Words of Jesus Podcast - Jesus Did Many Wonderful Things

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

The challenge for modern Christianity is to apply logic and consistency to our traditions. It requires bravery to examine established theological ideas and sacraments. However, to assure we worship the God of the Scriptures in accordance to the Son of God, this work is mandatory. Creeds, counsels and belief statements which require arbitrary obedience to the church over Christ creates a disconnect with the Scriptures. These false notions must be erased to make room for the doctrines Jesus came to reveal. ***Ch . 37 - Jesus Walks On The SeaMatthew 14:24-33; Mark 6:47-52; John 6:16-21While Jesus was alone in the Mountain praying, his disciples entered a boat and started over the sea toward Capernaum. But the wind rose and lashed the sea into great waves and held up their progress.             About the fourth watch of the night Jesus came down to the shore, saw the boat, and walked upon the sea toward them.            When they saw him in the water, his disciples were troubled and said:            “It is a spirit.”            They cried out with fear.            Jesus heard them and said:            “Be of good cheer. It is I; be not afraid.”            Peter replied, saying:            “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.”            Jesus said:            “Come.”            Peter descended from the boat and walked toward Jesus on the water. When he saw that the waves were boisterous, he was afraid and began to sink. He cried out, saying:            “Lord, save me.”            Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, caught Peter, and said to him:            “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”            When the two of them entered the boat, the wind ceased. All who were on board came and worshiped Jesus, saying:            “Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello my friends, welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris. Thank you so much for being a part of the show and for taking this time every day to come by and see what the Lord, perhaps He has something for you. He's always so good to speak to us as we need Him to do so. And in the day and age we live in, oh my goodness, I don't know how you're doing it without him.

All right, we're in chapter 37 of our Words of Jesus book, and this is the story of Jesus walking on the sea. Last time we were talking about the feeding of the 5,000. And if there's a runner-up, or if perhaps there's a tie, in the famous stories about Jesus, it's about him walking on the water. And we even use that term. We think somebody thinks a lot of themselves.

They say, well, he thinks he walks on water and so we even use it in disparaging ways such as that but jesus did indeed walk on the sea and um and this is the situation in which it happened while g oh this is found all you can find this in your own scriptures in mat 14, Mark 6 and John 6. While Jesus was alone in the mountain praying, his disciples entered a boat and started over toward Capernaum. But the wind rose and lashed the sea into great waves and held up their progress. About the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came down to the shore,

saw the boat, and walked upon the sea toward them. When they saw him on the water, the disciples were troubled and said, It's a spirit! They cried out with fear. Jesus heard them and said, It's a spirit! They cried out with fear. Jesus heard them and said, Be of good cheer! It's I! Be not afraid! Peter replying,

Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto the water. Jesus said, Come on! Peter descended from the boat and walked toward Jesus on the water. When he saw that the waves were boisterous,

he was afraid and began to sink. He cried out, saying, Lord, save me. Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, caught Peter, and said to him, O thee of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? When the two of them entered the boat, the wind ceased, and all who were on board came and worshipped Jesus,

saying, Of a truth, thou art the Son of God. It's a beautiful story, really, and I'm always amazed that when i talk about this and i say um uh you know jesus was on it was one of two people that actually walked on the sea and naturally their mind starts running in trying to go through their religious history classes and trying to think was there ever a prophet that did that? Did Muhammad walk on the water? Or did, you know, they're trying to figure out who in the world walked on the water besides Jesus? Well, it was Peter.

Peter walked on water. The Bible says that he did so. And I think that this is one of those times where, as I say, you just got to put pants on the scripture here and realize that although Jesus is the main character in this story, and although it was his idea to walk on the water and not Peter's, and what Peter did, he did as a, in answer to a request that he was making of the Lord Jesus. I happen to believe it was a playful thing. I don't think Peter was there and deciding that he was going to,

you know, I'm going to test the spirit or whatever. You know, they saw Jesus and said, it's got to be a spirit. It's got to be a hint. It's got to be a haint, as some of my relatives say. And it must be a haint out there. But I don't think that it was a matter of him trying to prove to himself or to anyone else that it was not indeed a demonic spirit or a spirit of a dead person

or whatever else we've invented over the years to try to explain things. But I think it was a playful thing on Peter's part. Am I wrong? I don't know. But I'd have to say that if I had this personal and physical relationship with Jesus Christ after living with him in the flesh for so many years as these men did. I think I would have done that. I think I would have said, oh, cool.

