Words of Jesus Podcast - Jesus Spoke With Authority

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Jesus is not like us. We must take caution to mold our lives after Jesus; not mold Jesus after us. Examine the mind of Christ through his words and actions. Prophets were given for the time when communication with God was limited. Jesus instructed, "Keep my commandments and my Father and I will teach you from the inside." No hierarchy in the Kingdom of God.***Ch. 33 - JESUS RAISES JAIRUS' DAUGHTERJAIRUS, a ruler of the synagogue, came and threw himself at Jesus' feet. He besought his aid, saying: "My little daughter, who is about twelve years old, lieth at the point of death. I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live." Jesus went with him, followed by many people. While on their was a person came to Jairus, saying: "Thy daughter is dead. Trouble not the Master." Jesus heard the message and said to Jairus: "Fear not; believe only, and she shall be made whole." When they arrived at the house, Jesus permitted none to enter with him except Peter, James, John, and the parents of the child. In the house many were weeping and wailing. Jesus said: "Why make ye this ado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." They laughed at him scornfully, knowing that the girl was dead. Jesus put them all out. Jesus took the hand of the girl and said: "Maid, arise." Straightway the girl arose. The parents were astonished. Jesus instructed them to give the maiden something to eat, and he ordered them to tell no one what had happened. But his fame spread throughout the land. ***Scriptures:Ch. 33 Matthew 9:18, 19, 23-26; Mark 5:22-24, 35-43; Luke 8:41, 42, 49-56

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris Hello my friend and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. Glad to have you on board with us. It's been fun going through this little book called the Words of Jesus. And it's peculiar in that every one of the little stories is all around something that Jesus had to say. Which makes this one of my favorite books. And I think that it does us all good

to actually hear Jesus respond to certain situations, respond to certain questions and certain concerns that people have, because, you know, his interaction with us was a gift from the Father to us and he had an air about him the bible says that one of the things that stood out about jesus as a matter of fact you remember we recently had gone through the sermon on the mount the bible says that when he got finished preaching uh the sermon on the Mount,

that the people were astonished at his doctrine because he spoke as one having authority and not as the scribes. You see, there's something about authority that seems to be missing nowadays. Who is authorized to speak on God's behalf? Is there a school of prophets today? Is that so? I know many people call themselves prophets. I call myself a prophet. I think anybody who speaks at any time in their life

under the authority of thus saith the Lord, I think that they fall into the category of prophet. Because they're actually speaking God's words to God's people to communicate something to them that they otherwise could not, would not hear for themselves. And so the broad understanding of who a prophet is allows many persons like myself, the baser sort, to be a part of that school. However,

there are some people that claim the title prophet simply because it is a title. And they don't really have the authority to be a title. And they don't really have the authority to be a prophet and I'm not, you know, that could sound very self-serving me saying that I believe that I am and that others don't have the authority. But I assure you that's not the case at all. There are also reluctant prophets or prophets who don't really consider

the fact that they are a prophet. In order to get a particular message across they find themselves giving a message from God and doing so unwittingly. So there is such a thing as an unwitting or a reluctant prophet. You want examples of this? I think that one of the most perfect examples of this is when they came to John the Baptist and he says, and they ask him

are you the Messiah? He says, I'm not. He says, are you that prophet? And we'll talk about that as we come to it. And he says, no, I'm not. And then they ask, art thou Elijah? And he says, no. And what was really curious about that was that after John the Baptist had met his fate with Herod and eventually was decapitated because of that Jesus was lamenting the death of his cousin

Zacharias, the son of Zacharias the prophet, John the Baptist. And he said that there's never been a greater prophet born of a woman than John the Baptist. And he said that there's never been a greater prophet born of a woman than John the Baptist. And if you will receive it, another whole sermon in that, and we'll deal with it as we go. But if you will receive it, this was Elijah which was for to come. And even though he was the prophet Elijah,

fulfilling the end of the Old Testament and appearing six months before Jesus, being born at Passover, Jesus being born at Feast of Tabernacles, the calendar is in alignment the prophecies are in alignment, everything is in alignment for him to be Elijah the prophet to fulfill a particular mission yet the prophet himself, John the Baptist

was obviously totally unaware that he was indeed Elijah. Isn't that odd? But that's exactly the case. So there is such a thing as a reluctant prophet or an unwitting prophet. Another example, Caiaphas, the high priest. When they were discussing what we're going to do with Jesus, are we going to continue with our plans to kill him?

