Words of Jesus Podcast - Hindrances To Understanding

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

Jesus came to save the nation of Israel. Sadly, Israel rejected Jesus. Things were forever changed. Faith is now required of everyone. Jesus came to save the world (Israel); His own people rejected him. However, to those who received HIM - gave He grace (power to become) a son of God. If they say I'm in a secret place (I'm not there). Those who are of me hear my voice. Remember the Scriptures, "Let them hear... unto you it is given." The first Parable: Sower sows the Word. Disobedience to the commandments blocks understanding. Make a change today! Exodus 20:1-17 (Ten Commandments)1 And God spake all these words, saying,2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.7 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.9 Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.13 Thou shalt not kill.14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.15 Thou shalt not steal.16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.***Ch. 29: JESUS ALSO SAID:             “Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? And not to be set on a candlestick? For there is nothing his, which shall not be manifested; neither was anything kept secret, but that it should come abroad.  If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”            AND JESUS ADDED:            “Take heed what ye hear. With what measure ye mete, it shall me be measured to you; and unto you that hear shall more be given.  For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.”***Scriptures:Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-25; Luke 8:4-18

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 and we were finishing up chapter 29 in our book, The Words of Jesus. And these are some sayings that evidently the author could not find a place to put them. So he added them in here under titles called Jesus Also Said. Which I appreciate. I wouldn't want them to not be here. But the first one that we read took us in a lot of different directions.

And I'm somewhat sorry for that. But it's the way these things go. Jesus asks a question, is a candle brought to be put under a bushel or under a bed and not to be set on a candlestick? For there is nothing hid which shall not be manifested, neither anything kept secret, but that it should come abroad.

If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear. We were talking about the fact that and and i wanted to become very very clear to you um you know if if this goes against your denomination or your your understanding your your christian theology i don't know and i'm sure it does because uh you know the more i read about Jesus, the less I think that he was a Christian. At least in the areas that, or at least in the definitions that we live in today. But he was under no delusion that he had come to save the entire world. I know that the scriptures say that he came to save the world,

but you have to understand that the world to a God who has chosen a nation of Israel, that is the world. And, you know, it's hard for modern-day Christians to accept the fact that Jesus didn't come to save us. Gentiles, are you a Gentile? Are you not of the Jewish lineage? Well, if you're not, he didn't come to save you. Is that hard to hear? But the truth is, he didn't. Now, his intention was to save you, but it turned out that he took in the Gentile nations because he was rejected by the nation he came to save. He came unto his own.

Now who is that? It's not just human beings in general. It was the nation of Israel. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But to as many as received him, to them gave he grace, the power to become the sons of God. And I don't know, does it hurt your ego or something? I don't know.

But the original intention was to save Israel. And I don't know, does it hurt your ego or something? I don't know. But the original intention was to save Israel. Through Israel, I believe that all the nations on earth would eventually come to the understanding that God wants them to come to. And I'm sure it would have been glorious. But it wasn't glorious. It was a mess. I mean, who'd have thought that he'd come and be murdered?

Come and die for us? Yeah, I get that. But come and be murdered by his own people? That kind of throws a wrench in the works. I don't care what your plan is. That's bad. Well, because of that, we Gentiles have been brought into the faith. And the seats that were set at the table

for the friends and family of the king that was having the feast, those seats that we now occupy as Gentiles are really not set for us at all. They were set for His people that all with one consent began to make excuse. And for whatever reason, they decided not to be a part of what He wanted. Now, when we talk about the fact

that God didn't come to save the whole world, people, you know, they don't like hearing that. They like to think that he's going to, that he, there are some people that believe that he can save everyone. There are some people that believe that anyone who calls on him will be saved. And then there are some people who believe that, you know that he didn't come to save anybody but the Jews. And now there are people that believe that he didn't he's not saving anybody but Gentiles. There's all kinds of theological

understandings. But according to the scripture, everything I just told you, each one of those scenarios is incorrect. His intention was to come reveal himself to Israel that they would accept him as king and as high priest. He would give his life for Israel. And then the companions of Israel which are not family, that's us folks, we would be brought into the kingdom as the companions of Israel.

