with me stayed with me. “Train up a child the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” I strayed in my youth far from the Lord, but those words she had shared about Him were like a fish line and hook in my jaw that the Great Heavenly Fisherman held and kept reeling me into His boat, slowly but surely.

That was the kind of mother I was blessed with, who never gave up on me, even as I squandered my youth on drink and smoke. But she was always there to encourage me. For her testimony was such that on the very hour that I came into this world in that hospital in Long Beach, she had a vision from God that her son would serve Him.

I am her lasting legacy, for we share the same light and same truth: That there is but one God. That the Great Spirit of Love, the Creator of heaven and earth, came down and walked among us and sacrificed that vessel so that we all could be redeemed from the wasted wreckage of a sinful life… She knew God by His original Hebrew name–Yahweh–that in His name is power and healing and answers to prayer…that He is returning to this earth bodily to establish His government where He, the Christ, will rule and reign in the Kingdom of God, literally here on earth…that He is coming soon, after Satan sets up a counterfeit one world government…and then, the good news, Christ returns and begins His reign over all earth…

These and many more things my mom believed, and I will miss those hours of fellowship studying the Word together….But now we must put her body back into the earth from whence it came. But we are not burying her, for she is not here; she is a spirit now at total peace with her Father.

So help us, Father, through this time of passing. I pray not for my mother, for she is with you. Instead, I pray for all of us who are still on our journey back to You. Be with us, O God. Help us, for we are weak and need your strength. Give us all eyes to see and ears to hear your truth. Thank you. We ask in your name, Amen.

“In His Name”: What Does It Really Mean? Chapter 9 YAH-IS-SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY

One of the most trite and worn-out expressions in the English language is “in His name.” What does it really mean? All through our Christian walk to date we have uttered that phrase or a variation of it. “In the name of Jesus.” “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

We learned, of course, to say these phrases watching and listening to others. We have sincerely believed that it was important to say them. We ended most every prayer that we’ve ever prayed with a form of “in His name.” We have recited it almost as an incantation, as if it had magical qualities that would bring healing and comfort. “In His Name” has become for us a verbal talisman swinging from our lips, knowing that somehow, if we do not say these special words, our prayers will not get through. In saying these words, we were doing the best we could; we were walking in the light that we had.

Now let us investigate and study these three words in a new light. “In His name…” In, inside, within the true name. He is pointing us to go into His name. Take His name, Yahshua, and go into that name and extract the meaning from it.

As we have already seen, the Savior’s true name is Yahshua. This name means literally, “Yah is salvation” or “Yah is Savior.” But to all who received him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become the children of God. John 1:12, RSV. Here, “receiving Him” and “believing in His name” are synonymous.

A message in His name to be believed

“Believing in His name” implies that there is a message to be believed, a truth inherent in His name. We have seen that Hebrew names are prophetical. We have seen that the Savior was named Yahshua because “he shall save His people from their sins.” And Yahshua means “Yah is Savior.” So what is the message contained within His name? That message is “Yah is the Savior.” The name “Jesus” has no message in it at all. It does not have any meaning.

But the name “Yahshua” is loaded with meaning. Inside that name is the meaning and efficacy needed to bring a person into the Spirit of the Father and to bring the Spirit into the person. “Believing in His name…” The children receive the Spirit by believing in what His name means (by believing in His name). We believe the meaning of His name—that Yahweh or Yah, the Eternal Spirit, came down to earth and poured His essence into a specially set apart human form to sacrifice Himself so that we could take on His spiritual nature. That is believing in His name, Yahshua, which is receiving what His name really means—YAH-IS-SAVIOR. For I am Yahweh thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour…I, I am Yahweh, and besides Me there is no savior…Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. Isa. 43:3, 11; 45:15.

Yes, Yah did hide Himself well in a flesh body some 2000 years ago. But He makes it very clear from the above passages in Isaiah that He is the Savior; He is the Creator. The apostle John makes it very clear that the Spirit-filled human flesh body that he had walked with for three and a half years did the creating. In the beginning was the Word…All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made…He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…John 1:1, 3, 10, 14.

Believing what His name means

There is no contradiction here. Yah did the creating, the forming, the redeeming and the saving. And Yah, clothed in human flesh, took the name “Yahshua,” Yah-Is-Savior. The very name of the Messiah points to the fact that it is the Father Yahweh who is doing the saving. Yah was in that vessel, the Messiah, reconciling the world unto Himself. The Spirit, Yah, pours Himself into His temple and works out of it to the world.

When a person believes in the name of Yahshua, he is believing what that name means—that Yah is the Savior in human form. In fact, the act of believing in the name of Yahshua is a miniature of the Creator’s plan of kingdom redemption.

If one has really received Him, that person will have believed in His name, which is to say, will have believed that the Father Yah was in human form, and that combination, Yahshua, is bringing salva- tion to the world.

Believing in Him is believing in His name

He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 3:18. When one does not believe in the Messiah, he is not believing in the meaning of His name. For He said, “He that rejects Me, rejects Him that sent Me.” If you reject the Son, you are rejecting the Father that dwells within the Son, for that is exactly where the Father Yahweh is. “Know ye not that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” He asked.

The unbeliever in the Messiah is already judged for one reason: he has not believed in the Name of Yahshua, which is saying that Yah was not in him, saving mankind through His death, burial, and resurrection. Not believing in Messiah’s name, then, is equal to not receiving the Spirit of the Creator.

Not believing in the meaning of the name of Yahshua is equal to rejecting the light that is come into the world, and cleaving unto darkness, saying, I have no need for Yah in human form to save me (see John 3:19).

The phrase “in the name,” then, has profound meaning and carries a weighty message. First, we cannot believe in His name if we do not know His name. If we seek, He will reveal to us His true name. This knowledge, in turn, is an important key that will unlock the door that is keeping us from continuing our journey down the road to immortality.

The Savior’s name is Yahshua, Yah-Is-Savior. To believe in His name is to believe what His name actually means: Yahweh, the self-existent One that cried through Isaiah, who appeared and spoke to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and many others, offered up His perfect human incarnation and became the Author of eternal salvation for His people.