And Caiaphas, the Bible says, being high priest that year, spoke prophetically, he spoke a prophecy of God, yet he didn't realize that what he was saying was indeed prophetic, that one should die for the nation and not the whole nation should perish. And not that the whole nation should perish. And then you have Caiaphas totally unaware that he had spoken the word of God at that particular point to and for the people. So there's different offices of

prophets and there's different well, recognitions of it even on the part of the man himself. So what is this all about? This is all about authority. And you're going to find that authority plays into a lot of theology, a lot of Bible study, a lot of the character development of the people in the Scriptures. One thing that will

stand out among everything else is the authority of a man to speak on the behalf or on the part of God. Jesus made a huge distinction among the preachers or teachers of the day, the religious leadership. He made an incredible distinction when he said that there was such a thing as a shepherd, there was such a thing as a good shepherd, and there was such a thing as a hireling.

Now, contrary to what you've likely been taught, that Jesus said that he was a shepherd, and that all of us, speaking of the preachers, I'm throwing myself in the same bucket, all of us are under shepherds. You ever heard that? We're all under shepherds. Well, you're talking about a term that's not to be found in scripture. And to tell you the truth, even the concept is not to be found in scripture. We have one shepherd. We have one shepherd. He has many flocks, but we, as part of those

flocks, have one shepherd. It is Jesus Christ. He says, I am the good shepherd. And a good shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep. I have sheep that are not of this fold. He makes it very clear that he is our shepherd. Well, when you arbitrarily manufacture an office of under-shepherd, then it's easy to attain that particular title because, frankly, nobody's in charge of it.

It's never been commissioned. And so you can call yourself that if you want to, but you're going to, unless you deceive people, you're going to have trouble receiving from people the respect that is due this particular office, whatever it is. I can't even imagine being in the military and calling myself an under-colonel and expecting people who are below my rank to respect me and people who are above my

rank to acknowledge that I am an under-colonel. You can't just make a rank. You can't just do that. There are people that consider themselves to be, well, above the fray in that they are preachers. They're pastors. They're whatever. You know, they deserve their own parking place or whatever it is, whatever perks go along with it. A lot of this stuff is just man-made, man-manufactured.

And it's a danger in the body of Christ because through deception, these kinds of offices are being held by men that are not commissioned of God whatsoever, and they're leading people who give them false respect. That's just the way it is. If we go by what Jesus taught us, he said, here's the way it works. He says, take the Greeks, for example. Now here's the way the Greeks do business.

They have a certain authority level. And everybody that is under them does whatever they say. And this person, he has authority, he has authoritative figures over him. So he has to do what they say. And he says so you've got this rank and file of persons in the Greek mindset that this is the way that things are to be. That there should always be a hierarchy and I'm not necessarily against hierarchies in general.

I'm just saying that we can't just manufacture one and we certainly can't infuse our foreign thoughts into an established hierarchy. And here's the hierarchy that you'll find in the scriptures. I always like people to mentally depict in their brain if you go to work for a company or something and they give you a little handbook or whatever. This is all about our company and where we started and who the founder is and all this kind of thing.

Then you'll come to a page where there's all these little boxes and they're all connected by little sticks. You know what I'm talking about. We're talking about the chart that is what's called an organizational chart. You look up at the top and there's a box up there. It's all by itself. And this guy's the president. One little stick going down. This is the vice president. Little stick going down. And this is our board of directors. Little sticks going down as to whatever their responsibilities are and who's under who and who answers to who

and these kind of things. Organizational chart. Well, if you were to look at the organizational chart that Jesus depicted in the Bible, you're going to be surprised at its structure. Because what he's saying is, this is the way the Greeks do business. They love organizational charts. They love rank and file. They love having authority over some people. Some people have an authority over them. And he says, now listen to me, but it shall not be so with you. That's pretty clear. I think it's clear to you, isn't it? So who's head of the church? Jesus Christ. Who's our Bible teacher? Jesus Christ.

Who would we consider to be our rabbi, our great one? Jesus says, don't any of you allow people to call you rabbi. One is your rabbi, even Christ. And all of you arebi. One is your rabbi, even Christ. And all of you are brethren. So what does that organizational chart look like? One little box and a little stick coming down to every one of us. Every one. And we all have little sticks connecting our boxes.

