Words of Jesus Podcast - God's Will Thwarted

Episode Date: August 19, 2022

Jesus was not a sissy in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus understood what we often do not, that being that things were not going according to the plan. God expected Jesus to be received as King the people of Israel.  Put aside flannel-graph theology. God lives with us and makes decisions every day! "God never changes!" you cry out. Of course not, God has always had the ability to change-His-mind! Read the book. It's in there.***Chapter 22: Jesus Answers John the Baptist Regarding His IdentityJOHN THE BAPTIST was in prison, but he heard about the works of Jesus. He called two of his disciples and told them to go to Jesus and ask: "Art thou he that should come? Or look we for another?" They found Jesus and said to him: "John Baptist has sent us unto thee, saying, 'Art thou he that should come? Or look we for another?" While the two disciples of John were with him Jesus healed many who were inform, many who were suffering with plagues, and others who were filled with evil spirits; also, to many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus said unto the disciples: "Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me."***

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host. And we started something yesterday or the last time you saw the show that was kind of difficult to deal with. And I'm sure that a lot of people's heads might have been spinning. Some people's cheeks might have been flushed. Some people might have really gotten mad. I've noticed that it's never a wonderful

thing to mess with somebody's religion. But I assure you, these things are very important for us to understand who our God is, how to worship him. And I don't know how you're going to worship him in spirit and not worship him in truth. And if these things are not so, you can bet somewhere along the line, if you're believing something that's not true, it's going to hinder you in some way. It's not going to make you freer. It's not going to fix anything. It's going to make it worse. Because you have to understand that Jesus didn't say the absence of false doctrine will set you free.

He said the truth will set you free. So for many of us who really get a kick out of scrubbing false doctrine out of our lives and avoiding false doctrine and don't let the Jehovah's Witness into the door and don't talk to that guy, he's a Mormon, or whatever else we do to build these fences to protect ourselves against false doctrine, well that's probably good thinking. However, if you don't have

the truth, the only thing you know is what's false doctrine. Most of us believe we know because somebody's told us. But if your idea is to protect yourself from false doctrine and thus protect yourself as far as being safe inside the kingdom of God. You're missing something here because you can do all that and still never be free. How many people do you know like this? You ever see a happy guy

that is constantly correcting people's doctrines or shunning certain people, certain groups of people because of what they believe. You ever see anybody like that that's really free? Free to love somebody else that doesn't necessarily believe the way they do? No, freedom does not come from the removal or the recognition of false doctrine in your life. Freedom comes from truth. You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free. I know you might have thought they were the same thing, the rejection of false doctrine and the acceptance of truth, but they're not.

We have many people walking around that are absolutely hollow because they have kept false doctrine out of their lives, but their shelves are just as empty as the grocery store in a hurricane. So what we have to do is we have to find truth and accept it. So what you're telling us about Jesus, you know, that's him not knowing that he's going to be crucified? Nah, I'm not buying it.

I understand. I understand that fully, totally. But if you'll read the Gospels and do so with an open mind and with these kind of things in mind, you're going to start finding things in there that you probably never noticed before. One of the things is we can condemn Jesus' prophecy. You ever thought about the fact that he told John that he wasn't going to die before he saw the kingdom of God come? And then later in the Gospels you find him looking at

John and saying, you know, you're going to be an old man one day and people are going to carry you where you don't want to go and these kind of things. And then it says that the rumor went about that the disciples should not die. We just miss it all the time, I guess. But I'm just saying that these things all can make sense uh you don't need not wring your hands over the garden of gethsemane prayer that you know has jesus essentially just crying about something that he supposedly knew six000 years ago? Listen, Jesus was not crying over the fact that he was going to be physically tortured.

Let me just tell you that right off the bat. He wasn't worried about his own skin. I know that the crucifixion was a horrible thing, and it is a horrible thing if you look at it and study it and see what they were. However, he was crying about the fact that his mission was failing. It was failing. He's not going to be able to redeem his man on the earth. That's what had him upset.

