Words of Jesus Podcast - Instructions Matter

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Attacking or discrediting the validity of the Scriptures, does not remove the internal knowledge in every man of "the right thing to do". Nevertheless, understanding brings responsibility, so we seek to obtain evidence, to postpone the verdict; leaving the jury out, so to speak. When it comes to Jesus we know there is a cost to believing in him. Jesus did not operate his ministry with modern evangelistic practice or accepted modern marketing practices. Jesus searched for men to whom he had been revealed by the Father. Remember when Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" It was a test. "Who do you say that I am?" Peter blurted, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God." Jesus did not commend the yeshiva or Sunday school class curriculum. Jesus declared plainly, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." "...Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ...” Instructions were given to the healed leper to provide evidence to the temple priests. Jesus' was seeking those to whom he had been revealed. Healing lepers, blind men and other miracles was an anticipated evidence of Messiah. Sadly, the leaders rejected Jesus as Messiah. The echoes of "We will not have this man reign over us" resound to this day. ***Chapter 11: JESUS HEALS A LEPER (Part 1)WHILE JESUS was in one of the cities, a leper came to him. The diseased man knelt before him and besought his aid, saying:"If thouwilt, thou canst make me clean."Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched the leper, saying:"I will; be thou clean."Immediately upon the words and the compassionate touch the leprosy left the man.Jesus then instructed:"See thou say nothing to any man. But go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them."But the man did not control his tongue. He spoke widely of the event and the fame of Jesus spread so greatly that he could no longer openly enter the city. He remained outside and multitudes came to him from every direction. ***Matthew 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series. Glad to have you as a part of the series. I don't know how long you've been listening, but we are well into chapter 11 of the little book called The Words of Jesus. And if you would like to catch up on some of these shows, I encourage you to visit thinkredink.com. I think you'll find what you need there and we'll make sure that you get it. Okay. Let's start with in chapter 11. This comes from Matthew 8, Mark 1 and Luke 5, you'll find that this book actually combines a lot of the similar stories because, well, our first three Gospels in the Scriptures are called synoptic Gospels

because they tend to follow the same pattern or they tell the same story from three different outlooks. It's an interesting study, as a matter of fact, to find how these Gospels were written. There are... The textual critics of the past have put forth a lot of different ideas and theories about how these Gospels came about, when they were written, and who was first, and these kind of things. And did so-and-so copy from this person, or did this person copy from that one?

There's a hypothetical Q document. There is a book called The Sayings of Jesus. And so people wonder how these things come about. Most of the time when people are involving themselves in the history of the Gospels or even the history of all biblical stories, they're looking for reasons not to believe. That sounds like such a silly endeavor, but most of the time people are looking for reasons

not to believe. There's a cost, everybody knows, no matter how hard and how long and how loudly the preachers preach, that Jesus loudly the preachers preach that Jesus loves them or whatever is coming over the pulpit no matter what is said or what is taught there is something down in the heart of man that the preachers just can't seem to erase

and that is that should you come to a faith in Jesus Christ, you're going to find that the way you've been living up until that point is probably not sufficient. And you're going to have to make some changes. Well, it's when we look at those changes that it occurs to us I don't know if I want to make those changes. So what do I do? Do I shake my fist in the face of God and say,

no, we're not going to have it your way or I'm going to have it my way? No, we don't want to do that. So what we're going to do is we're going to criticize, and I want you to know that textual criticism is not as it sounds. Textual criticism is actually a wonderful science as a matter of fact. But we're going to criticize the Gospels perhaps proving them to be untrue or inaccurate in some

particular way, and therefore I don't have to make changes in my life. I don't know of anybody who will admit to that. I've talked to atheists, you know, that if you bring up the fact that, you know, if you believe there is no God, then you don't believe you have any responsibility for your life. And you do. If you eliminate God, then you don't believe you have any responsibility for your life. And you do. If you eliminate God, then you eliminate judgment. And I know why you're doing what you're doing.