I want to do that. Can I do that? And I just have a feeling that that was what was going on here. Wasn't Peter trying to prove anything or to test the spirits? You see what I mean? Again, here it is. We're trying to throw everything spiritual into this category, and now we can talk about this?

No, no, no. I can't help but wonder wonder i want to know all the details here you know if you if you walk on the water do your shoes get wet does water lap into the laces do your feet get cold does it come up on your cuffs how far how deep do your feet go when you walk on the water i mean what you know i, I just want to know these kind of things. Is it hard underfoot? Do you have to try to maintain your balance like you're standing on a skateboard? You know, I just, I want to know these things. Okay, they, they may not have any spiritual significance, but they're a curiosity to me. And here's, here's, I guess, what I want you to know,

that, you know,esus has done some wonderful things in his in his ministry here on the earth he's done everything from made uh men who have never stood on their feet leap and dance he's made people who have never heard a sound able to hear uh you know the sound of a baby cry, a dog barking, a bird tweeting, and opening a sense in a person's life to where they're no longer four-fifths of what they could understand with five physical senses. Now they're whole.

He has brought people back from the dead, people that are dead because of their own neglect or people that are dead because of circumstances beyond their control didn't seem to really matter much. He would bring people back to life and in doing so, sent himself into a category of being different than you. And that means that um uh he there's a there's a separation that takes place when jesus becomes the miracle working god there's a huge

wall of separation between us and him that frankly i don't think likes. It's nice to see the miracle. It's nice to see that Jesus Christ is indeed different than we are. You know, there's a lot of discussion as to whether or not Jesus was God when he was on the earth. And there's some people that teach us that he was just a man. Well, you won't hear me go either way. Because I don't think it is either way. I think it's a beautiful amalgam, a beautiful mix in the middle of Jesus Christ being, well, let's just face it.

Yeah, he was a man. Yeah, he had two arms and two legs and, you know, ten fingers and ten toes. And he had to get haircuts. And he had to go relieve himself in the woods from time to time. I mean, he was just a man just like the rest of us. Is that a disgusting thought for you? Well, I don't know what Jesus you're worshiping. I don't know. I don't know.

Who is this guy that you're worshiping? He never wears a robe? Or he's always got a robe on and he never has to lift it for any reason? Come on. He stunk when he sweat. You know, he was a man. But if you're insisting

that he was just a man, man, your theology is in real serious trouble because he was not just a man, man, your theology is in real serious trouble because he was not just a man. Now, I believe that he had all these characteristics and these tendencies. I believe that he could sin if he wanted to because he was a man. He chose to come down from where he was with the Father

before the world was, he said, and make himself lower than the angels. Hey, friend, that's you. You understand that? That's us. He came to be one of us. However, I think he understood the poison in the system. He understood that if he were to just infuse his spirit into a physical man that had a physical father and a physical mother,

he would essentially have been pretty much like me and you. Just a sinner, hopefully on his way to salvation, believing in God and doing the best he can. And here I am as an example for you. Now, I believe he was an example. But, you know, let's just take it out of there for a minute and look at it from the other side. Was he God? Well, are you telling me that we killed God on a cross of wood?

We stuck a sword in his side and blood and water came out? We nailed his hands to a tree trunk and stood him up? Really? We slapped his face? We pulled his beard out? This was God? Look, there's too many unanswered questions here to try to play with this in our minds to try to figure out, as the councils of Trent and Nicaea were trying to figure out what the essence of Jesus

was. Was he all God? That's where we finally ended up. Morons that don't even know how to do basic arithmetic say that he was 100% God and 100% man. Well, friend, you can't be 100% two of anything. That's ridiculous. So was he 50% man and 50% God? I don't know. I don't know.

Now, here's what I do know. He was a man in that everything in his flesh made him a man, susceptible to everything that we are susceptible to on this earth there were several differences in jesus christ in us that we cannot forget theologically you can't forget i mean just to be honest about what you read you cannot forget one of them was he had no earthly father well that's not human's partially human, but because he had a physical mother, absolutely necessary for him to have a physical body. But if you think he was just a man,

you want to throw away, essentially, these are people who have trouble with the idea of, the concept of the belief in the virgin birth. There are people who are so virgin birth that they believe that if you don't believe that, you're not a Christian. Hogwash. That's ridiculous. I happen to believe in the virgin birth,

but I don't think that has anything to do with my salvation. It has to do with my understanding of theology. Without the virgin birth, my theology is going to break down my understanding of theology. Without the virgin birth, my theology is going to break down somewhere along the way. If Jesus was indeed just a man, hey, listen to this now. If Jesus was just a man, and his blood paid for his sins on the cross,

you know what that means? That means you can do the same thing. And some moron preachers are out there preaching this right now. That the Jews, like in the tribulation when we go through this fable that we call the rapture, you know, what about all the other people on the earth? How are they going to be saved? Well, they have to be martyred. And when they're martyred, they're going to be saved. So their blood is paying for their sin?

