Words of Jesus Podcast - God in the Dock

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

Can you love a God who knows everything, who can do anything, and yet does nothing? Not many can when the struggles of life inevitably come. The fact is, "Good and bad things happen to all men." Modern Christianity has redefined God's attributes by traditions and which creates irrational resentment toward the God who loves us. Don't reject God because of wrong expectations. One day our loved ones will die. Remember, in this life you will have trouble, it's not a result of the lack of God's love or ability. Trials are for our perfection. Don't you feel better that God walks with us daily? Go to the Scriptures and seek out what is true about our God and his intentions toward us. ***Chapter 9: Jesus Heals the Nobleman's Son (Part 2) Jesus returned to Cana in Galilee, the place where he had made the water into wine at the marriage feast.  Hearing that Jesus had come back to Galilee from Judea, a nobleman, whose son was sick to the point of death in Capernaum, went to meet him.  He besought Jesus to heal his son. To the nobleman Jesus said: “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” The nobleman replied: “Sir, come down ere my child die.” Jesus responded: “Go thy way; thy son liveth.” The man believed the promise Jesus had made to him and started toward home.  While still on his way he was met, the following day, by his servants, who said: “Thy son liveth.” The nobleman inquired as to the hour his son began to amend and his servantsreplied: “Yesterday at the seventh hour [1 o’clock] the fever left him. So, the father knew that it was at the same hour Jesus had told him his sonlived.  Accordingly, he believed as did all others in his house.

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host. Glad to be with you. Glad you're here. And many of you dedicate this particular time to come and visit us and I want you to know I appreciate it. So welcome. We have really enjoyed being able to go through the red ink in the scriptures and share them with you. My whole purpose is to see to it that you have a good familiarity with what Jesus actually said. It's almost rare

today to hear people preach on it or teach on it or even talk about it. But we were visited by the wisest being in the universe. And to not know what he says is kind of silly. And to ignore what he says is, that's borderline stupid. But I chalk it up to a lot of chalk a lot of it up to the fact that our preaching today doesn't seem to really care. evangelical, educational, theological, doctrinal sermon and not tie it back or at least

make some connection with what Jesus Christ said are required of us. But they do. And you'll find that perhaps I don't think we overemphasize the red words, and you won't either, by the way, when we're through with this. You're going to be in love with them as I am. All right, Jesus healing the nobleman's son. This is chapter 9 of our little book called The Words of Jesus.

Jesus returned to Cana in Galilee, the place where he had made the water into wine at the marriage feast. Hearing that Jesus had come back to Galilee from Judea, a nobleman whose son was sick to the point of death in Capernaum went to meet him. He besought Jesus to heal his son. To the nobleman, Jesus said, except you see signs and wonders you will not believe.

What? What did he say? Here's a man no reason to believe that he has any religious life in him whatsoever. He's got the tragedy of a son who is sick and about to die. He comes to Jesus and asks Jesus to heal his son. Everything makes sense right up to the point that Jesus opens his mouth. And as soon as he says something, all bets are off.

Where in the world is this going? There's a common understanding about Jesus that he could read people's minds. There's no reason to believe that he could read people's minds any more than there is to believe that you can do it or that I can do it. If I'm sitting here talking to you about me talking to Bob and I was trying to explain to Bob about this, that, and the other and I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking to himself and then you go to say it. Are you going to

say that I'm omniscient or that I can read minds or are you just going to think that I'm omniscient or that I can read minds? Or are you just going to think that I'm perhaps intuitive enough to see the look in somebody's eye, the body language, whatever it happens to be, that tips me off that I know what they're thinking? Anytime you find Jesus knowing what somebody's thinking, you find people willing to jump on that and say, see there, he can read people's minds. Well, I think that that's an unnecessary conclusion to which a person is jumping way ahead of time. I think that it also discounts

the communicative relationship between Jesus Christ and our Father God Jehovah. I think that it discounts it to the point that you're sort of putting Jesus on a level higher than yourself while putting him on a level equal to yourself. Do you understand what I mean? No? Okay. When you say that Jesus could read minds, you're thinking to yourself, well, surely he can read minds. Because, I mean, how else would he know? Which takes him out of the place that he so rightfully deserves as

the son of God in communication with his father. Do you remember one time they were upset with him because he'd done something on the Sabbath day and the Pharisees said, you know, you can't do this. This is on the Sabbath day. And the Pharisees said, you know, you can't do this. This is on the Sabbath day. Go away and come again some other day to be healed or whatever they have to say. They're always upset with him. And he says, he says, look, I don't make these decisions. My father worketh hitherto and I work.

