Words of Jesus Podcast - Jesus Came To Be King Of Israel

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

The expectation of Jesus was thwarted by the will of man. Jesus expected to be accepted by His people. His Father God also expected Jesus would become the King and Priest to His people. Things changed. The leadership was unwilling to accept the authority and leadership of Jesus. They were happy with the way things were "in the church". They desired a Messiah to overthrow Rome and to endorse their religion. Problem. Jesus came to correct the leadership. The Pharisees said, "We know you came from God because you don't care what people think of you." Jesus was leaven-free! Throughout the gospel story you read "what sayeth thou?" They expected Jesus to be different. ***96: Jesus Is Asked Three QuestionsMatthew 22:15-40; Mark 12:13-34, Luke 20:20-40Shall We Pay Tribute To Caesar?The chief priests, scribes, and elders sent spies into the multitude that gathered around Jesus, hoping that he might do or say something that would enable them to turn him over to the civil authorities.            These opponents of Jesus asked him, saying:            “Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man; for thou regardest not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?”            Jesus perceived the craftiness behind the question. He said:            “Why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny, that I may see it.”            When it was brought, he said to his tempters:            “Whose is this image and superscription?”            His opponents said:            “Caesar’s.”            Thereupon Jesus said to them:            “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”            Jesus’ enemies could find nothing in this answer that warranted accusing him; so they went away.Which Of The Brothers Shall Have The Wife In The Resurrection?            Some Sadducees, a sect that denied that there was a resurrection, came to Jesus and said to him:            “Master, Moses wrote unto us, ‘If any man’s brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.’ There were therefore seven brethren, and the first took a wife and died without children. And the second took her to wife and he died childless.And the third took her and, in like manner, the seven also. And they left no children and died. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she, for seven had her to wife?”            Jesus replied to them:            “Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in Heaven. And as touching the dead, that they rise, have ye not read in the book of...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris Hello my friends, Don Harris here of Think Red Ink Ministries. What are we doing? We're reinforcing Christianity. Nothing new here. Not trying to develop a denomination or build a church. Just trying to take good old Christianity and introduce something to it that seems to have been missing since the first century, which is the words of Christ. Actually, we're not interested in memorizing stuff and quoting scripture.

What we'd really like to do is take the words that Jesus said, do the things that Jesus said to do, and perhaps even do the things that Jesus did. The series is based on Jesus, His life, His ministry, His friends, His relationship with His Father, as recorded in the four Gospels. We're going to delve into mysteries that have been hidden, not from us, but for us in the words of Jesus. Thanks for being a part of the show. Glad you're

always here. And we always look forward to coming back here and going through the scriptures. This is something that I do in my personal life. And I'm just glad to have you with me. We're actually in chapter 96 of our little book called The Words of Jesus. And here we're going to deal with three questions that Jesus asked. The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders sent spies into the multitude that gathered around Jesus hoping that he might do or say something that would enable them to turn them over to the civil authorities.

The Jews had an idea about actually putting a man to death that was distasteful to some of them. But they were actually going to try to murder Jesus. And, well, that's what it is. It's murder. I know you've been told that he came here to be crucified and that it just didn't matter who did it or how it happened or anything as long as he died and shed his blood. But those kind of things just aren't so. Jesus came to be the King of Israel. He came to be the high priest. He came to redeem Israel. This is why when he first came, he was talking a lot about, you know, this generation shall not pass away. Well, it did. He said, there's some here that

aren't going to die until they see the kingdom of God. Well, they did. Well, it's because things I don't believe in the largest and most exertive stress of my imagination think that Jesus came here to be murdered by his people. He came here to be accepted by them. Life would be different. We would be well into the millennial reign of Christ at this point, had he been accepted for who he was. This is why it's so important that we receive him for who he is. It's what he came to receive of his people, of the people that he loved.

It is what he did not receive. It's actually who we did not receive. That's why the scriptures say that in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Then the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. And as many as received him, I don't like the term, you can use it if you wish. I mean, you don't have to do things the way I think they have to be done, but, or say things the way I think they need to be said. I will, but I can't force my will on anybody else. But you really should consider the difference between what we call today accepting Jesus and receiving Jesus.