Theologically, we've got a serious problem here. And if you believe that Jesus was just a man, you believe the human blood is the payment for, the atonement for, the price that has to be paid, the ransom that has to be paid, actually, more perfect word, that you believe that that can be paid with human blood. Here, great news.

All you have to do to go to heaven when you die is to erect a cross in your backyard and somebody hanging on it with some nails. That's all you have to do. Because your blood's sufficient. Why is his blood any more sufficient than yours? Because God likes him?

I mean, there are huge theological problems with Jesus being totally man. There are huge theological problems with him being totally God. 100% man? 100% God? No, come on. You're asking me to deny logic. I can't do that. Not in be honest, I can't do that. So what are we going to do? Well, why don't we just do what

Jesus said? Why don't we just believe what he said about himself? He understood fully that he was both the Son of God and the Son of Man. Is that so hard for us to understand? It really shouldn't be. He was different than we are. He is absolutely different than we are. He had no earthly father. Another huge characteristic in Jesus' life that makes him different than any other man who ever lived on the face of the planet was that he had a memory of his life before he was born. He remembered the father. He knew the father. He, we don't know how long he was with the Father.

Our understanding of Jesus Christ is extremely limited. By his own confession, he said, Father, restore unto me the glory that I had with thee before the foundation of the world. So we know that the entity that we understand to be Jesus Christ was before the world was created we find out that his name his title is the word of god we understand that the worlds were created by the word of god we we see him uh even on mount sinai carving the commandments which you all you know many many christians have believed are are not a christian concept today

they're not for us today the law is not for us today though it was written by the one you call lord his was his finger that wrote those in the rock that day how do we know that what was moses wasn't he known as the the only man that ever saw face to face? He had to put the veil over his face because he'd spent so much time there face to face with God. Well, who was that? Because when we find Jesus on the earth, he says, no man's seen God at any time. God's a spirit. No man's seen him. No man's heard his voice.

Wow. What? What happened there? We have to understand that our Lord Jesus predated us, predated the creation of the world, and he has been our God and creator from the very beginning. He has been our God and creator. This is why God is referred to in the Old testament as elohim it's a it's a plural situation it is as paul uses the word godhead this is god the father jehovah jehovah in english and and his son jesus christ we don't know what his name was before but we know what it was when he was manifested here and the sonship of jesus christ

i don't know that that predates his incarnation on the earth because in hebrews we find that at the coronation of jesus when he finally does uh present himself and his blood to pay the ransom for all of us, the father looks at Jesus Christ and said, Thy throne, O God. Did he just call Jesus God? Yeah, he did. Remember when he met Mary when he was resurrected? I go to my God and your God. Soesus has a god and jesus is our god there's two

gods you just have to deal with it i don't i don't know how you're going to deal with it it's a huge stumbling block to the jews and um and it's an irritation to many protestants who insist on a trinity but what we we find is the Godhead consists of our Father God Jehovah and His Son Jesus Christ. I mean, read all the epistles of Paul and you're just not going to find Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost in anything he has to say.

Everything he has to say is Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Father and the Son, the Son, the Father, the Father and the Son. This is our Godhead. Now, he is our Godhead because he is our God and our creator. But the idea is that our God can be our condemner. He can be the one who consigns us to hell i know that goes against a lot of people's grain they want to believe that the devil throws us now and god carries us to heaven

and they're in some kind of struggle or some kind of chess match or chess chess match trying to win us or whatever they're trying to do i don't know you know some some of the doctrines out there are so convoluted and they just don't come from scripture jesus says fear him that's able to cast both body and soul in hell who was he talking about who was he talking about he wants us to fear he wants us to respect the devil i doubt it so this is a lot to throw at you these are things that we need to think about who exactly was this this jesus christ who walked on this earth and what was he all about man he was this this plan is so ingenious it's just it's unbelievable he came not unbelievable i shouldn't use that word.

