Words of Jesus Podcast - Great People are Made by God

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

Evangelism offers, “For God so loved the world…” and omits the verse where Jesus said, “…the world is condemned already.” We have reduced the concept of love to an emotional offer for an environment of comfort; absent correction and discipline.   Society cries, “Why would a good God send people to hell.”  He doesn’t. He just lets us go. Jesus came to a burning world to offer a way to redemption.  When we choose our way, our rights, our power, we implement our will – which, amazingly God honors above His own will.  God doesn’t get His will. Many called and loved people will not be saved from destruction.  “Will you be made whole?” It hurts a little to be reproved.   ***Jesus Calls Four Disciples (Part 3)JESUS stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, teaching the word of God to those who pressed abut him.           He entered one of two ships that were standing by the lake and requested Simon, called Peter, whose boat it was to thrust out a little from the land. Simon did so, and Jesus taught the assembled crowd from the boat.           When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon:           “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nest for a draught.”Simon replied:           “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net.”           They did so and caught a great multitude of fished, so many that their net was broken. They beckoned to Simon’s partners, James and John, sons of Zebedee, who came and helped them. They filled both ships so full that the ships began to sink.           When Simon saw the great catch of fished, he knelt at Jesus’ knees, saying:           “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”           For he and all who were with him were astonished at the amount of fish that they had taken.           Then Jesus said to the fishermen:            “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”           When they had brought their ships to the land, Simon and his brother Andrew followed after Jesus. Also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, left their ship and their father and followed Jesus. (The gospel of John omits the Temptation scene and seems to place the calling of the first disciples nearer to the time of Jesus’ baptism that do the other three writers. John mentions Philip and Nathanael, instead and James and John. Nathanael asks the well-known question, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”)***CHAPTER 5 SCRIPTURES (KJV):MATTHEW 4:18-22And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him. And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John

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 brought to you by Think Red, Inc. In Pinetown, New Mexico, I'm Don Harris, your host and it's my privilege to take you through the words of Jesus Christ. We were in chapter 5 of our little book and this was when Jesus called his four disciples.

Today I'd like to talk about where Jesus said that if you'll follow me, I will make you fishers of men. In another gospel, he said, from now on, or from henceforth, thou shalt catch men. And I never really liked that term so much that we were going to catch men. As a matter of fact, when you're talking about, oh, perhaps a con man or somebody that's a little more unscrupulous than perhaps they should be.

I don't know if there's a level of should be there, but we say that someone is angling for something. You ever heard that term? Or they'll say, I'm not sure of his angle. Well, I've looked at the etymology of this word up as best I could and found out that it actually comes from the angle of that hook that they used to hook fish with. As a matter of fact, fishing with a hook is called angling. And so nowadays when we say someone is angling, it's like they're doing something somewhat deceitful.

But if there is anything in the world, any attribute you could apply to what Jesus did, what His disciples did, whatever however you'd like to apply it to any situation of New Testament evangelism, there's no deceitfulness in it. There's no guile in it. There shouldn't be. I know today there is.

Everything from handing kids candy on a church bus to the softball and basketball games and such that attract our teenagers and the golf matches that attract our fathers and these kinds of things. But I just happened to notice that a lot of the people that are brought in by angling, can I say that?

They're brought in by angling, become very disappointed with church life, usually about 15 minutes after the preacher decides to preach the truth. And that is that you can't live any way you want to live and be a Christian. Hey, do you know that that's a fact? Do you know that that is indeed the case? You can't live any way you want to live and be a Christian.

I don't care. I don't care what teachers and preachers tell you about having faith in Christ and that being enough. It's not enough. You can't live any way you want to live and be a Christian. You cannot do it. There are certain aspects and angles of this procedure of bringing people in that tend to stay with them, I think,

for a long time. And that is that there are residual thoughts that stay in people's minds, like God really doesn't care what you do. He just cares what you believe. I've heard preachers say that, which is really asinine when you're talking about someone who supposedly got what they believe from the scriptures. Anytime you ever find Jesus telling a parable, a story, a metaphor, whatever, that has to do with judgment, you will never find the judge asking the person in front

of them what they believed. It never comes up. The reason it never comes up is because they are there to be judged by the works that were done in the flesh. We know that one day we will stand before God and give an account of the deeds done in the flesh. Once that's been established nobody doubts what you believe. If you believe a certain kind of behavior that you engage in constantly will one day kill you.