Now he has changed it so that he's accepting all nations and all persons by faith and now insisting that even Israel must come that very same way. Things have changed. This is what John the Baptist preached to us. Things are changing. They're changing. And we serve a sovereign God. He can do what he wants. This is what he does. And so when we get the sovereignty of God intact in our minds, I think it's easier for us to understand that God didn't come to save everyone. He didn't send Jesus Christ to the earth to save every person on earth. But to as many as received

him, to many as believed on his name, many as that accepted him as the one that he said he was, the anointed one, the Messiah, the son of God. Jesus says, if you don't believe that I am he, you're going to die in your sins. This is sad, but it's true. Now, Jesus is talking in this particular parable about the light that he has come to enlighten the world with. And he says this light is not, I am not going to set certain people off in certain closets or corners or behind buildings or whatever. Even when he was talking about his reappearing on the earth, he said

anybody that says that I'm in a secret place, you need to get away from that guy. Because it's not so. I don't do business like that. So the whole idea of, you know, running to Israel and putting your hand where Jesus touched when he was carrying the cross and he leaned on the building and you know, if that gives you goosebumps then I guess you can do that. But the truth is that these little secret things

and secret meetings and behold he's here, behold he's there you need to come to the Toronto blessing or you need to come down to, where was the place in Florida? I forget. Jacksonville? I don't remember where it was. But nevertheless, we have these places that Jesus and Angel Dustin feathers fall out of the ceiling or whatever else. And he's saying, I don't do business that way. I'm not interested. I am giving of myself to the entire world.

Those who are of me hear my voice. Now that's what he told Pilate. When Pilate asked him, are you really a king? And he said, yes, I am. King of what? I am the king of the kingdom on earth. I'm paraphrasing, adding words. Please don't write me and tell me I'm a heretic.

I know that. So you have this, you have this idea that Jesus made very, very clear that even though, you know, when I go out in my greenhouse and I'm watering with, you know, I've got sprinklers flying everywhere, look, that rain that I create, it falls on the just and the unjust. It falls on the tomatoes and it falls on the weeds. You know, that's just the way it is. Well, God's blessing of salvation, it has indeed reigned upon the whole earth.

If you want to look at it that way, that's good. That's theologically correct. Those who are of me, he says, of the truth, hear my voice. Well, what's the reciprocal of that it is that those who are not of the truth they don't hear my voice this is not a problem it's not like we got people knocking on the door that i'm not letting in it's the they don't even knock they don't care they don't hear he that hath ears to hear let him hear let him hear what does that mean you're going to have to let you hear that's what you're going to have to do you're going to have

to stop hindering this hearing why because it's falling yeah we're hearing i mean that it's being spoken it's being rained upon us and only some of us are going to attach ourselves to that those who are of the truth hear my voice those who aren't of the truth they don't hear my voice well why don't you just say these things plainly the disciples said why do you speak to us in parables because unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven unto them it's not given well you couldn't get any clearer than that that's just as plain as it can be so how do we keep them from hearing the truth i've chosen parables is jesus's answer this is what i've chosen to do i'm going to speak in parables. You'll understand.

Yeah, but we don't. I'm going to help you. And if you remember, it wasn't long ago, we talked about the first parable that he ever taught. And he said, if you understand this parable, then you can understand all parables. And that parable starts out with the sower, I mean the explanation,

starts out with the sower soweth the word. Well, you know, right off the bat, 99.9% of the Christians out there have no idea what that means, because they think the Bible is the word of God. They think that that's how he's saving the world. He's sowing the book in the earth. And the truth is that the word of God is communication with him. It is his words. And this is how he sows these words in this earth. When you understand that, you can understand any parable. That's exciting, isn't it?

It's like having a key to a lock. I mean, it's just, it's a beautiful thing. And it just keeps showing up. Do you know that if you will, just humor me? I don't know what the hindrance is. I don't know what the hindrance is. I don't know what your apprehension is. But if you just humor me for a week, give this a shot, will you?

When you read the scriptures and it says word of God, understand that it's talking about his word in your ear. I realize that's figurative. But it's our Lord God speaking to us. That's what it is. And if it's a title, it's Jesus Christ. Do that. If you can just do that for a week, this book will be like a brand new book to you. You will understand

things that you have never understood before faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God you see what I mean all of a sudden you know the idea of memorizing scripture and reading the Bible in order to get faith you know darn well it doesn't work but the only reason you thought it would work is because you've been indoctrinated that way. Listen, you learn

what the Word of God is and make it a daily part of your life, you're going to have faith like you have never believed anything before. It's going to be very, very real. And it's going to be effectual. That's going to be very, very real. And it's going to be effectual. That's the selling point of this whole thing. It actually does what he said it was supposed to do, which is more than

you can say for many of the doctrines out there. Now, this idea of taking this candle and hiding it in this particular scripture he's talking about you are not going to hide this because there is a universal principle in life Shakespeare said it this way the truth will out I'm a fan of Shakespeare Shakespeare said it this way, the truth will out. I'm a fan of Shakespeare.