Well, I've never, in all the atheists that I've had to deal with, and I say had to, I mean, I love the atheists. I appreciate them and their arguments, as a matter of fact. But I've never had an atheist say, well, you know, that's right. appreciate them and their arguments as a matter of fact. I've never had an atheist say, well you know that's right. That's exactly why I try to eliminate God from my life because I don't like the way He makes me feel. There's too much demand being placed on me at this point and I just never run into that.

Not in any way that anyone admits to this, but I think that it is true. I think that if we can eliminate the accuracy or the authority of the Scriptures, that it does alleviate in some way, small or large way, that we will one day stand before God and give an account of the deeds done in the flesh. And so there are people who try to criticize the Scriptures one way or another. And one of the ways that they do that

is that I've heard people say, you know the Gospels weren't even written until 100 years after Jesus was dead. And I'm thinking, well, you know, we have Matthew, a disciple of Christ. What was he, like 160 when he wrote it? I don't know what people are thinking. Then they'll say, well, they were written in their name but not by them and these kind of things.

It's hard to argue with because I wasn't there and he wasn't there. We don't really have any facts to go on. But people say, well, why do you believe the Scriptures if it's dubious as to their origin. Well, I believe the scriptures for the same reason that I believe in Christ Himself. I've never met Him. I don't know Him. I've never seen Him, but I have faith in Him because He shows Himself to be real to me every day.

And He imparts to me wisdom that's beyond my comprehension. I preach sometimes under an anointing of the Holy Spirit that I am shocked as well as anybody else that hears what is being said. I'm thinking this is just beyond my mental capability. This is amazing. I find that in my life all the time that Jesus Christ his will, his way, his intelligence, his

spirit, even his love that I would have for a fellow man that I did not have before. What's happening to me? Am I just becoming a bleeding heart liberal? Or is it indeed the fact that I happen to really love and care about people that I didn't love and care about? I think one of the most poetic ways this has ever been said was by C.S. Lewis. He says, I know the sun has risen, not because I see it,

but because by it I see everything else. And, you know, I feel that way about my faith in Christ. I don't believe in Christ because I see Him, but I believe in Him because by Him I see everything else. Understanding that's not mine. Intelligence that's essentially not mine. And it just seems to work so well. And not only that, but I see it work in other people's lives. I find out that

when people understand the Jesus of the Bible, okay, so there's a word missing, or there's a word that doesn't really belong there, or this was, you know, shadowed by another man's opinion, or whatever else you want to find in there to discount what it says, boy when you read behind it and you know the personality of the one who said it you've met Christ. And this is what I want for people. This is what I want for

them. Not just a rote learning and memorizing of scripture or memorizing of a Bible story or memorizing what they heard in Sunday school or you know, snappy answers to smart-alecky questions or being able to answer people when they cast dispersions or doubts upon what you believe. It's really not a matter of intelligence. It's a matter of revelation.

That's what I want for people. If you do that you end up eliminating a lot of the stuff that we add to our life to make our Christian life real. When you do so you make the stuff that we add to our life to make our Christian life real. And when you do so, you make the people that are selling that to you pretty angry. And so I don't know how careful we need to be about that. I don't know how much we even need to care about those kinds of things. But look, truth is the gospel is for sale out there.

And if you want a decent Christian life, you know, $59.95 and buy a DVD series or fix your marriage, fix your life, fix your car, fix anything, as long as we educate ourselves. Well, the truth is that when it comes to people, it's really nice to go back to the manufacturer and he tells us how to get along. In this particular story that we're going to talk today, Jesus heals a leper.

And we'll start. While Jesus was in one of the cities, a leper came to him. The diseased man knelt before him and besought his aid, saying, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched the leper, saying, I will. Be thou clean. This is probably one of the purest approaches of Jesus

you'll find in the scriptures. As I said before and as I was explaining in earlier previous series even the man that came to Jesus and said this is my son, he's sick and I need you to heal him. Jesus found in that request something that was very impure in that man's heart and dealt with that, which was commendable and probably very difficult on Jesus' part. But here we find a very pure request. This man didn't say, you know, I know that thou art the Messiah

or thou art the Son of God because no man could do these things except that God be with him. Didn't offer him any accolades. Didn't, I don't know. There was something pure and simple about, you know what? I know that you can heal me if you will. And Jesus saw this purity in him. He felt what this man was feeling. And he didn't discount him. He didn't chide him. He felt what this man was feeling and he didn't

discount him, he didn't chide him, he didn't chastise him, he didn't call out, well you know you've got sin in your life or something like this. He just reached down toward the man and put his hand on him and said, I will be thou clean. One of the purest approaches that you'll find in Scripture that a man just besought the Lord because he just knew

that the Lord could help him if he would. Immediately upon the words and the compassionate touch, the leprosy left the man. Then Jesus instructed, See that thou say nothing to any man, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them.