You like to go skydiving. I don't know about skydiving. I don't know how safe it is. I don't know anything about it. I'm not saying that...don't take anything from this to those of you who like to do it. But if you know that whatever behavior you're involved in will one day kill you, I would have to say that you don't really believe that or you wouldn't be doing it. And I think that as we try to consider what we believe

about Jesus Christ, I think that our actions should show us, and it certainly shows those around us what we actually believe. One of the saddest things, I brought this up recently, one of the saddest things, I brought this up recently, one of the saddest things that can ever be seen is a person who has essentially been Christian all of their lives. They've lived for God. They've gone to church.

They've done everything that's expected of them. And they've lived their life that way. They've abstained from all the things that the church says is wrong. They've added to their life all the things that the church says is right. And then when it comes time for them to die, they're really afraid. And, you know, I have also seen people who understand that death is not, death really isn't anything in our life except a door. It's just a door to albeit unknown. And you know

certainly there's some apprehension involved when you just don't know. And none of us do. Only one's ever come back from the dead. The Bible says only do. Only one's ever come back from the dead. The Bible says only one. Only one's ever been resurrected. Only one has ever been brought back and made alive and that's Jesus Christ himself. None of the rest of us know anything about this. I'm always a little disgusted with preachers that talk about the afterlife like they've been there. Like these are facts and we know these to be facts.

You don't know anything to be a fact. You're telling people how to get someplace you've never been. It's like somebody stopping and asking you directions and you pick up the map and say, you know, I know where it's supposed to be. It's up here somewhere. Oh, here it is. The map says it's right here. Have you ever been there? No. Then you don't really know if it's there. Well, the map wouldn't say so unless it was really there. Let me show you how to get there. Here's where you are and then it would go on. But when it comes to this idea of going to heaven,

nobody's ever been there. Nobody has not an ounce of scripture to tell people how to go to heaven when they die. Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed that the scriptures don't even mention you going to heaven when you die? Your reward is not only here on the earth of being regenerated and being transformed, being made new, and having the abundant life here, but the reward that comes after is not us going to heaven, but heaven coming to us. He's going to come here and rule and reign on this earth,

and we're to be a part of that kingdom. Who talks about this? Nobody. Nobody. They just mouth what they've heard in seminary, what their friends believe, what their denomination believes, and they're telling people how to go to a place that they have never been. Does that frighten you in the least? It frightened me so much I quit listening. I decided to go to the

scriptures and see what they had to say about this, and I was shocked to find out they have very little to say about those kinds of things. The only, as close as I ever came was Jesus says that I'm coming back so that I'm going to gather you to myself so that where I am there you may be also. And I said, oh, there it is. Okay. And then I realized where he is, well, where is he when the resurrection takes place? He's put his foot down on the earth again. He's come here to rule

and reign. So where he is, there, that's where we're going to be. This all sounds kind of simple when you say it this way, or when you look at these particular scriptures. And is it really just that simple? I think it is. But I'll tell you what it beats. It beats playing to people's emotions and their fears of dying and their fears of never seeing their loved ones again, their loved ones never seeing them again, losing children and losing people in their lives and the imminent unavoidable death and these kinds of things and playing on all that and teaching

them some kind of fairy tale that they have no reason in the world to teach you. So when it comes to the kind of evangelism that he expects us to engage ourselves in, is it really angling? Is it really, and I'm using the word in our modern vocabulary and vernacular. Is it really angling? Are we really just trying to change the story just a little bit

so that we can, as one of the gospels says, catch men. Is that really what we're doing is catching men? As I said, I had trouble with that word. I had trouble with the concept. And I took some literary license in my understanding of this scripture. You may disagree with me. It's okay. You know, it's not like because I thought of it that it's necessarily so. But there is also an operation that's done by some of the bravest people in America

are firefighters as far as I'm concerned. I don't know if you've ever had a fire, but it is a harrowing experience. I've seen fields catch on fire and having to put out a fire, you know, out there swatting it with a pine top, you know, and you're about to die and the world's about to go up in flames and it's all your fault and all these things going through your head and it's a very harrowing time and I've always admired firefighters who have somehow curbed that

and shoot, let me just tell you the fact I admire any emergency worker that when an alarm goes off, they go toward it. I'm ready to go away from it. They go toward the problem. I've always admired that. But somehow I received a kind of a picture in my head about this this thing I'm having trouble with about catching men and I see this big tall building it's on fire and the world that we live in today is very much like that. It's burning everywhere. Every foundation, every room, everything is hot and ready to burst into flames. This is the world we live in. Well, we know

