Words of Jesus Podcast - A Prophet is Without Honor in His Own Home

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

Dogma builds brick walls which complicate the gospel. Jesus brought a simple story, "God wants his man back." Jesus' mission was to obey the Father, to bring a path to righteousness to a condemned human race, not to end to Roman persecution. Jesus did not come to do miracles on-demand. Jesus said, in effect, "I'm going to disappoint you." It's not like you think. "A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign..." Familiarity was a problem. The people of the day did not expect someone they knew to be a prophet or the Son of God. Jesus was despised because they knew him and where he was from. "Physician heal thyself." Jesus operated in meekness. He had the power and knowledge to overcome, but, he lived in obedience to His Father. ***Jesus and His Message Rejected at Nazareth (Part 5)HEARING that John had been cast into prison, Jesus returned to Galilee. He began to preach the gospel of God in the synagogues, saying:            “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye, and believe the gospel.”His fame was spread through all the regions round about.            Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been reared, and went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. He stood up and read from the book of the prophet Isaiah, were it was written:           “’The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.’”           All eyes fastened on him as he began to preach, saying:           “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”       Many of those present were bewildered, and others were awe-inspired. They questioned among themselves.        “Is this Joseph’s son?”        Others hearing him were astonished. They said:       “From whence hath this man these things? And what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?           And they were offended at him.           Jesus continued, saying:           “Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.’ But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when then Heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many the lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello friend and welcome once again to The Words of Jesus series. Think Red Ink Ministries is providing for you. And we thank you for you making this a part of your day. Love to know that you're here. I don't know when you're listening.

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So if the RLE zine is of interest to you or you'd like to be informed about events that we're doing or having here at Pytown, it's really a great way to do it. So take advantage of that. We've been reading about Jesus standing in the temple and reading from Isaiah. And in this encounter, he read from Isaiah

it pretty much described everything that he was going to do in his whole life. The people there were seeing in him and hearing in him something that made them believe that who they were looking at was indeed the Messiah. They argued with themselves and they argued with each other trying to come up with reasons not to believe and did so in many cases. And we were talking about some of the things that we set up as criteria in our lives and things

that we say, you know, nothing can cross this line. Well where did this line come from? Well, it came straight out of the seminaries or it came out of some pagan church somewhere. It came out of, you know, some religious organization, out of the minds of men or whatever else. But we've always considered that to be a brick wall. Well, you know, let's go to the scriptures and see if it's a brick wall. Well, lo and behold, it doesn't even appear in Scripture. It doesn't seem like anybody cares about this brick wall that is determining

whether somebody's a false prophet or not, except the guy who's trying to build a church and trying to keep people from scattering out there. I don't know what they do or why they do it, but the fact is that we need to get our information from the scriptures. You'll find that Christian life just gets easier and easier when you do that, when you don't have to impress anybody. So these people were trying to get rid of Jesus, or the revelation that Jesus was the Messiah

by deducing that he is breaking certain rules that the Messiah can't break. But they were all man-made rules and man-made ideas. So there were some people that believed and some people were offended. Jesus turned around to them and said, you will surely say unto me this proverb, physician heal thyself. Just take a look at this for just a second. When it says

physician heal thyself, he says that my ministry is not going to be necessarily the ministry of power that you may have thought that the Messiah, the Anointed One, would come in that kind of power, you're going to find me subjecting myself to your scrutiny and your cruelty and ultimately unto death. To the point that you're going to cry out to me saying physician

heal thyself and I would say without exaggeration, without adding to the scriptures as much as is possible, I think that they will at that point have felt some disappointment that Jesus didn't come down from the cross as he was challenged to do. Or that the physician didn't heal himself and they were

in doubt saying if he's the Messiah how could he suffer and die as he ended up suffering and dying? That just, that can't be. It can't be. And Jesus was telling them at the very beginning you will surely say unto me physician heal thyself. I am going to, essentially what he's telling people, I am going to disappoint you who feel like I've come to take this world over in power like a great

military general. You will wonder why I don't use the power that I have. You will wonder why. You'll coax me. You'll taunt me saying physician heal thyself. But I'm telling you that what I do, I do for a reason and I always do what pleases the Father. And if it pleases the Father to do miracles in Capernaum and not here, then that's what we do. He goes on to say

physician heal thyself whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum do also here in thy country. So they're all looking for a sign. The scriptures say that a wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. Well if there has ever been a wicked and adulterous generation, it is the one in which we live now. And this is why I can hold a seminar downtown that says

make yourself better in 60 seconds. Change your life and your family inside a half hour. Find a relationship with God. Find a communication with God. People say, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, yeah, I'll be there, and they never show up. But you can have a seminar down there saying that you're going to expound upon the four horsemen of the Acropolis, as I heard a preacher

say recently. You're going to expound on the prophecies of the Old Testament and the flying lizards and the scorpions and what does it mean when it says they have stings in their tail? Excatically speaking, what relevance does the second toe in Nebuchadnezzar's statue have to do with the relation of Jesus Christ and the millennium and his part of the resurrection? And is it an iron toe or is it a clay toe?

