Jesus is the sacred name. Jesus is the name above all names. There's power in
that name. You know, when you go to a school, you know, they outlaw the name of
Jesus. You know, you can take that name in vain, but when it comes to using that
name seriously, people get offended. The Bible says that Jesus is a rock of
effects. One of the main things that really upset me, I think, was the attack
against Christians. I would see, again on social media, on Facebook, I would see
just these horrendous sort of, you know, like memes that are posted on Facebook,
and most of them were very, very anti-Christian. I could wear a t-shirt
in the school that says, in college, that says Yeshua right on it. Nobody would
give a care. In fact, they would probably say, hey, this guy's cool. He's a religious
zealot of some sort. But the moment that you claim the name of Christ, the Bible
says that you'll suffer persecution. And Brother Dave, I remember, I remember being
in a room of people back when I was in the Hebrew Roots movement. One by one,
this group of people, my friends, started to deny Jesus Christ. They started out by
denying his name, and then they went to denying him even existing. And I had
begged my friends, I said, look, you guys don't want to go down this route. You
don't need to deny Christ. You need Christ. He's the Savior. He's the only
source of salvation. But in that room, one by one, people just started to deny
Christ, and finally it got to me, and it was my turn. And I just remember looking
around and thinking to myself, I can't do this. You know, I'm saved. He bought, the
Bible says you're bought with a price. And I just said, I can't. I can't do it.
And before I left that day, you know, and obviously they asked me to leave because
Jesus is offensive to them, and he still is, the main leader of their group looked
at me and said, Matt, you'll never amount to anything preaching in the name of
Jesus. And he said never to come back.
You wouldn't amount to anything by preaching the name of Jesus, yet the
name of Jesus still is in the world 2,000 years after, right? You never amount
up to anything, yet the name of Jesus is what divided our two eras, right? Before
Christ, after Christ. As soon as I saw the name Jesus being sort of slandered, if
you like, that's when I really took a step back, and I thought, no, I don't like
this. I don't like it. There's something about that name that is very precious to
me. And that's the end game of the Hebrew Roots movement, is to get people
to deny the name of Jesus, deny Jesus, deny that he was the Messiah, and go so
far as to say that he didn't even exist. So it's just a trick, it's just a bob
sled down. And people in the Hebrew Roots movement need to understand that a lot
of it seems very friendly on the surface. A lot of people in the Hebrew Roots
movement, a lot of the teachers, they put on a kippah or a yarmulke, and they put
on tzitzit, and they try to make themselves look really nice and really
harmless to people, but a lot of times the most harmless looking people can be
the most dangerous. The Bible says the natural man receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God. And so whenever they keep the Passover, it's like the veil is
still over their head. They can't understand that God gave the Passover
to show them, hey, redemption happens once. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. He
that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never
thirst. I think it's important for people that are new to the Hebrew Roots movement
that they understand that they don't have this attitude of, hey, Brother Matt,
I don't know what you're talking about. This is this is completely foreign to
what I know. That they're not like that. They haven't made me do anything like
that. It's very important that they understand it's coming soon. That these
cults and these secret religions, that they slowly feed you with little by
little, little by little. If you're asking questions to your leaders, your
church leaders, or whoever, and they seem to be skeptical about answering you, you
have a textbook case of a cult in your hand.
I would rather try to gain someone's interest and desire to meet Jesus than
to push them away by using a name they're not familiar with. It's important,
but not as important as drawing folks in.