Words of Jesus Podcast - Jesus Reveals The Scriptures

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

"This is who I want you to be." The process of salvation, of being born-again, is more than a matter of mental assent to the existence of God or of accepting Jesus of Nazareth. We are lost, selfish, unregenerate people. Our mission is to change. The sixth commandment is, "Thou shalt not kill." Wait, there’s more. We must do the works of God to and for our neighbors and our brothers. Jesus reveals the lifestyle expected of those who claim His name. ***Chapter 19: The Sermon on the Mount... You have heard that it was said to them of old time, You will not kill; and whoever will kill will be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you That whoever is angry with his brother without a cause will be in danger of the judgment: whoever will say to his brother, Raca, will be in danger of the council: but whoever will say, You fool, will be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, Leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you, You will by no means come out of there, till you have paid the last penny. You have heard that it was said to them of old time, You will not commit adultery: But I say unto you, that whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if your right eye offend you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell. And if your right hand offend you, cut it off, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell. It has been said, Whoever will put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce: But I say unto you that whoever will put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery: and whoever will marry her that is divorced commits adultery. Again, you have heard that it was said to them of old time, You will not perjure yourself, but will perform unto the Lord your oaths: But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither will you swear by your head, because you can not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these comes from evil. You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That you repay not evil: but whoever will smite you on your right cheek, turn to him and offer the other also. And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat forbid him not, let him have your shirt also. And whoever will compel you to go a mile, go with him two miles. Give to every man that asks of you, and from him that would borrow of you, turn not away. And of him that takes away your goods ask them not again. You have heard that it has been said, You will love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you, what thank have you? Do not even the publicans the same, for sinners also love...

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, your host, and we're going to be getting right into the Sermon on the Mount. We've been talking about it recently and I guess last show I was trying to prepare us to hear some very familiar scripture and resist the temptation to light into it with that attitude of, I know this, I've heard this. Because unless you are actively, unless the word of God, we're not talking about the Bible here, but unless the word of God is a part of your everyday life, chances are you've not heard it.

You may have heard the words. You may know the words, be able to recite them. But the truth is, is that Jesus had a message for the world, not words for the world. One time he told, or asked the question of the people around him, why is it you do not understand my speech? And when he says my speech, he's saying, why do you not understand the words that I say? Because you do not understand my word. Why is it you don't understand my speech? Because you do not know my word.

And many times when we, I was just recently looking at different books about the words of Jesus. And one of the books was I think it was entitled, you know, the hard sayings or the difficult to be understood words of Jesus. And I was thinking, they're not difficult. They're not difficult at all. We can hear those words and they open little doors in our minds and in our spirit to allow the word of God, the true and living word of God to come into us. So I encourage you, do that

as we continue. Jesus says, You have heard that it was said of them of old time, thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you that whosoever will be angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Rekha, or fool, shall be in danger of the council. But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. This is a little difficult to understand because of the way it's written.

Because it involves different languages, colloquialism, words of the day. It's kind of difficult for us to understand what he's saying. What did he mean when he says, if you say to a person, Rekha, you're in danger of the council? Because men were not allowed to speak to one another like that. And there were certain rules of behavior that you would be held accountable to the council for. And notice that in here, when says the word reka, it puts the word fool in brackets as if it is defining that word. He's saying that and then he goes on to

say if you say thou fool, you're in danger of hellfire. And it sounds like he's saying the same thing twice, but there is something in us that perhaps if we use the wrong word, if we're not politically correct or whatever, you might be in danger of the United States government. But more so when we feel within ourselves that we're speaking to

someone that we intend to denigrate and use the word fool to put somebody below us in our conversation, it's a pretty good chance that you've not had developed in you the love of God shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit that we love our brethren. As a matter of fact, the Bible only gives us three different ways to know that we've been born again. And of course one of them is that we

keep His commandments. Yeah we keep his commandments. Yeah, keep his commandments. That's one of the ways. How you doing? How you doing on your test so far? Number two is that we love our brother, and we know that we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.