Okay, we got the old English again. What is he saying? My father's working up until now, so I'm compelled to work. And I don't know that the father's so concerned that this healing is taking place on the Sabbath day. He's the one that instigated it. He's the one that heals. He's the one that I obey.

So your argument is not with me, it is with Him. But do you see how the Pharisees, and we as well, take Jesus out of that supernatural category of being the Son of God, being in communication with His Father, and we ascribe to Him something like a parlor trick of reading people's minds. Look, there's more evidence that Crescent can read minds than there is that Jesus Christ was reading minds.

We should default to the supernatural when Jesus walks up on a situation. It's not hard for me to believe at all that Jesus is walking up on a situation. It's not hard for me to believe at all that Jesus is walking up on a situation and the father is telling him, you see that man over there? Tell him to stand up and walk. I got some work to do. I need this witness. I need, you know, we're gonna have to have this happen. Walk over there and heal this guy. Restore that withered limb or whatever else. It's not hard for me to believe at all that he's receiving direction, information from his father about that particular situation.

Not that he can read minds or that he has some ability that you don't have. You see the Bible says that when Jesus came to this earth, made himself a little lower than the angels, that he emptied himself of all these spiritual supernatural powers that separate him from us. Did you know that? Did you know that it was his choice to come here and empty himself of these powers?

I know it's, you think, well I never thought of that. Well you wouldn't think of that really unless you understood that scripture or heard that scripture and gave it some thought. But you think, well if he emptied himself of all these powers how was he able to walk on the water? How was he able to open the eyes of the blind? He was operating under his father's power, influence, tutelage, under his father's instruction. His father was doing all

these things. He said, I of my own self can do nothing. I see the Father do something. You need to believe in my Father. He doeth the works. He doeth the works. Now, are you taking away the divinity of Christ? Absolutely not. That's not what I'm doing. If you're looking for a reason not to believe what I'm saying, just have the guts enough to say I don't believe it.

But don't make up things. You know, don't just try to turn me into a heretic so you're off the hook. Look, let's face some facts here. Let's just face some facts. Either what Jesus said was true or it wasn't. He said the Father does the works. So am I supposed to believe that He's doing them? You find Jesus all the time.

Even in situations of lacking that communication between He and His Father. It's not there for some reason. Man brings his son to Jesus and he says that the boy's got a problem and sometimes this some people are saying it's epilepsy. I don't know. We try to put these things into our vocabulary and sometimes they don't work. I don't know that it's epilepsy or demon possession or whatever it is or was. But he says,

you know, we need to do something about this boy. And so Jesus looks at him and says, how long has he been in this condition? Well, wait a minute. I thought you were omniscient. I thought you knew everything. Why are you asking me this? You don't know how long he's been in this condition? Comes to Martha after Lazarus had died and said, where have you laid him? What? I thought you were omniscient. I thought you knew everything.

You're asking me where we buried him? Where we put his body? You don't know that? You'll find Jesus, people say, well, he was just asking for rhetorical reasons, asking to make an impression or make an effect or to make a point. No, he wasn't. He was asking because he wanted to know.

He didn't know. Does that somehow etch away his little magical fairy tale idea that we have of him? Is that so unusable? Is he so unusable to us now that he's not the magical Santa Claus God? Well, you know, we know Santa Claus omniscient. He knows if you're naughty or nice, right? That's why we're all good. So he'll through the powers of omnipotence and omnipresence

bring us all gifts on Christmas Eve. Do you see how we take these ideas and they're fairy tale ideas. You won't find the scripture saying that Jesus knew everything. It's not in there. There's a particular scripture I'm thinking of now that the Bible says that Jesus didn't, he didn't seek out men to approve of him or not. And why didn't he? Well, they say that because he didn't seek the approval of man

because he knew what was in man. Now, is this Jesus supernaturally reading their minds? Or is it the creator of man that created mankind that is well aware of the situation, well aware of the problem? He knew what was in man. So all of a sudden, man's approval really didn't mean that much to him.