The hierarchy of the kingdom of God is Jesus is in charge. Now, how can you do that without communication? It cannot be done. This is why we have to, I say have to, this is why we choose to, and why it works better to have, you know, this guy's in charge. He's the head of everything and he's got somebody under him. He's got somebody under him.

And we all need to know what our upline is so that we answer to the right person, do the right thing, get the right answers to filter, to matriculate down through the little boxes and finally get to us. We have to do it that way. Why? Because one man cannot communicate with everybody in this organization. There is no way. So, you know, who's in your little box? Well, I'll tell you who's in mine, and that's Jesus Christ. And he left me with a promise that he will communicate with me personally. He's not going to communicate to me through a prophet, through a preacher, unless I'm in some condition that I can't hear his voice. That's certainly a condition that he cares enough about us that when we do silly and stupid things or perhaps even sinful things that we lose that

communication but his idea is you're a lost sheep and i'm coming after you and so he may have to send people into our way to to lead us and to guide us and to get us on the track but if they put you on any track other than to put you back in touch with the Father on a personal level, they are usurping authority. They are putting themselves in between you and our Father God, which is a dangerous, if not stupid, thing to do. I think that in this day and age when we have this kind of authority that is rampant in the church where there is pastor so-and-so and he's in charge of everything, these pastors inherently without evidence,

without teaching, without a college course on it, they inherently know that the office that they hold is not an office in the organizational chart of the kingdom of God. Yeah, they're there to help. Yes, it's good for us to have them there. Yes, they have good things to say to us. Yes, they do. I agree. It's good. I'm one of them. I'm one of those preachers.

And so, yeah, I mean, I agree with it. I think that it's good. However, that if my purpose ever changes, ever turns to putting you into my congregation and I will seek the Lord, to putting you into my congregation. And I will seek the Lord. I will find out what you are to do. I will find out what the will of God is for you.

And I'm going to preach it to you every Sunday. And you're going to get your instructions from me. As soon as I do that, I'm off the organizational chart. We're not brethren at that point. Brethren are to help each other side by side, not head to toe, side by side. We are to throw the sheep up on our shoulder and take them back to the shepherd, not just go off and have our own little flock. Jesus says there is such a thing as little flocks, and that many times these little flocks are being overseen and watched over by hirelings. Now, what's a hireling?

Okay, you got Yosef, and he owns, you know, a thousand sheep. Well, he can't watch after 1,000 sheep, so he hires men to do that for him. Now, he's got 12 men to watch over 1,000 sheep, let's say. And one guy can't make it that day. He can't come to work for whatever reason. And Joseph looks at his son and says, I need you to take the flock over at field number 32 or whatever it is. I need you to work with them today.

Can you do that? Yes, sir, I can do that. And he goes over there and he works with those sheep. But he's not being paid to do so. He's doing it because it's his job, it's his livelihood, it's his family. He's doing it for other reasons altogether. The other men, they're still hirelings.

They're still being paid to do what they do. And when the farmer down the road pays a little bit more, they're gone. And now he has to be replaced on Yosef's farm with somebody else. And he's gone to get better payment someplace else. I think they had an IRA package or something for him. So off he goes. He's gone. He has no dedication to the sheep, no dedication to the shepherd, no dedication to anybody but himself. Why? Because he's a hireling. Jesus says, and let me tell you something about hirelings that you

should know. If somebody's being paid to minister in this particular flock, somebody's being paid they are hireling and when the wolf comes and threatens the sheep the hireling's gonna run well why would he run because he's a hireling he's paid by the hour this guy he's here for the money that's why he's here for the money. That's why. He's here for the money. Well, what about authority? He has none. He's here for the money. Now, my son over there that is working, he's not being paid. He's got supreme authority over this entire field. So, what is the difference in these two? One has authority and one doesn't. One wants authority. one doesn't.