And of course the third thing is that the witness, the spirit of God witnesses with our spirit that we are indeed the sons of God. And with these three ways, and I'm saying there's only three in the scriptures that tell us this. All this stuff about going down the Roman road and asking Jesus to save you and all this stuff. I'm sorry, but a long time ago when I decided to revamp and go back through the scriptures and preach what's there

and ignore what's not and to remove from my life what the Bible says is something that I shouldn't be involved in. A lot of these sayings that we say in church and say to one another has to go. Because although they might be correct in some ways and not necessarily detrimental in other ways and these kind of things, I don't see them as I think we should speak as the oracles of God.

And if the scriptures tell us that some thing, some way is the way, I think that's what we ought to say. All right, so it gives us these three different ways to know that we are the children of God, one of which is that we love the brethren. You should be very concerned, very concerned about your salvation. Not because you might use bad language or your dress ain't long enough or your hair's too long or some other thing that turns somebody off in the church. Something that offends your grandmother. But what you should do

is you should be very concerned if your love for the brethren is not there. This is a sign to you that you've not been born from above. It is one of the things that happens to us when we decide to let Jesus boss us around. And that is that

he tells us exactly how to deal with our enemies and deal with our friends. Deal with an even defined neighbor. We're going to talk about these things. I just can't wait. Jesus deals with all these things individually and we're going to see them as we go. But he's saying that if there is within you the ability, the inclination to put somebody down into the category of fool and subsequently raising

yourself above that person, you are in danger of hellfire. That's what he said. You're in danger of hellfire if that's the case. And so I think this should be taken very seriously. I don't really care because my father doesn't seem to care so much about he loves to be worshipped, yes, but he doesn't mention that here. He loves for us

to give of ourselves and of our time and our money and our lives to the ministry of God and to Him. And to dedicate ourselves to Him. Yeah, he appreciates all those things. However, if you read the Old Testament there is something that just seems to be an overarching theme in just about everything he says when he's dealing with his people. And that is, you're not treating one another right. What is this? How is there widows in need in the land that you live in when you have plenty?

How is it that the fatherless and the orphans are not taken care of. How come that is? How come your judicial system is twisted so that somebody can buy a judicial decision? Why is that? His concern was how we treat one another. And as magnanimous as he is and it is a characteristic that you will find within yourself when you begin to think red ink, that you are expendable and that you're just not that bloody important and you're not that precious that you should be concerned

if you're offended. What you should be concerned about is if your brother is offended and especially if your brother is offended by you. So the idea of downplaying somebody is a really bad sign within our Christianity. And if that is within you, you need to cry out to God. And frankly you need to seek to be born again. You need to seek to be born again. You need to seek that position of

finding yourself in the position of being saved, being made sound, because at that particular point, you're not. Not much can be said about that without depressing us further, but don't ignore the idea that feeling like somebody is a fool is a light thing, because it's not. It's not at all.

The Bible teaches us, especially in the book of Proverbs, how to deal with fools. We should never answer a fool according to his folly. And go from the foolish man when you perceive not in him the lips of knowledge. There are such things as fools. But we need to be very, very careful about just who we judge to be a fool. Jesus called people fools. There are some people who are fools. One of the characteristics of being a fool

is being concerned about your physical well-being, the house that you live in, the clothes you wear, and the food you eat. Whoops. That kind of takes a lot of us in, doesn't it? You fool. All the stuff that you put into barns, who's going to own that when you die?