And you just think, wow, does this really stop me from hating my neighbor? Does this really make me a better person? Does this make my wife love me again? Does this open communication between me and my children who want nothing to do with me anymore? Does this give me power over my own spirit? Does it give me power over habits in my life and troubles and necessities? No, it doesn't. It just takes our time, occupies our brain, and as long as you're involved in education, you'll never be involved in Revelation.

And I'm sorry, it's really not funny. It's just so incredible that people are just suckered in by this all the time. I don't get it. You can fill a stadium if you want to talk about prophecy. You want to talk about becoming a better person? You want to talk about relinquishing the chains and such in your life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you want to talk about dropping off what's destroying your life and gaining what's good for you?

What are you going to get? 20 people in some overpriced holiday inn room? Is that what you're going to get? Yeah, that's about what you're going to get. You want to fill a stadium? You've got to give them candy. And they just pass it out. You know what's really an interesting study is to just go back a handful of years and look at some of the prophecies that people have made and how they never happened. That there was nothing true about it, that it was just made up in the minds of men. Now, the preachers who made those prophecies don't talk about them

anymore and just hope that you've forgotten. But they'll come out with more. Why? Because people love it! That's why. I know that I'm always amazed when my phone rings and it's some salesman wanting to sell me something and I'm thinking, why do they do this? Why do they, I mean, telephone sales? Are they still, that's still going on? You know, do not call list. What was that? The biggest farce that ever hit America. But why are they doing this? I'll tell you why they're doing this. I get letters from Nigeria. You've just won,

you know, or you've inherited $6 million from an ancestor and all we need is $3,000 to release that money to your bank account. Why are they doing this? I'll tell you why they're doing this. These preachers stand up and say things that don't make any sense whatsoever, but they make everybody feel good and they're absolutely being untrue to their calling, being disobedient to the commandments of God, disobedient to the God they serve. Why are they doing this? I'll tell you why they're doing this. In all three situations. I'll tell you why. Because it works. That's why.

It works. Do you think that there would be another letter coming out of Nigeria, for example? Telling people that you've got an inheritance of $45 million and all you have to do is send me $5,000 and I'll send it to you and I'll be your intermediary. You've read these letters. Do you think one more of those would come out if nobody responded? Of course not! They do it because it works. Why do preachers

continue to lie? Why do they continue to preach what their friends at Denny's preach? Because it works. Why do people sell diet pills? There's a new diet pill every week on television. Why do they do that? Not because it takes weight off of anybody. Not because it actually does what it says. It's because it sells. So friend, we have to quit buying this stuff.

We have to walk away and stop buying it anyway we have to we have to take responsibility sometime in our life for making these things work and we have to be very careful that we don't I don't know saddle our God with doctrines that he never expounded promises that he never doctrines that he never expounded, promises that he never made,

words that he never said, and just understand that we don't understand. We just need to know that we don't know. And when Jesus looks around at his people and says, you're going to say to me this proverb, it's not because it's true. It's not because it's right. It's not because it's needful. But you know what? The Bible says he knew what was in man. I know how this is going to go. I'm going to be popular for a while, but after a while, you'll wonder why I don't do things your way. And the people who stay, after it occurs to them,

he's not doing what I say. Those people that stay with me, those are my disciples indeed. He says that whatever you did in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. But I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. This is another concept that proves to be very, very true. Some people have tried to counter this and tried to fix this situation.

I'll explain what I mean. When you become very, very familiar with somebody, when you're their friend and you've become very familiar with somebody, when you're their friend, and you've become very familiar with them, it's hard to see them in the light that they actually deserve. And there is a like-kindness, like-kindness that comes between two friends

that, you know, I can become friends with a guy that's a millionaire, and if I hang around him long enough, I'll go to thinking I'm one. I've always heard, I used to play golf and enjoy it, and somebody says, you know what you need to do? You need to play golf with somebody that really knows how to play and watch how good you are. You know there's truth in that? And if we hang around people that are in life where we want to be there's something about it rubbing off. Something about it elevating us. But there's also something about it pulling down the

person on the other side to your level. And what will happen to us eventually is that, have you ever heard the term familiarity breeds contempt? This is very, very true. And as we get to know someone and as we get close to them, we quit thinking that they're really all that smart or all that rich or all that brilliant or all that famous. You know, they just become your friend. That's my friend.