Here we find that Jesus had a wonderful opportunity to testify to the entire town, to this man's family, all of his friends, everybody involved in this man's sphere of influence in every aspect of his life. Everybody knew he was a leper. They knew that.

And they would look at him and see that he was clean. And they'd say, how did this happen? Here was a wonderful opportunity for the Lord Jesus to use this situation to bring about, essentially, fame. And probably propagate, push forward his idea of evangelizing the world. It was a wonderful opportunity. However, Jesus said, I don't want you to tell anybody about this,

but I want you to go to the priest. Now, as we talked about before, I was telling you that there was a change in Jesus' ministry. Here we find him in the early part of his ministry ministering to, proving himself to the high priests, the priest of the temple, the Jewish priests, the Sanhedrin, the Upades, the people who were actual people, the hierarchy of religion had an opportunity that actually circumvented

his other responsibility to the individual person. Here we see him ministering to his church. Now let me explain what I mean. I realize there was a man healed of leprosy. I realize that. But if you're familiar with the Old Testament, you'll remember that there were commandments and instructions given to the high priests, the priests of the temple

that from time to time there may be people who come to you and try to announce themselves to you as clean. You have to understand that in the days that leprosy was as it was, these people were condemned as lepers by the priest, as a matter of fact. When they decided that a person actually had leprosy, they were set into a several village or a place away from everybody else, totally excommunicated from society,

and they were under an obligation that should they have to interface with society, they had to announce themselves as unclean so that people could move away from them. They didn't want to run into them on the street. They didn't want to bump into them. They didn't want to touch them. They didn't want to handle their money.

They didn't want to handle their items. They certainly didn't want to deal with their clothing. And they had to announce themselves as unclean which was frankly a very humiliating practice and this man had been living this way for a long time, heard of the fame of Jesus, heard of the power that he had and here we have him approaching Jesus and asking to be made clean and granted this

wonderful gift from God that he was made clean. Instead of going to all the people of the town and telling them about Jesus, which I say was an opportunity that Jesus could have taken if he had wished, he was brought to that Jesus could have taken if he had wished, he was brought to another mission that he did not expect, but was in accordance with the Old Testament commandment where God instructed

his priest on this is how you know if a leprosy is indeed a live leprosy. If a person is clean, a person can come there, make this particular offering, and receive from you an announcement, an annunciation of cleanliness. Now, Jesus at this point of his life and ministry was still ministering to the temple, to the church, so to speak, to the Jewish leadership about exactly who he was. So he says, here's what I want you to do. Don't go around and tell everybody about this, because that's going to cause me other troubles. But I do want you to go to the

priest, like the Old Testament commands us to do, and I want you to show yourself to the priest, make the offerings that are necessary as a testimony. I want you to notice that he says, I want you to do it as a testimony unto them. His intention was to take this miracle and use it as a testimony to them, for them, that they would understand who I am. You can see here that Jesus' focus

was not on the populace, but on the priests themselves, on the church. I keep calling it the church. You understand what I mean, right? But he's come to be a testimony to his church, to his spiritual leadership. He was still trying to redeem these priests and bring them into a place of understanding as to who he was. You will find that this

little aspect of Jesus' ministry vanishes over time because he realizes this is a lost effort. This is not going to happen. It is a shame that the high priest who proved themselves to be an enemy of Christ until the day he died, they were instrumental in his murder. That

these people essentially hated Jesus for what reason? As a matter of fact, one time Jesus actually asked them, now guys, they're all standing around with rocks in their hands. And Jesus is saying, guys, let me ask you a question. For what good work do you stone me? And they said, well, for a good work we stone thee not. But thou makest thyself to be the son of God