This night thy soul will be required of thee. Then whose will those things be that you've stored up? You fool. You're a fool. So there is such a, I'm not saying that there isn't such a thing as a fool. I'm just saying we need to be very careful about exactly who we judge to be one. He says therefore, and now

I want you to understand that when he says therefore he is connecting this thought to the last one. You understand? Therefore is saying because of that or that being said, that being understood that you know taking this as read he's saying that therefore when thou bring thy gift to the altar and there remembers that thy brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother

then come and offer thy gift. What is the Lord concerned about? You giving gifts? Or you being in a position to give gifts? You see, many of us are just simply not in a position to give gifts. We're not worthy to give. I know that sounds odd in our understanding, you know, or present day understanding. Who isn't worthy to give a gift? Who in the world isn't? Well, I'll tell you what, if you want to

bring this into a very natural and a normal and a modern day thinking and understanding, Many families are split today and fathers do not live with their children and such and families are scattered and many times a father, because men are kind of crass in this area and they don't think things through and they'd rather give you a dollar

than to than to cry with you um i've seen many times children resent gifts given to them by an absentee father uh he doesn't come around he doesn't help he doesn't he's not a part of my life but on my birthday he'll send me something what did did he send you? Well he sent me a $600 iPhone. How do you like it? I don't use it. What? What? I don't know. I just don't like it. I don't. Well is it that they don't like it? Or is it that they have deemed their father in this particular case as unworthy of giving them

gifts? There's other things. There are weightier matters that ought to be taken care of. Jesus said this when it comes to giving. He says you who tithe, you might take your little cumin seeds and pour them out on the table and count them out and then set aside one-tenth of them and put those in a little envelope and take them to the priest and you take anise

seeds and you count them all up and you take ten% and he says those ought to be done but not to leave the other undone. What other? Well the weightier matters of the law. And so you can find yourself in a position where you're not even worthy to give a gift. Now he says this ought to be done. Jesus here, by the way, is endorsing the tithe.

As a matter of fact, he doesn't say that if you're not worthy, don't bother giving. As a matter of fact, as he lays this out, he says, when you come to bring your gift, leave your gift at the altar and go and reconcile yourself to your brother. He doesn't say just forget it. He just says, you know, the weightier matter here is our relationship with our brother. So he's saying here that if your attitude is that your brother is just a fool, he's not worthy of your time or your attention,

and certainly not of your charity, if you feel that way about your brother, not only is there something wrong between you and him, there's something wrong between him and you. You can think about that on your own. But it is a fact. He says, if you find there that your brother has ought against you. But I don't think it's unsafe to say.

I don't think that it's detrimental in any way. I don't think that it's taking liberties with the scripture at this point to say, if you have anything against them. Both ways. If that communication, that relationship between you and your brother is not right, you're in no position to give. You need to give.

This you ought to have done, he says, and leave there thy gift. The gift should be given. However, you need to make sure that you need to be right when you give it. Later on, we're going to be talking about the false doctrine of imputation. I've mentioned it before, and we will be talking about it, but I think perhaps we should hit it right here. As we start to understand this idea of gift-giving and being worthy to give gifts, I think that you'll find that even though the gift is given, and it's not really given correctly or by a pure heart,

that it is not imputed to us as a gift. And just as quickly as I can, I will explain that the imputation is actually not crediting someone with something that they didn't have before, but actually giving them credit for something that they've actually done or some value that they've...

It's very much like paying your mortgage. And you can hand the clerk a check, and he can stamp it, and he can do whatever he wants to do. But until somewhere along the line, some bookkeeper somewhere puts onto the record book that you paid that for this month. It's not been imputed to you. Not yet. There's a balance and it's hanging in the air but it's not been imputed to you quite yet.

And so our goodness, our sinlessness that we strive for, if you want these things imputed to you, then what you're going to have to do is be worthy of that imputation. So if you essentially want credit for your gift, it'll require the Lord himself to impute that to you and what he requires of us is to be in good standing with our neighbor. We have Jesus here.

We just got finished dealing with our brother and with our neighbor and now he's talking about dealing with the judiciary. He's saying that, you know, if your brother brings some accusation against you, you're going to have to answer to people for this. And so here's something that you should do. This is good advice, and I believe that as you hear this and you understand this, that this will be easy for you to implement in your life.