I just love the way he speaks. And the truth will out. This is what Jesus is saying. There's nothing hid that's not going to be made manifest. There's nothing been hidden that's not going to come abroad. It's just that's the way it is. So forget trying to hide this kind of thing. It's not going to happen. You're not going to hide it. Not for long. We hear the Apostle Paul make the comment, there are things that I'd like to tell you, but you're carnal. You don't understand.

I'd love to tell you, but it's a waste of time. I wonder how many times the Lord has that to say to us. We are so carnal and so concerned with our flesh and so concerned with our lives and everybody and everything around us and our money and our clothes and our job and all this kind of stuff. You're so entangled in that. And you come to me and tell me you want to deal with the death of your sister-in-law? Why am I so sad? Why am I worried about her? Or why don't I care about her? Or why aren't I sad? Or anything else that you may go to God with.

There's a lot of things he wants to tell you about this, but he can't. Because you're carnal. There's a million things that can go wrong when you take a spiritual principle and try to mix it into a carnal reality. This is a real problem. So what's our duty here? Our duty is to not be so carnal. We need to stop being so fleshly minded. We need to have some spiritual understanding. There's only one way to do that. What are they? Come on, you know what they are. They're the three things, and that is keep his

commandments. There's the promise of the spirit of God coming inside you and teaching you from the inside. Don't disobey your conscience. Good, solid living right there. And three, take time every day to hear the voice of God. It's the only thing you can do. By the way, you know, I just gave you the best advice that any man on earth could give you. I just told you something that will actually work in your life, that will actually fix these problems. No, not overnight. It's not instantaneous.

It's not salvation per se. But, boy, it sure is three things that are missing in the average Christian's life out there. Keeping the commandments? You know, come on. No, no. I'm not talking about 8 out of 10, 7 out of 10, 9 out of 10. I'm talking about all of them. There's not a commandment you can't keep. You want to run to your preacher with this? You want to tell him what

Don Heresy said? You want to run there and ask him his opinion? He's going to tell you, you can't keep the law. Nobody can keep the law. And you'll be so happy, you're going to tuck that in your vest pocket and carry that home with you. Nobody can keep the law. Well, good luck with that. The Bible clearly teaches that, you know you're if you're lying you might

as well be committing adultery did you know it says that did you know it says if you live in a covetous situation in your life just coveting things wanting stuff that you don't have you might as well be a murderer because you can't break one of these laws and not break them all you can keep every one of those laws you need to decide to do that i'm just i'm just telling you about the sabbath because that's the one you're going to run into and you're going to scratch your head you're going to think it's it's not important everybody does um so these are the kinds of things that the Lord requires of us that really, if we're not, you know, if this isn't a part of our life, we're just kind of shutting the door.

We're just shutting the door on this. He can't get in. He can't teach. He can't guide us. He can't lead us. But it's His intention that it all be made real and manifest in the world to everyone who comes to him. It's his intention. And it can be something that you can experience. It all comes down to he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

You may have ears to hear, but you're not letting yourself hear. You're not letting yourself hear. You're not letting yourself hear. You're not letting yourself hear when you run to your Bible teacher and ask him, you know, is this right? I was before the Lord the other day, and this is what he told me. And what, are you going to subject that to, you know, some, well, I mean, let's face facts, we're all morons. But are you going to subject your revelation of God to somebody else?