Have you ever had a friend? I remember I had a boss when I was a mechanic as a teenager and he's just a regular old guy. Nice guy. Great guy to work for. He was fun. And we talked and we'd hang around after work and might go out to lunch or whatever. We were close, but I mean it was still a boss-employee relationship. One day I used to stay behind and clean the shop and wash the grease on the floor trying to make extra money.

He came in there and I had the radio on and it was just such a tune that he snapped into this little tap dancing routine and danced all around the garage. And I was just standing there with my mouth open. And I was thinking, I don't know this guy at all. Well, I say I give you all these, he was good. I give you these stories because this is

such a fact that a prophet is never without honor except in his own country and in his own house and among his own kin. Do you know these things ought not so to be? Do you realize that? You know there may be people in your life that are really, really worthy of honor and they ought to be honorable

and if you feel some inferiority to them honor. And they ought to be honorable. And if you feel some inferiority to them, don't just say, well, we're buds, we're close, and just, you know, I treat him like anybody else. I don't know how smart that is. Jesus Christ suffered this as well. And it was this particular concept that he's talking about right here.

A prophet's not without honor, except in his own country and in his own house. Why did he say that? Because he just heard that entire group say this man could not be anything really special because we know him. And we know where he came from. We know his family. We've all been friends for years. And so it kind of saps

the power away from Jesus Christ and says, you know, you want to see miracles like they had in Capernaum? The people in Capernaum didn't treat me that way. They understood me for who I am. They didn't just discount everything I was and just allow me to do whatever. Well, that's just Jesus. That's what he does. No, no. They respected him as a prophet. He comes home and he gets sassed. As I said, starting out, I was saying some people

try to circumnavigate this problem. They try to fix it by putting themselves up on a pedestal. Pastors like to stick reverend in front of their name or pastor in front of their name. They want to be referred to in a certain way. A friend was just reiterating to me a situation in a church where he was visiting this church and I might have the details wrong but it was like

hey preacher because he's walking by and you get scolded because nobody speaks to preacher unless he speaks to you. I know that somebody testified that that's the way it is at Kenneth Copeland's place out there. You just never speak to them. You never speak to them because that familiarity thing is a problem. So they're going to break that off. I'm not just talking about Copeland's. I'm talking about all of them. That's the reason we dress better.

The reason we drive better cars is because we get the salaries we get as pastors. It's just kind of a setting themselves above other people in order to bring this to pass. Well, when you couple these two ideas that we've talked about about and one of them is physician heal thyself and we know this man whence he is and Jesus was saying that

if I weren't in my own house, if I were among other people, I'd be getting respect. When you couple these two ideas, you have Jesus working against a very formidable attitude that I think is prevalent today among a lot of us. And that is that Jesus and I, we're buds. We're friends. We're pals.

They refer to God as the man upstairs. They refer to him as if they're old fishing buddies and such, trying to create some kind of a relationship with them. Well, it's in that time of respect for who they are that they try to bring them down to their level. And Jesus is saying, you're going to say unto me, physician, heal thyself, because either you will have mentally brought yourself up to my level, or you're going to see me fall to yours. And you're going to see me add to that falling a characteristic that you're probably not

familiar with called meekness. Now meekness is often misunderstood to be humility and it's not. Meekness is when you have the power to overcome. You have the power to do something about the situation. You have the power. The physician has the power to heal himself and you may beg him to do that, but meekness

will demand that he not do it. You have the power to overcome your enemy, but you choose not to. This is meekness. And this is what our Lord Jesus had in abundance. And he said, I'm going to disappoint you. I'm going to disappoint you up here. I'm going to disappoint you down here, but I need you to stay with me. Boy, isn't that a wonderful message? Isn't that a wonderful saying? Isn't it a wonderful thing to say as a leader of a religious organization, whether you're a pastor or a preacher or a teacher or whatever you happen to be, that people would know without a doubt,

I'm going to disappoint you. You need to be very careful. You're going to get familiar with me. I'm going to disappoint you. You're going to put me up on a pedestal. I'm going to disappoint you. And I think Jesus was dealing with all these things at the onset of his ministry

and saying that yeah I'm the Messiah I'm the anointed one but hey don't answer quite yet don't form an opinion just yet you haven't seen anything yet and when you have seen something then you may have whatever intelligence you need to make these decisions. But right now, no. You don't have that ability. So stick with me. Hey, that's what I'm telling you.

Stick with me. Thanks for coming by and watching the show. We're going to see you again right here next time. Another episode in the words of Jesus. I'd sure like to hear from you. Just say, hi, how you doing? I'm listening. It's okay. Just something simple. Just send an email to don at thinkredding.com, or you can write to Think Red Ink Ministries at P.O. Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico, 87827.

You have questions? You're wondering which way to go you're wondering what would Jesus do what did Jesus say think ready time for us to go, see you next time bye bye The End You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredink.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series.