and he's thinking oh I see I was confused I thought I had healed the wrong person or that I had done some miracle in town that was against the law or something so you're here to stone me for what? Because I said I'm the son of God? He says, do you realize that every person to whom revelation is given, to whom God speaks,

is known as a son of God? It says so in the Psalms. Didn't it say, I said unto you, ye are gods? And if they be gods unto whom the word of God came, why are you stoning me? Because I say I'm the son of God. He never got through to these people. Never got through to them. I know you think that everything's possible. Jesus can do anything. God

can do anything. Well, I'll tell you something God can't do. He can't get through your thick head of who he is. He has real difficulty. Oh, I know they were Jews, and we're Christians, and they rejected Jesus, but we don't. Oh, yes, you do. You do it all the time. It happens all the time. Do you really think that we're accepting of Jesus because we've taken him and reformed him into this God-man kind of a thing,

and we've created this God in our own image, and now we worship him, and because he happens to have the same name as the son of god that walked on the earth 2 000 years ago that we accept the christ that the jews rejected but we don't do that yes i'm afraid we still do that all mankind does this this is this is the kinship that the Gentile has with the Jew. This is how we are very much alike in that we reject people who try to reign over us. There's a scripture and of course we'll get to it where Jesus tells the

parable of the son who's left in charge of the vineyard who is eventually cast out, you know, being beaten and thrown out for the birds to eat him. Why? Why? Why would you do that? And there was no specific reason given, but a general reason that I'm afraid still plagues us today. And that is what?

We will not have this man to reign over us. Well, for what work are you stoning him? What good work are you stoning him? He's been good to you. His father's given you his vineyard. He's given us everything we need to sustain our lives. You're making a good living. Nobody's mistreating you. So for what good work are you stoning him? For what good work did you beat him up and throw his body out to be the, you know, to be bird food? Why did you do that? We will not have this man to reign over us. And I'm telling you, that haunts

me and it should haunt every organized religion in the world. Is Jesus Christ really the head of the church you attend? Is he really the head of that church? Well, yes. Well, just because you say it doesn't mean that it's so. Just because you make the claim does not mean that it's true. Here you have

Jesus saying, don't be praying out in public. Do you pray in public in your church? Yeah. He says, don't take up an offering in public. Do you take up offerings in public? Well, yeah. We even post the people's names and stuff on boards and bulletin boards and announce how much money is given. We put little gold plaques on pews with people's names on it. Well, why do you call me Lord and not do what I say? You know, how many examples would you like

for me to show you that Jesus Christ is not the Lord of the church? He's not the head of the church. We will not have this man to reign over us. I remember we never take up an offering in any of our meetings. You'll never hear me on the radio ask you for money. You'll never hear me on TV ask you for money. We don't do it. We just flat don't do it. I've had friends of mine who are in the ministry say, that's absolute financial suicide. You know, you could have a hundred times more than you have if you just ask.

Well, you see, I'm not allowed to ask. See, I got fired from preaching once before. I had the Lord saying, I don't need you. I got a million just like you. I don't need you. Well, that was tough on me. We'll talk about that some other time. But, you know, when I found out the kind of man that the Lord needed,

he rehired me. He put me into the ministry. But one thing that he made very clear to me, money will not have anything to do with the gospel that you preach. And I mean nothing to do with it. Yes, sir. So I'm supposed to change that? I'm supposed to ignore that? Because my friends say, you're committing financial suicide. You could be a hundred times larger than you are if you just ask for money. No, sorry. I have a Lord. I have a boss. I'm trying to do what he says to do. Time's gone again. Sorry about that. Time seems

to fly here. I hope you're enjoying the broadcast. Join us next time to hear more from the Words of Jesus series. If you're enjoying it, I'd love to hear from you. You can write to me at don at thinkredink.com. You can send an email to Don or even info if you'd like any materials that you happen to see on the website at thinkredink.com. Or you can write me a paper letter at Think Red Ink Ministries at PO Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico, 87827. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you