that when we had an economic crash in the Depression, there were people that jumped to their death from their office windows. We've seen people jump to their death in these horrible tragedies that we've had in the government building out in Oklahoma City. The Twin Towers in New York. We've seen these situations and it's just unbelievable. I mean when you see it on videotape and you see a body fully prone, stepping out of a window

and jumping with they can't have any hope whatsoever other than perhaps a quick death rather than one that they burn to death. I don't know. I don't know what's going through their mind. But it's a horrible thing. Folks, when your neighbor gets strung out on cocaine and your other neighbor

is now involved in an adulterous affair. Your other neighbor has walked out on his family and his children, and now he's riding a motorcycle around the country or whatever he's doing. And you see men walking away from their responsibilities. You see people looking toward drugs to satisfy that gnawing in their responsibilities. You see people looking toward drugs to satisfy that gnawing in their souls. These are people that are jumping from this burning building. They're jumping. And

I don't really understand why our world, the one that we live in today, how soon have we forgotten? How long ago was it that a church was a part of a town? How long ago was it? I mean, back in my days of reading Alice and Jerry books, is that when it happened? You know, I mean, Dick and Jane books that have the little drawings, the cartoons,

the pictures of the little town. And I don't care what town you're looking at. You might find a city hall. You might find a fire station. You might find whatever. You see a lot of houses where people live. But there was one thing you always saw. And that was that local neighborhood church. Now look, you're not going to get me to tell you that a hundred years ago all the churches in America were preaching the truth they weren't you're not going to get me to say that 50 years ago

that they were all preaching truth they weren't you're not going to get me to say that they were preaching a gospel that was acceptable to God they They weren't. It's pitiful some of the things that were done in those days. But I'll tell you what, those churches no matter what they were, no matter what was inside them they were there. And they stood as monuments to, I mean some people look at that big, tall, slender pole on top of the church

and they think that this steeple is some antenna to God. I don't know what they think it is, but there it is. And you got some preacher in there. He might have a robe on or might be wearing a suit or I don't know, whatever it is he's got on, separating himself from other people. I don't know what people saw there, but you remember I was telling you that when Peter came in contact with the Son of God, his first reaction was, I'm a

sinful man, O Lord. I'm a sinful man. That is missing in our society. Look, there's people that go to churches, I don't want to call their denominational name, they're famous for believing nothing. And a person goes in there and they feel humbled because they feel like they're sitting before God and they see themselves in that light. Do you know that's almost missing in our

society today? I hear the news and I see from time to time where some kid has gone into a public building and opened fire on people and is killing people and stuff. The news commentators and the talking heads, they all sit around and say, you know, we need more basketball courts. Or we need more counseling in schools. Or this child was on some kind of drug and he should have been watched better

or he should have been institutionalized or he should have been, should have been, should have been. And they talk about all these so-called answers to society's questions, to society's problems and they never mention the evaporation and disappearance of the church in a person's life. I know, you know, the only people that talk about church today are the atheists, and they talk about having gone through it, and their horrible experiences there.

People want to talk about, you know about leaving church and walking out of church and I'll never go back and all the rest of this thing. Which you can almost admire if it was because they found something different in the way the church believes and practices and what they read in the scriptures. You can almost admire it if they did that. Well, as a matter of fact, I do admire it if they do that. But you know what it is? Somehow they're offended. You know, the preacher preached against St. Bernard's this week.

He knows I've got a St. Bernard. He knows. He was just offending me. Or some silly, I don't know, just some stupid little, silly little selfish thing. People walk away from church. Friend, let me tell you, there is something about a little child sitting and listening to Bible stories. Do you read the Bible to your child? Do you have a children's Bible in your home? Do they know these stories?