I can't even say incredible. What should I say? It's fantastic. No, it's not fantastic. What is it? It's something you better put your faith in. It's something that is credible. It's not a phantasm.

It's not something that we just made up in our mind. This is something we've discovered in scripture that our god jesus christ has decided to redeem us and being tethered to his father in heaven came to this earth and lived the life inside our flesh which by the way, is the only way that any of us will ever be justified because he lived in our bodies. He knows what it's like to live here. That's how we gain justification. That's why the scriptures say that the Old Testament can't justify you. I know you want to read that, that the Old Covenant and the Old Testament

and the law can't save you, but that's not what it says at all. It says it can't justify you. Jesus Christ is our justification. It was a perfect plan. He put it all together. It worked out just perfectly. And he came to the earth. He did what his father told him to do.

He says he didn't even make a decision while he was here. He walked around. He said, I don't do what I want to do. I do what the father tells me to do. It's easier that way, guys. Come on, quit thinking so much. This is simple. I was standing over on the shore a while ago, and he says, walk out to the boat out there. We'll scare the bejesus out of them. Is that a bad word? I don't know. And so he goes and walks on the water. Shows himself to have power over the water. And it infuses one of his disciples with that same power.

He's always teaching and always showing us what to do. He's a wonderful God. He's just got so much more versatility now because he was one of us. And as he presents himself to his father you can read this in the book of hebrews that his father looked at him and said he said uh thy throne oh god is forever why because now has hated righteous hate that has loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God, there it is again, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

And a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. I mean, he is coronating Christ and bringing him in. And this is what I mean when I say, I don't know if the sonship predates his incarnation because he said, this day thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee.

There's something really beautiful about this. There's something really beautiful about him being the firstborn of many brethren what a what a cool family that we're getting involved in here these guys are sharp they know exactly how to fix these things but see we need to lay down all of our goofy little theology and our and our goofy little uh we've set up these big posts in the road, you know, that we can't move this post.

Oh, no, we can't move this post. Well, you're never going to learn what you have to learn as you pass this way as long as this big iron post is in your way. Where did this come from anyway? Well, the Nicene Council brought it to us. They said, here, drill a hole, bury this post right here. Well, you know what?

We don't need to have such a fascination for these things. We need to hold them, but hold them loosely. And as soon as they interfere with a revelation of who Jesus Christ is, oh my goodness, let it go. What are we saving anyway? The face, the character or whatever of the men of the Nicene Council or whoever else we consider to be fathers of the faith? Listen, St. Augustine is not a father of my faith.

The saints of the past, these bishops of people, of religions that all get together and discuss these things, those aren't the fathers of my faith. The father of my faith is the Lord Jehovah himself. That's who the father of my faith is. That's the counsel I want to take. Not the counsel of Nicaea, the counsel of Trent,

or the blah, blah, blah. It just goes on and on. Look, this is a wonderful thing, but it's going to take somebody that, like I say, holds these things loosely and able to read the Scriptures and see them for what they really are. Yeah, you're going to have to wonder, did Peter's sandals get full of water?

Did his boots get full of water when he walked? Yeah, you're going to think about these things. But they're going to make us better. They're going to make Christianity real to us. Look, walking on the water is a wonderful thing. And it's nice to assign that to Christ, but we need not forget that power was given to a flesh and blood guy.

Now was Peter, did he have a physical father? Uh-huh. Did he have a physical mother? Yes, he did. Did he have troubles and strife in his life? Yes, he did. But how is it that he can do what Jesus can do? Because our Lord God, Jesus Christ,

infused him with that power. And there's the story. We're going to talk about this again next time. Because these things are so rich, and they just seem to continue without end, like holding a mirror up to a mirror they just go on and on and on yeah kind of like i do listen um let me take a moment to say thanks for uh watching this this show and uh and it becoming a part of your life and i would love it if you

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well uh so um you can't if you want to be a part of what we're doing you probably need to let them know you appreciate it. And I want to hear from you as well. So you can, if you want to be a part of what we're doing, you probably need to know our post office box address. It is simply Think Red Ink Ministries at P.O. Box 718 Hightown, New Mexico, 87827. I'd love to hear your questions, your comments, perhaps you just want to discuss something. Maybe you want to just talk about life. Maybe you just want to sit around and talk to somebody who puts Jesus in Levi's. Alright, we're going to see you next time. Thank you so much for being

a part. Next time, until then, think red ink. Bye-bye. ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you