See, when you accept somebody, it's got a connotation to it like, you're okay with me. Well, frankly, Jesus didn't come to be accepted. He came to be received for who he is, not for who we think he is. One of the greatest, and I believe one of the most humbling, well, I would say most humble prayers that a person could pray is not that God would strictly go along those lines of some of the old songs,

you know, more, more about Jesus, you know. We're not really here to learn a whole lot about Jesus. We're here to learn from him. You know, when he says, learn of of me he's not saying learn about me he's saying learn from me learn from let me be your teacher i'll i'll teach you i'll guide you i'll train you the way you need to be trained if there's any training to be uh done i'll be glad to do it if there's anything to be learned i'll tell it to you i'm not going to leave you in the dark. I'm not going to leave you comfortless.

I'm going to lead you and guide you into all truth. Well, we don't take advantage of that. What we do is, is we find people who seemingly know, who are authorities around us, who are higher ups in the church. They've got the robes, they've got the parking place, they've got, I don't know, whatever you feel like is important for a so-called man of God, and we listen to them. Why? Why are we doing that? Because we have no relationship with God. We certainly don't have a communicative relationship with God. We've reduced God's communication to us to a book. We speak to God in prayer you know the rest

of this little saying and he speaks to us by the bible well i guess he can but you know what's better than that you know what's better than the written word is hearing the voice for yourself no you're not going to hear words in your ears. If you do, let me know. I can help you with that. You might have a problem that you're not aware of. But we hear within ourselves. There is a man. There is a being. There is a very real personage within us, which is the marriage of the Spirit of god to our bodies that makes us into a living soul that soul has a language god speaks that language today many people feel like that

if they learn hebrew they're learning the language of god that's not so they think that if they learn greek they're learning the language of god that's not so god They think that if they learn Greek, they're learning the language of God. That's not so. God speaks a language that disappeared at the Tower of Babel. We got a peek into it on the day of Pentecost, and there was a language that one sermon was spoken by Peter on the day of Pentecost, and everyone understood it. How can that be? How can that be? It's a language that is within all of us.

It's a wordless word. Boy, if you seek that, and you start to understand that God can speak to us and give us, not learning, but give us a knowing within ourselves, you ever get a taste of that you'll never want anything else jesus is asking some questions here let's get back to our book the chief priests scribes and elders sent spies into the multitude and gathered around jesus hoping that they might do he might do or say something that would give them

the ability to turn him over to the civil authorities these opponents of Jesus ask him saying master we know that thou art true and teach us teaches the way of God in truth. I think it's interesting in other Gospels, other translations, and this claims to be King James, but it's not. I think it's interesting that they say, we know that you teach the way of God truly. Why? Because you don't care what men think of you. That's an interesting concept.

You know what it is? It's the opposite of leaven. Remember we talked about leaven not being sin, but being that hypocrisy, that acting in front of other people, saying what other people want to hear you say in order to be accepted by them. You don't care for any man, for thou regardest not the person of men.

Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not? Jesus perceived the craftiness behind the question, and he said, Why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny that i might see it i'm thinking what are you about to do well you know what he's the questions about money isn't it he says tribute to caesar let me say this just a moment. I don't know that any person in the world cannot understand that when you give tribute to someone, you hold them in high esteem, you honor that person, you revere that person, and in some cases, you even fear that person.

And that is what it means to pay tribute. However, in the vernacular of this day, and even in ours today, this was reduced to money and that is you take which your money which is a representative of your life by the way i don't know if you've ever thought about it but you know when you look at your paycheck you think wow that's what 40 hours of my life is worth uh well it's kind of frightening isn't it but you need to understand that you shouldn't love the money you shouldn't respect the money for its amount but you should respect that money for its representation of your life now it was true that the the the romans when when they were in this situation of oppression of Israel, these were called

taxes, but they called it tribute. Now Caesar demanded tribute. So what was he saying? He demanded respect. He demanded that fear and actually ensured that they would fear. But it was the giving of that money that was the symbol of their reverence for Caesar. I know the people didn't necessarily feel that way. But when they gave that money, some of the people there were saying,

this is not a tribute. This is an extraction. Let me give you a modern day example. When you fill out your taxes, then you have to write a check in addition to what's been withheld. And you look at that amount. Is that a tribute to the united states saying thank you washington for being responsible and and mature and and and hard-working people is that what that is or is it not an extraction against your will that they take that it'd be nice to have a government that we felt that way about, but I don't know that anybody in their right mind could feel that way. I appreciate some of the things the government does, but man, I do not appreciate a whole lot of what they do. But do I pay that tax because