You're going to relegate, delegate that responsibility to somebody else and let them control you? All the while telling people that, you know, you don't let men run your life? You can't do this. If you don't trust your relationship with God, I understand. I didn't either. But you can. You can trust it. I mean, even if you don't hear correctly, even if you make mistakes, I've seen him come behind and fix things because he appreciates people who live by faith. I mean, without it, it's impossible to please Him. So don't subject your

revelation to other people. Jesus said one time He made some statement to His disciples and they all were mumbling and murmuring around the campfire saying, I wonder what it means? What do you think? What do you think? What's your translation say? You ever been to one of those Bible studies? Well, my Bible says and the next person, my Bible says and somebody else says and my Bible says and I'm thinking, okay. We got the opinion of eight Bibles now. I wonder if anybody here

has ever had a revelation from the Lord about this particular scripture. No? Well, I mean, that's what we need. We don't need more education or a new interpretation or a new translation of the Bible. We need to hear from our Lord God. We need to hear from the author of the scriptures this is so simple it's stupid or selfish or wicked to miss it you can pick whatever one you want

now he says that that what is what light does come into the world will not be hid this is actually encouraging us that these things will be made known to us. Now, friend, that does not mean that it will be made known to you. What it means is that it will eventually be made known to the entire world, not necessarily to you. The Bible teaches that at the end of time that an angel will come and preach the everlasting

gospel. Thank God. Thank God somebody's going to do it that's not a human being. We're going to talk about that one day and it was one of my complaints with God. And that is why did you turn the glorious gospel over to stupid men to preach this? I read in the scriptures and I think who left this out? Who decided to take this book out of the Bible? Who decided to skip over this chapter? Who decided to skip over this paragraph? Who decided to change this word to

something that means the opposite of what that word means? And you know, you can only do that so long. And then you think, these are men. These are men that are manipulating the gospel. And I'm thinking, Lord, why did you do that? Why didn't you just send an angel with the gospel in his mouth? We would have trusted him. He couldn't lie if he had to. If he did, you'd punish him right then and there and hire another one to do the job. Why did you turn it over to men? There's just something to think about until we get there. But there's an

answer to that question. Hey, you know, if you meditate on this and the Lord reveals something to you, I'd love for you to write me. Talk to me about it. We can discuss these things. You know, I got nothing as far as my doctrine and theology that's not written in pencil. It's true. I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb. I understand enough to know that I'm dumb. I understand enough to know that I don't understand.

I'm just doing the best I can, trying to share with you what I've come to realize in my own life. You know, I've had a pretty rough way of going in my life. And you know, if things can work for me, I'm convinced they can work for you. So he's saying that things are going to be made manifest. Now Paul, when he was preaching, he was constantly talking about the kind of things we were talking about in just recent programs about salvation, about Christ being formed in us. And when we decide to go His way and not our own way, that there is planted within us a seed. That seed is Christ. And by faith in Christ, then are you Abraham's seed,

heirs according to the promise. And your life, your soul, who you are has been impregnated by a seed from God, just as Mary was. Why do you think they put the story of Mary's impregnation into the Bible? So that you can have an accurate Christmas play? No, he put it in there to show us this is the way that Christ comes into the world, and friend, this is the way that Christ comes into the world. And friend, this is the way he's going to come into you.

When you're visited by the angel of the Lord and said, blessed are you among everybody else. Why is that? Christ is going to be born in you. There's going to be a seed planted in you. This is a beautiful story. And so what are we waiting for? We're waiting for that time of adoption.

We're waiting for that. Well, many of us are waiting for this birth to take place. He's still in gestation in a lot of people. Some of the longest gestation you ever heard of in all your life. There's some people that's been gestating for 40 years. There's many people that have miscarried and don't even know it. All right, so these ideas of Christ being formed in us was something that the Apostle Paul talked about all the time.

And he labeled it this way. Don't miss this. He says that what I'm telling you this is a mystery that has been kept since the foundation of the world now is that egotistical or is this Paul

having spent that time in the Sinai desert and hearing from God and reconciling the old and the new covenants understanding the way these things work, who Jesus Christ is, who the Messiah is and could be, and who he was. Do you think that he just was saying that it's my way or the highway? Or was he saying, friend, let me tell you what I found.

I found a great treasure. This is a mystery that has been kept since the foundation of the world. It's now being made manifest. This was Paul 2,000 years ago. So when the Bible says that all these things are going to come abroad, look, friend,

it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to understand it. It doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be explained to you. Can't we let these things go? I think we can. I think we should. I think we should learn how to live today. It'll make tomorrow easier.

It'll make next week a piece of cake. Let's do it one step at a time. That's all the time we have for today. We're going to continue with these and more red words when I get back and you settle down in front of your TV next time to watch the words of Jesus hey email me can you?

don at thinkredinc.com and I'll get your email, you got a question, you got a comment be glad to help. Okay, time for us to go. We'll 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