It wasn't his own physical discomfort so um here we have um a situation it's difficult to talk about but it's going to require an open mind and frankly if if you're all twisted up about it and it's bothering you um let's let's just get through this and move on you'll find that I'm just not a big stickler on you believing everything I believe and me believing everything you believe and if we don't we can't have coffee together nah that's not me was it one two three Passovers ago I think we had Passover up in Albuquerque and I did

a teaching on what did Jesus know and when did he know it and it was when these things were coming very clear to me and I could I was able to take to build a timeline and show you just about the time that the father was revealing to Jesus that this isn't working. This is not working. And we're going to have to make some changes to what we're going to do. You're going to be tickled about the changes because they were made

in order to save you. Now John the Baptist I believe that he knew exactly how all this was to take place. I think that he was privy to it. Not only because he was a prophet of God that spoke for God to God's people, but because he was a cousin of Jesus Christ. I mean, they grew up together and obviously loved one another very much.

And I think that John the Baptist knew exactly what Jesus was doing or what the plan was. Because there was a time when John the Baptist was goading him a little bit. I want to read that now, okay? By the way, this is chapter 22 in our little book, and it comes from Matthew 11 and Luke 7 combined. We're going to read this story. John the Baptist was in prison but he heard about the works of Jesus. He called two of his disciples and told them to go to Jesus

and ask, art thou he that should come or look we for another? This is him goading Jesus a little bit. They found Jesus and said unto him, John the Baptist has sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come, or look we for another? While the two disciples of John were with him, Jesus healed many who were infirm,

many who were suffering with plagues, and others who were filled with evil spirits. Also, to many that were blind, he gave sight. Then Jesus said to the disciples of John, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see, So what was going on here uh i've heard this story and i've heard preachers talk about john was getting discouraged he's sitting there in that stinking prison and he's he's sitting on a cold stone floor and he's just pretty much had enough and um and he's becoming more and more miserable and so he's kind of reaching out to Jesus like I really need you to help me here

or you know there's been all kinds of scenarios but you know if you will accept it I think I mean the very thing we talked about yesterday, that what Jesus had in mind and what actually happened were two different things. I think John saw that. This isn't working, is it? It's not working. I don't hear anything about you becoming king. I don't hear anything about you becoming king.

I don't hear anything about you becoming high priest. I don't hear anything about the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leadership, anybody who is somebody in the temple accepting you as Messiah. This isn't working, is it? Now, Jesus is what he sent back to John was not, oh yeah, we're on track. Everything's fine. Everything's cool.

No, he didn't. He was saying, I'm doing what I can do. And the signs are here. The only thing we need now is for people to believe and accept what they see. And when he says here, he says the poor have the gospel preached to him, and blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me. Many times when people read this, they ascribe that comment toward John the Baptist.

Like, don't get offended in me. Now, first of all, let's do a little King James work here. The word offended or to offend that we find in the scriptures is not in our modern idea of people offending one another. You offend me when you say that. You offend me when you do that. No, no, no. This isn't an offense as in your

feelings are hurt. When he says not offended an offense is if you can remember the word fence in the word offense you understand what an offense is. And if somebody carelessly and thoughtlessly parked their car out there in front of the door of the studio and I went to leave and I couldn't get out the door because that car was there, that car is an offense to me. That doesn't mean I'm going to go find

a crying room and boohoo about it. It has nothing to do with my feelings. It is an offense to me because it is a fence to me. You see what I mean? As a matter of fact there was a military term, a rock of offense. A rock of offense was a rock that you can't get around. They would tumble big rocks into mountain passes or something. And these would be rocks of offense. And what that meant was you couldn't get around them.

