Jesus makes the following statements: ‘I have revealed your name to those that you have given me out of the world! ... I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you and they believed that you sent me. (John 17: 6-8) Had Jesus taught His disciples another Gospel then the one He received from God they would not have known Him as their Father! God’s purpose in sending Jesus into the world is to gather together His family, anything else is not the most important purpose of preaching it; it still is that important to this very day, what God is bringing together, His family! JESUS is in heaven preparing a home for them! This is what He said to them, while they were gathered in the upper room for the Passover feast: ‘In my father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am!’ (John 14: 2-3) We do not need hours to find out where Jesus at present! So, we should firmly believe that from heaven He will return, to take his people home! Among all the things He has to do for all His saints, He does do what He said He would; when God tells Him, ‘My Son! Go! Bring them home.’ He will come like lightning and take us to where He is! A verse of a hymn mentions the following: ‘He’s coming soon! His coming soon! With joy we’ll welcome His returning. It may ne morn, it may be noon! We Know He’s coming soon!’

Therefore, it is most expedient, in the light of all that is happening in and to the Church in these days, to insist on sound doctrine, especially in our Evangelical Pentecostal Assemblies! It is the only way to establish every believer and for him to be rooted in a true assurance of eternal salvation, and experience a spiritual progress! For, in the end, it is as says Martin Lloyd Jones, and I quote: ‘If you are not sure that you are a Christian then you are not a Christian.’ Reading his exposition of the Gospel, one realises that a Christian, is a truly born-again man, a new creature, living in the power of the Holy Spirit; a person absolutely certain of what the Lord has done with Him, in him, and for him is forever! In reality a true Christian is a person that is like Christ, ‘sanctified, justified glorified!’ as says the Holy Scriptures, quoted previously. After all, according to the words of Jesus: ‘It is a narrow gate, and a straight path, that leads the pilgrim to his home!

From the beginning of the Lord’s baptism, there has been many disputations, or remarks, made by critics, saying: since the baptism of John the Baptist, was a baptism of repentance, Jesus had nothing to repent from! so, why did Jesus had to be baptised? The time came when at the age of about thirty years of age Jesus left His home in Nazareth, where His involvement with the local synagogue ceased abruptly. After many years of devoted attendance, as every Jew, Jesus had an active part in all that pertained to its functions. But after that they tried to eliminate Him, it was time to leave Nazareth and he chose to live in Capernaum. But after he went and settled in Capernaum on the northern coast of the sea of Galilee; as I mentioned previously! Jesus knew that the time was ripe to start His public ministry. The spreading of the Gospel was a very important reason, among others, for His coming into the world. He said to His father, ‘I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.’ (John 17: 8).

I have mentioned before that the Gospel was in the heart of God before Jesus left heaven to be born in Bethlehem. He grew up just as every child in Israel, he had to go through every ritual, such as the circumcision etcetera. At twelve a Hebrew boy was accounted as an adult, this meant that he had to attend the feast of the Passover according to the custom, which Jesus did, as mentioned by Luke: ‘Every year his parents went to Jerusalem, a journey of about eighty miles, for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the feast according to the custom.’ (Luke 2: 41-42) He had to submit to the whole law, for it had to be fulfilled to the letter, until then no-one had been able to fulfil it, and as the lamb of God, Jesus had to obey it, to be the perfect, sinless sacrifice!