Agree with your adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him on the way to court. In other words, you might want to try to settle out of court. Try to settle out of court with him lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the officer and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Now Jesus did not talk about here. He did not discuss whether or not you were actually guilty

of what you were being accused of. But as far as I can tell, it really doesn't matter whether it's a false accusation or not. He's saying that when it comes to the courts, they decide you're guilty, you're guilty. And as long as there is negotiation possible between you and your brother, you should take that possibility, take that opportunity to try to make these things right. Because if this goes legal, negotiation doors are closed and you will pay for this.

Now, I guess what I'd like you to understand is that as we start reading some of these words that are more familiar to us, we do start dropping into that, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard this before, attitude. And I think a lot of times as we read these uh you're talking about calling people fools and you're talking about reconciling to your brother and going to prison and all this stuff but i think that it always will behoove us to back up and see where did this conversation come from? And what you'll find is that Jesus starts this whole thing out by saying, now you've heard that you shouldn't kill one another.

Well, let's go back and read it. He says, you've heard that it's been said of them of old time, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill will be in danger of the judgment. You'll also find that Jesus will say, I want you to know that if you hate your brother, now unfortunately you've got the King James problem here with the word hate. And it is in I can't think of a case, I don't want to say in every case, but I can't think of one

where the word reject is so much better than what we term as, hatred to us is an emotional thing. And of course, you know, rejection can be based in emotion. It ought not be. But he's saying, if you, okay, Paul uses the term. He says, why do you hold or set it not thy brother? Set it not. What does that mean? You're counting your brother as worthless. You're counting your brother as stupid, as a fool, or whatever else. Jesus is saying here that I know the scripture says don't kill your brother, but I want you to know that if you are setting at naught thy brother, if you are considering your brother to be a fool, if you do indeed cheat your brother because you have no love for him, you better make these things right. And you better make them right before they go to court

because they can go to court. And if they do go to court, friend, you're not getting out of this. No time soon. You're going to pay every farthing that that judge says that you owe. So use whatever opportunity you have to make things right with your brother because when things aren't right, you're in no position to give, to worship, to be the man or woman that God wants you to be. You just can't do it. It's not there. And he's saying that all this is based in the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill. You'll find that Jesus later on says,

anybody who hates his brother without a cause he's committed murder in his heart well you know that's pretty that's pretty wide loop as john wayne used to say that's throwing a wide loop well the truth is it is throwing a wide loop but we need to be aware of this that just because you don't kill does not mean that you're not in violation of this commandment. These kind of things are made known to us as we spend time before the Lord, and that he opens to us the scriptures. One of the characteristics of Jesus that made him recognizable to his disciples, that what he does is he opens to us the scriptures. And if the scriptures can be opened by Christ,

I contend that they should be and that they need to be. And without him, they are closed. You can memorize them all you want. You can quote from them and say you're standing on the promises. But, you know, you want to stand on these promises? I think what that will do is make you, oh, I think five-eighths of an inch higher. That's all. That's all.

But if we understand that the Word of God is indeed Jesus Christ and that the Scriptures are they're wonderful things however the Scriptures need to be opened when we opened as we said in the introduction the prior show that it does require hearing the voice of God within ourselves, and that we need not think that we understand things, but simply because we heard them, simply because we memorized them, simply because we know the words.

These scriptures need to be opened to us. Now, what we've done? We just opened the sixth commandment and found all this stuff in there? Well, Jesus did anyway. But you know what he's showing us? He's giving us an example. This is the way it needs to be done. That's all for now. Our time's gone. I want you to do something for me. I'm sitting by the computer waiting to get an email from you. Would you tell me who you are and where you're listening, How you're listening to the broadcast? I would really love to know those kind of things so that we can be faithful

with the gifts that people give us to broadcast these shows. So email me at don at thinkredinc.com. You can also write to Think Red Inc. Ministries, PO Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico, 87827. All right. Until then, until next time, Think Red Ink. 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