Now, Jesus was, I mean, of course this advice that he's giving or this statement that he's making, certainly it's applicable to John. I mean, certainly it can be applied there, but it can also be applied to essentially everyone else. The message is, if

I weren't such an offense, then perhaps things would be going a little quicker than what I thought. And as far as you are concerned, don't let this stop you. Well, you know, John, he knew his time was over. He knew that. He had preached and he preached and, I mean, he's in prison. He's not coming out of there. You know, you don't sass the king's wife and call her an adulterer and come out and have a party.

It just doesn't happen. So John the Baptist knew his time was up. But for Jesus to say to him, don't let this offend you, you just keep doing what you're doing, would be almost unnecessary. I think what he was making was a general statement that certain things that happen that we don't understand, I know that sometimes you may have a situation and you go before the Lord, you pray about it, and it gets worse.

Oh, that doesn't happen to you. It happens to me. Things get worse or things don't get answered or whatever. You know, two, three, four years later maybe, not even months, but perhaps years later, you find out that the seeds of reparation that finally come to fruition, and four years later, it's easy to believe that they were planted back those days when you were praying. So you pray about something, and you don't get offended about it.

Just go on about your business. We'll make this work as best we can. Even the situation we're talking about with Jesus having his purpose to come to the earth and to be installed as king. You know Pilate was ready to make him king that day. How did that happen? He very well could have stepped right into, they weren't pleased with the king that they'd set up. He'd be causing all kinds of trouble.

And so Pilate, I mean, that was the first conversation he had with Jesus was, so you're a king? Jesus says, well, you're going around telling everybody I am. Why are you asking me? So how did we get on the subject of kingship? I believe it was all set up in advance. That was the plan. That Jesus was to go and be made king of Israel.

I believe this. And Pilate was totally confused. What in the world is going on? You don't understand how much I like this guy. I can make this guy your king. They said crucify him. He says, shall I crucify your king? You see how settled it was in his mind?

Jesus came to be king of Israel. That's what he came to do. Not only that, he came to be high priest. He was going to install the priesthood of Melchizedek, which would have laid down the entire Levitical priesthood. What was the Pharisees' complaint about him? What was their concern? You hear it all through the book of Acts.

Oh, if we listen to this guy, the Romans are going to come and they're going to take away our nation, this place, the temple, and our name, who we are. Our genealogies won't mean anything anymore. They're going to bring Gentiles in here. All their concern was what? We're going to lose our kingship. We're going to lose our priesthood.

We're going to lose our temple. If he gets loose, this is what's going to happen. So do you really need to ask why did they murder him? Of course they murdered him. Everything they had was riding on the fact that people were believing Jesus. They sent people out to spy on him. They came back and they said man you ought to have heard this guy talk. Never a man spake like this man are you also become his disciples that was you see their concern you see the whole

world has gone after him you hear that what was their concern i think it was obvious. I think it was something that they knew instinctively. This guy's going to be the king of Israel. He's going to end up being the head of the whole deal. He's going to close the doors of the temple. He's going to install a new priesthood. I think it became very clear to them. This was not just they didn't like him. They saw him as a threat to everything they had.

So they decided, as Jesus pointed out in his parable, where the Lord says, well, I'll send my son. They'll reverence my son. Jesus came down here and said something about him being the son of God, and they almost killed him for saying it. You see, this thing really went bad, and it went bad quickly. And when it did go bad, Jesus saw that in that garden of Gethsemane that night,

he saw this is not going to work. So let's try to put together the conversation. Why isn't it going to work? Well because I'm supposed to come here and voluntarily give myself I'm supposed to give myself a voluntary sacrifice and they're coming now. I hear them. I hear their footsteps. They're coming through the woods right now,

and they're going to take me away. They're going to murder me. Well, murder is not a voluntary death. Murder is not a voluntary sacrifice. The blood of a murder is not going to redeem anybody. This is why he was so concerned about you, friend. Because if this happens like it's going to happen, this is all for nothing.