That makes perfect sense to me. If Jesus walks on the water, does that make Jesus God? Or does that make Jesus obedient when the Lord says, walk out on the water to those fishermen out there and let's see if we can make a point. Well, walking on the water, Don, that's a, nobody but God could do that.

Well, you need to talk to Peter about that. Peter will be really tickled to find out that he's a God too because he did it. We don't give these things enough thought. And you have to ask yourself, why am I doing this? Why am I trying to make God into, I don't know, a God that I like, that I could worship? I don't want to worship a God that doesn't know everything.

You know what? The attributes of God have little to do with the fact that I love him and that I appreciate him and that I will serve him the rest of my days. It's really the fact that he loves me, which is unfathomable. I mean, but you know, isn't that what the scriptures say? Jesus Christ loved us, so we ought to love one another. And there's really nothing selfish about that. It's just that we just don't need the magic. We don't need the magic. We don't need all this stuff.

We don't have to have these things in order to have a relationship with God. Takes us right back to the very story that we're telling here. Here's a man who heard about Christ, that he was a healer. I think that within this man was the call of God is in this situation.

We'll put ourselves in present tense. And I believe that this man was called of God to be a child of God, to be an obedient child of God, and he had suspicion that Jesus Christ had something to do with the God that he served essentially his whole life. Actually, there's a

he's called a nobleman usually, a nobility people who are, he was probably a wealthy land owner or whatever. But what we don't find is that he's a pagan or that he is a Gentile or that he is, we don't have any reason to believe that he wasn't raised in a family in a home that taught him that the right thing to do, the right God to

worship is Jehovah God, the creator of the world, the all-encompassing creator God. I mean he probably knew this from a child. But somehow this thing with Jesus was this sparked his interest. Now he has a son that's sick, and he's saying that this boy is sick to the point of death, and so I brought him to you so that you might heal him.

I think that at this particular point, we have Jesus receiving from his father this situation in its entirety and in its clarity. It's very much like the meeting with him and Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes in and says, you're a wonderful guy. We all love you. You're just great. We believe you're a man of God. You're just true and honest as the day is long. And Jesus says, you must be born again. You have Jesus

abruptly inserting what seems to be a totally different subject, an impertinent idea altogether. What has that got to do with what I just said? It's almost like he wasn't even listening. Very much like what's happening right here. He says, I need you to heal my son that he's at the point of death. And I need you to heal my son, Jesus says. Except you see signs and wonders, you cannot believe.

You can feel free to believe in me. I don't have to do miracles and signs and wonders for you to believe in me? I don't have to do do I have to do miracles and signs and wonders for you to believe in who I am? Look, you know how we have to we have to admit that we are very much like this? I think it's important for our development, our personal development of character and honesty

to admit that we won't serve a God that doesn't meet our criteria you know we got a list of things you got to be to be God you want to be God? We got to have omniscience omnipotence, we got to have omnipresence, you got to be a trinity you got to do this and that we have all this stuff you meet this criteria you check all the right boxes you're in somehow we us and god have changed places to where he's no longer the prosecuting attorney asking questions to a man in the dock, a man in the witness stand.

It's us out there making him prove to us that he's God. And soon as we deem him worthy of being God, we might give him another look. But until then, you're just like Mohammed or Buddha or anybody else. What a mistake. What a huge mistake. This was such a shock to this man that Jesus would come in there and just gouge him right in the sore spot and

say, I know why you're here. I mean, I happen to believe that the Father reveals all these kind of things to Christ. And by the way, hey, can I tell you something? Not to get too far off the subject, but do you know this kind of communication is available to you? Did you know that you can go to someone to minister to that person and have the Lord explain that person's situation in a way that perhaps that person doesn't even understand? That can put you in greater, you don't have to ask them a whole bunch of questions.