I'm glad about it? Or do I pay that tax because, well, frankly, you'll go to jail if you don't. It's something to consider because there is also a tribute to God. And one of the ways that I sanctify, I want you to listen to me now, because this may be something that you might want to adopt in your own thinking the way that i sanctify the money that i send to washington or the you know any

tributes that i happen to make is by tithing my income as a tribute to my God. You see, it's, when I consider whatever, I mean, he's only asking 10%. That's really all he's asking for. But when you give that, I can willingly give that as a tribute. And with a thankful, grateful heart to my God for the money troubles that I don't have. I've had situations where, you know, it's obvious that I just avoided tens of thousands of dollars of loss. I mean, you can see these things in your your life you see the protection of god on your life you see a a time in your life when you actually avoided a thousand dollar loss

you know what i do it's me not telling you to do it i pay tithes on that there's money I didn't have to spend that was just like having it to me that is what the Bible calls giving 10% of your increase I consider that an increase as well I just want him to know I'm thankful to him I'm really glad to have a God and a government if you want to call the kingdom of God a government I'm really glad to have a God and a government, if you want to call the kingdom of God a government. I'm really tickled to have, to be living in the kingdom of God on the earth today.

So I pay tribute. All right, Jesus was asked this question, and the word tribute was used, not taxes. You see, do you think we should pay taxes to Caesar or not? Well, you know, the answer to that question is obvious. Yeah, you either pay the taxes or you go to prison. What are you asking me? Do you see here? Do you see what's happening? They're saying that this money that we're giving to Caesar isesar is a tribute to caesar should we give tribute to caesar and so this is the craftiness with which the question was formed he says

perceiving their craftiness do you see he had sense enough to see this. A lot of people don't. They don't know the difference between tribute and taxes. Jesus did, and he knew the difference in those two words. They weren't asking, should we pay taxes? That answer is obvious. You pay them or you go to prison. Now, what was Jesus going to do in this situation? Was this him standing off and saying, I don't want anything to do with politics? Was it him getting involved and says, now, you know, let's get behind our government and do the right thing?

No, he wasn't. What he dealt with was the aspect of tribute. And he was saying, look, this is not a tribute to Caesar. This is giving Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And he showed it by, he says, give me a penny. Somebody handed him a penny. Gee, I wonder why he didn't have one. Hmm. penny somebody handed him a penny gee i wonder why he didn't have one you know that isn't that the isn't that the the term the motto that we use when we're broke we

say i don't have a penny i don't have a cent and maybe jesus wasn't as rich as we've been told but he says give me a penny this is the only time I ever heard of him taking up an offering either. But he says, give me a penny. And they showed it to him and he says, whose image is that? Well, that's Caesar's. You see the inscription on there? Yeah. He's the one that gives this little piece of metal value.

It's just a piece of metal value it's just a piece of metal it's just a piece of copper or bronze or whatever it was made of that's all it is but you see it's his image and his superscription that gives it the value that you are so concerned about you know how much money you know when they when they change the you know the monetary system in our country when we go from confederate money to to the whatever new system you know how much money's been burned well you know you know who burns money people who have who recognize the fact that it doesn't have any value unless our government says so. I understand, you know, this isn't an economics lesson. But it does kind of, you know, take it down to a logical understanding.