So what are we going to do? I think that this is when the Lord told Jesus Christ in that garden, hey, I'll tell you what, we can make this count. How are you going to make this murder that they have planned, how are you going to make that into something voluntary? And I believe his father told him, I'll tell you what, when you've had enough, if you've had enough, if you want to quit, you let me know. Just open your mouth and before the words can leave your face

I'll send twelve legions of angels. You see this is why Jesus could look at his disciples and say, know you not that I could call twelve legions of angels? Do you realize that that very well could have been the way that this was repaired? That the way that this murder that was planned was turned into a voluntary sacrifice. Now it is again. Because this caveat, this little interjection, this codicil added to this contract.

Because it was added, this was no longer a murder. This was no longer taking a life that was not by the choice of the person whose life was to be lost. Now they have a choice. And the Father, through this one little promise, turned this into a voluntary sacrifice.

Well, this is what got Jesus up off his knees. This is, you know, come, let us be going. We're back on track here. And they said, well, they're going to kill you. And he says, let me tell you something. I can call 12 legions of angels. I want you to think about that just a moment. Do you really think it would take 12,000 angels?

I don't know. How many is a legion? I don't know. I thought it a legion? I don't know. I thought it was a thousand there for just a second, but I'm not sure now. But do you really think that it would take 12 legions of angels to pull three nails out?

To help him down from the cross? To heal him? Why so many? Friend, don't get this wrong. We were that close. We were that close to this entire operation being shut down completely. None of us saved.

None of us going to heaven. None of us receiving any kind of reward. But all of us being thrown to destruction. That close. And they pulled it out. This is why he was so happy about it. Come on. Let's go. And on the way out of the garden, he made a comment, and he says, Satan, this is your hour.

Enjoy yourself, buddy. But I'm going to come out of this thing. We're all going to come out of this thing. Enjoy your time. Now, friend, I know that a lot of this stuff is probably difficult for you to understand there's some of you that have heard this and just lit up from the inside and you're thinking oh my goodness this was this was bigger than I thought

yeah it is it's bigger than we thought we don't have a God who's sitting at the end of time drumming his fingers on his throne just wait for everything to turn out like he always knew it would. We have a God and a Father who lives with us

every day. And he makes decisions every day. This is why you know, I mean, I don't know how people who believe that God's sitting at the end of time waiting for everything to turn out like he always knew it would. I don't even know how they pray. What's the point?

I don't even know why they would beg for him to save a loved one. I don't understand that. But he lives with us every day. And he makes decisions every day. And he changes his mind. Okay, you know, somebody's getting mad now. And they hear that little scripture running in their head. I am the Lord. I change not.

No, he doesn't. He never changes. He's always been able to change his mind we just need to quit making you know dogma out of doctrine that's what we need to do but had you if you perhaps you're still doubting what i'm saying and you're holding on to your old ideas that God knows everything and that Jesus knew everything and perhaps perhaps you are perhaps this doesn't mean anything to you but I'll tell you what the idea that you know we came close to the experience that Moses was standing in when the Lord says stand stand back, Moses, I'll destroy all these people. And he said, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that.

And lived through the time of Noah where he actually did destroy everybody. We came close to one of those in this. But they pulled it out. They pulled it out at the very last, but they pulled it out. And this is why I think Jesus Christ came to be the king, be the high priest, and to set up this kingdom on the earth. That's why the millennial reign of Christ should have started 2,000 years ago.

I honestly believe that. That we should already be living in the kingdom of God. wouldn't that be nice but just one little catch one little hiccup in the plan you want to call the little hiccup but don't ever forget our husband sent his son just to see how we're doing, how's everything going. We murdered him. Don't ever forget that. You got the idea that the Romans killed Jesus?

Nah, that's Sunday school. That's flannel graph theology. It's not true. The church, his people, the religious people, the people who believe that he's the Lord God, they murdered Jesus. Got to go for now. See you next time. Bye-bye. you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you