You don't have to ask them, you know, do you hate your mom? Do you hate your father? You know, did your school teacher spank you in front of the classroom? You know, did kids make fun of you when you peed your pants on the football field? You don't have to do it. It just, that kind of goes away because you step into a situation. You a situation I have experienced on my way to a situation, the Lord showing me things about a situation I didn't even know I was going toward until I got there and I think, oh that's what this was all about. Do you know you can live this way? You want to be the best counselor

in the world? Do you want you can live this way? You want to be the best counselor in the world? Do you want to be accused of reading people's minds? You need a communicative relationship with your father. Because guess who wants them healed? Guess who wants them whole? More so than you and more so than even they. Our father does. He's a wonderful God, and He wants great things for us. But not if you keep going your own way. Not if you keep trying to dig these things up under your own

power, under your own control. Not as long as you're doing that. That's never going to work. You're only going to be as smart as your brain is going to let you be. That's all. Your teachers are only going to be as smart as their brains let them be. I want to connect you to the original source. The thing that got unplugged in the Garden of Eden, you can plug it back in. What do you think happened on the day of Pentecost? Why do you think they were speaking a language that everybody understood? How many sermons did Peter preach on the day of Pentecost?

One. Well, how come it is that Carthians and Medes and Persians and dwellers in Mesopotamia and a fistful of dialects and languages understood exactly what he said. How did that happen? He didn't preach all those multiple sermons in all those different languages. He preached one sermon. How did that happen? Because he was plugged back into that thing that got unplugged at the Tower of Babel our understanding and our dedication to God and who we are and how we think and how we live and how we love one another how we take care of one another how we teach each other learn

from each other and become a the family of man on the earth I know you might think that those answers are on the campus of Berkeley, but they're not. Those answers are within you as soon as you plug back into what we lost at the Garden of Eden. You know what got that plug unplugged? Knowledge. The lust for knowing. Why did the tree of

knowledge even appeal to Eve or Adam? Why did it even appeal to them? Because that's the way we are. When we want something more, we want more knowledge. If you want more knowledge, buddy, this world is ready to give it to you you can pay for any degree you want and this is our tendency to go toward this i'm telling you just switch that education for revelation work on a relationship with God that allows revelation. Boy, when that happens, you can actually handle situations like Jesus did.

You start thinking in red ink. Things start to change. God reveals things to you. He revealed this to him about, you know, this guy is here because he's testing you. Well, I thought his son was sick. It is, but it's secondary. I assure you. This is just an opportune moment for this guy. He's there to test you. So this is why Jesus could look at him and say, yeah, sorry about your son, but let me tell you this. Well, that's cold. That's cruel. That's not my Jesus.

You know how many times I hear people say, that's not my Jesus. Well, sorry to hear that. Sorry to hear that. Because this is Jesus. This is Jesus operating in the power and authority that his father gave him and the knowledge that his father gave him and the knowledge that his father gave him so he says oh so if you don't see signs and wonders you're not going to believe what did the man do at that point the man replied sir come down here my child die so what did he do he

switched off of his primary cause didn't he he came off of the one that embarrassed him and dropped on the one that would instill sympathy in everybody around them. Well, you don't care about my boy. You don't care about my son. And Jesus says, go your way. Your son liveth. Go my way? What do you mean go my way? What do you mean, go my way? My son's about to die. You're telling me to go my way? I'm willing to stay here and worship you. Now, see, I'm not interested in worship that comes from people that make up a fairy tale God and put my name on it.

That's not what I'm interested in. I know what you need. I know what you have to have. You have to have miracles. And you have have to have. You have to have miracles and you have to have signs. You have to have wonders in your life. You have to believe that everything that happens in your life that's good is from God and everything that's bad comes from the devil. And you just make up and you add the stories and you embellish them until 20 years from now, the story that you tell about how God did this wonderful thing

doesn't even resemble what actually happened. Now I know what's going on here. Go your way. Your son lives. This was mercy toward the boy. This was not an answer of a request of a selfish man Can you understand that? I hope you can understand this

Because, man, this attitude is hugely common in the church We won't worship a God that doesn't meet our criteria And the more miracles He does, the more we love him. You know what Jesus says? Go your way. Just go your way. Ah, that's not my Jesus. Well, it should be.

This man, he headed home. He didn't stick around. He went back and they said, your son's better. And he says, when did it happen? And they said, about one o'clock. That was right when he said it. And he decided right then that he must have been the son of God and believed on him.

So did Jesus toss the man away? I don't know. Perhaps he spanked him a little to save his soul something to think about alright it's time for us to go I want to hear from you write to me Don at thinkrightinc.com

love to hear from you and thanks for being part of the show today bye bye being part of the show today. Bye-bye. ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you