You know, I find young people today, young people, I'm talking about not teenagers, but youngsters, they don't know the story of Noah. They don't know anything about that. They don't know who Jonah was. They don't know who Moses was. They don't know who Jonah was. They don't know who Moses was. They don't know who Abraham was. They don't understand, I mean, Adam and Eve, yeah, I've heard of that, but what were they, cavemen? What was that? I don't know. I'm not sure. And I'm thinking, how does this happen? How do we get to the point where God has no part,

no parcel in our lives whatsoever? And then we sit and wring our hands because a child of no conscience whatsoever that has known nothing but video games where he's killed 10,000 people before and goes and does it without a conscious thought? You don't see that there's a problem, that character's never been developed in this child? Do you think that children are born good? You know, the atheists are so fond of saying that children are born with everything they need,

and we systematically remove it from them and replace it with religion. That's not true. That's not true at all. And people say, oh, I just love to be around children because they're so honest. Really? Were your kids honest? My kids lied to me. My kids stole from me. And they would steal and go and hide at two years old, three years old, four years old. I just love kids because they're so honest. What are you doing? You're repeating

something somebody else said? Is that what you're doing? We just say some of the stupidest things and try to build our lives on it and know nothing about the truths and the wonderful words of Christ that are spirit and life. We're not going to teach those to our children. They don't even know who he is. They don't know Jesus from Muhammad from a house cat. They don't know anything.

Why is that? Because you've never taught them. And that's why you're responsible to teach them these things. Look, I realize I'm talking to parents that are like the third, fourth, perhaps fifth generation now of people that have never allowed these things in their lives. You know, people talk about, you know, God got kicked out of the schools in the 50s. Look, I'm sorry about that.

But it's still an institution. He's not been kicked out of your home unless you've done it. I mean, and that's where he needs to be. That's where the priest, the prophet and priest needs to be over your home. Dad needs to be ahead of that home. Turn off the television. Turn off the radio. Pull the needle off the phonograph. Some people are wondering the what? you need to quiet your life down and bring these things to your children and let them see that there was something greater

than us at one time look as much as i appreciate the ideas of make america great again you're never going to make america great without our churches it're never going to make America great without our churches. It's not going to happen. Because great people are made by God, not by other men. I think it was Thomas Jefferson said, talking about legislation, the only thing we can do is govern good men.

That's all we can do. We have to have good men in order to govern men properly. If men aren't good, you can't govern them. You cannot do it. If they don't have a sense of right and wrong, why would they listen to what you say? If they don't have a sense of right and wrong, then why would they obey a law or a rule or anything? From keep off the know, keep off cocaine. It doesn't matter.

It's whatever you think. It's your reality. It's your opinion. It's your truth. This is the world that we're living in today. You know who's going to pay for this? Yeah, you're going to pay for this. Yeah, you're going to give an account of everything you've done. But those precious little ones in our home are the ones that are paying for this. The reason your life is in such a mess is because your parents didn't do this for you. The reason that your parents didn't do this for you is likely their parents were letting it slip even way back then. But our churches, first of all, need to become what our churches need to become. And that is places for anybody to walk in and find a truth, the truth. They need to find the path that leads to eternal life.

They need to be able to find that. They don't need to get a program and listen to old sister Sue up there singing some warbling song as much as they need to hear that they've come to the right place. You want to fix your family? You've come to the right place. You want to get off of drugs? You've come to the right place.

You want to walk away from alcohol? You want to walk away from sexual? You want to walk away from from sexual addiction and pornography and just go down through the whole list? You've come to the right place. They need to know that and feel that when they walk in. Not just because they got a warm handshake, not because people smiled at them, but because they received answers to their questions, because they saw people who related to them and who had within them something that was different, something that meant something. People who obeyed God against their own, I don't want to say better judgment, but against their own judgment. They had faith in God and believed that one day they're going to give an account for the things that they've done in the flesh.

They believed that. So they lived according to that. Are these things gone forever? Are they gone forever? I can't fix your whole town. I can't even fix your community. I certainly can't fix your county, your can't even fix your community I certainly can't fix your County your state or the country you live in but I can tell you this I can tell you how to fix your home do you realize that if

every man would be the man in his home that would that if they could make this happen and they could decide that we are going to go God's way, do you realize that could happen in an evening? That could happen over a dinner table? That decision could be made and things could change. Do you realize that if it can happen over a dinner table conversation and it happened in every home in America,

America would change overnight. Time's gone again. Sorry about this. Join us next time to hear more from the words of Jesus. If you're enjoying this series, I'd love to hear from you. Why don't you write to me? Don at ThinkRedInc.com. don't you write to me? Don at thinkredink.com. And if you want to use paper mail, easy enough to do. Think Red Ink Ministries, P.O. Box 718

by Town, New Mexico. All right. Keep thinking red ink and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye. ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you