And Jesus took it down to this level so that the people who love the Lord did not feel like what they were giving to Caesar was a tribute, was reverence, was respect. This stuff belongs to him. If he wants it, give it to him. How is that a concern of ours? Now I have to admit that in this day and age that this happened jesus was talking to a society that was primarily agricultural i understand that and they didn't

necessarily need a penny to buy a fig to eat for lunch. They walked up to a fig tree and plucked it and ate it. And that was, you know, eating of the land. And I understand that things are different today. You can't get a fig unless you've got a coin. I understand that. But you see, this is a degradation of our society, not an advancement of it. Do you understand? It makes it more difficult today to give money because when we give money, we're giving away our insurance payment, we're giving away our grocery bill we're giving away our light bill we're giving them we're giving

of all of our all of our sustenance sustenance and our necessities in life uh caesar didn't want a fig he wanted a penny and so it was easy to distinguish the two not so easy today not really you know laying this out like yeah there's nothing to this look i realize that when it comes time to give to the lord that it's well frankly more difficult to give money than it was in these days people hardly had any money. There's people that lived and died and never had money They lived from the land And they lived from their from the work of their own hand but

Although I may not be able to alleviate that in your own mind I think I can help you understand that When you give money wow you really are giving your life. I mean, you really are. When we give 10% of our increase, we are giving a really wonderful gift to our God, more so than the people in these days. Because money had a value, but so did the land, so did agriculture. And many of the people had to take their produce

and sell it in the shambles, turn it into money in order to pay some of these taxes. But today, because money has been so elevated in value, it's really a better gift than most anything you can give, probably with the exception of your time. the society we live in you know i think about our our little ministry here in pie town and um you know we have incredible expenses and i'm thinking i don't know how these how these other guys do it i really don't know how they do it uh because uh you know there's just so many things that we would like to do that we can't do. And why? Because of money.

We can't just go to the land, especially here in Pytown. What do we have here, pinion nuts? I guess that's all. Well, you can get tired of those. But the money aspect really shouldn't be resented so much as it is but it's all about money with you guys well it's all about money with you what makes what makes your love for money any different than our appreciation for it i'd like to know it's it's you know just it's get rich quick and all this stuff well i have to say that you know i am

not real pleased with nor do i endorse my preacher brethren i i can't endorse what they do but uh to get the money thing right uh it can really free you not bind bind you, but free you. If you just do this right and you think about it right, if you have the wisdom and the knowledge of God that I encourage you to seek every day, if you have that, you have what was inside Jesus. When he heard that question, he realized that question's been crafted. They're asking me something that they're really

not asking me do you do you see that i wanted you to hear not only what he heard but how he heard it and i think it's interesting that when they asked the question the bible didn't leave out the fact that the wheels were turning in his head at that point and he perceived their craftiness so he answered in such a way not necessarily to avoid their question or to wiggle around the question or give him give him some politician answer to their question he was trying to alleviate within them look friends we honor god we don't honor any man on the earth you shouldn't feel like that when you pay these taxes that it is your tribute to caesar these aren't this isn't tribute this is an extraction of the money in your pocket this is a tax that you have to pay so let them have it if that's what they want let them have it um i know there's i mean there's a

lot that can be applied to what jesus said here that he's he's told us that we should pay our taxes and i think you should but uh he's just saying you know don't let this don't let this um translate itself into your mind as some kind of a an appreciation for caesar or a tribute to caesar because i'm sure that was the conversation they hated rome and when they came in and says you're're going to have to give us money, they said, you're going to have to give us money as a tribute to Caesar. They just couldn't do it.

And frankly, I don't blame them if you're going to attach the word tribute to it. You know, during those times of the Maccabees, those are books that are supposed to be in your Bible. During those times when people were being persecuted and killed for their faith, the tribute to Caesar was that they would honor him as king and verbally make a statement that he was the highest authority in their lives. And when they would do that, they could be released. I think it's very interesting because as we continue in this story, when this story really

starts getting bad and they start plotting against Jesus and they end up murdering him, the Jews themselves, the leadership of the Jews, make a statement that is just absolutely chilling. And you remember when Pilate held Jesus out there in front of everybody and he had just finished talking to him and they said, you know, what do you want me to do with this guy? And they said, crucify him! He said, do you want me to crucify your king?

Pilate was not being sarcastic. He was asking an honest question. And those people answered him in a way that just, it chills me every time I think of it. We have no king but Caesar. Really? Wow. No tribute to Caesar?

I'm afraid you just made one. It's time for us to go. Write to me, don ThinkRedInk.com I want to see your email across my desk. Come on now. All right till we see you again. Think Red Ink my friend. Bye. Bye you've been listening to don c harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredink.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you