One wants authority. One appreciates authority. He's responsible for his authority. The other one is responsible to himself. There's a difference. Now, this is more prominent than you might ever want to believe. But I just wonder, if it were against the law law tomorrow to be paid to be a preacher I wonder how many preachers we would have a week from now a month from now a year from now I wonder I just wonder how much does it enter into it you know preachers will defend themselves

on this hey I've got expenses you know I got two kids in college. You know, I got a car payment that needs to be made. I got a boat payment that needs to be made. You know, I need two weeks, two weeks a year vacation. I need, you know, this particular retirement package and all these kinds of things. And, you know, I say, if you need that, go get a job. But you're not even wanted here. You're not even wanted here you're not even wanted here we don't want people who have a divided mind we don't we don't need people here to train us or to guide us or to teach us or to handle the word of god and not be deceitful about it like paul teaches um and there there is one way there's many things that need to be done but one of those things that need to be done is to remove the monetary reward

for what they do um i have a policy at think red inc I don't want to know what people give. I don't want to know what they give. Why? Well, because if there's a person who has been essentially sucking off the ministry for the last 10 or 20 years, and their library at home is full of DVDs and CDs and books and they come to the feast and they enjoy themselves and they have never, ever, ever offered a dime to help this ministry and now they need my help? Do you want to pretend like you don't know that? You see, I don't need that hindrance. I don't even want to know that. I don't want to know that because I don't want to treat this person as if they're valueless because of one little flaw in their character. I don't want to do that. I want to talk to them just like I would talk to anybody else. Take the other example. What if there was somebody that was nearly single-handedly

responsible for every financial obligation the ministry takes on? Don't you know that when you look at that person and you know that about them, that you might cut corners. You might soft-soap it a little bit. You might just milk-toast it a little bit. You might just be a little kinder than you need to be. And now you're affecting counsel toward a person, not because of what they don't give, but because of what they do. Look, man, money ruins everything it touches. It's one of the things that is what I call a blessed cursing or a cursed blessing on this ministry. And that is how the Lord made it very clear to me, you know, when, you know, this is, I want to do this. I want to serve you. I want to serve you in this way. Okay, fine. But I don't want money to have anything to do with what you're

doing. Well, you know, in your own zeal at the beginning of, I mean, in my particular case, I was fired from the ministry. I mean, the Lord just kind of set me aside. I was tickled that He was even giving me a second look. And so, yeah, sure, okay, yeah, that's what we'll do. Well, I'll tell you, that's a tough decision. Never, ever to sell a DVD or sell a CD or a book or charge somebody to come and preach at their church or accept honorariums or these people that like to

put checks in your hand secretly. That's for you, brother. Those kind of things. You just carry it over there and put it in that box over there. I'm here for the ministry that's it's it's not as easy as what i kind of was hoping it would be but um i'm determined never ever to have the qualifications of a hireling because i don't like what jesus says about them i don't like what Jesus says about them. I don't want him saying that about me. Why would they run? Why would they allow the wolf to take the sheep? Because they're a hireling. There's only one way not to be a hireling. Only one way to do it.

And that is not to be paid for what you do. Now, in this particular story that we're reading today, and my goodness time has already gone by. Jairus raises his daughter from the dead. You remember this? They come to him and says, my daughter's going to die. And Jesus says, fear not, she'll be made whole. The Bible says that this little girl was in the house and uh there were people outside the house weeping and wailing and i remember um reading this in in the first years of of my study of

these things i was shocked at at the statement when it says that that they were weeping and wailing and carrying on and then jesus says weep not the maiden's not dead she lives and it says that they were weeping and wailing and carrying on, and then Jesus says, weep not, the maiden's not dead, she lives. And it says that they laughed, laughed knowing that she was dead. Laughed knowing that she was, they were laughing at Jesus, laughing at what he said said because they knew she was dead i think who are these people that can switch from mourning to laughter at a moment's notice who are these people they have no heart don't they care don't they know that that poor that poor mother and father in that house can hear them out here laughing who are these people come to find out that uh in this

particular society it was such a shame for people to have a funeral at which nobody wept that they would actually hire mourners they would hire people to come in people off the street people that needed money uh you know the bums on the corner when you're on your on your way to the funeral you stop at the red light, and you look over and you see the guy with the dog. They would say, hey, I got a job for you. And they would take them to the funeral and hire them to weep. And I'm thinking, uh-oh, is that it again?

Are there people that are feigning concern, feigning sorrow for money? Was there somebody that would feign laughter? Is there somebody that would just pretend to care, pretend to enjoy something, pretend not to enjoy it? Are there people that are willing to pretend for money? You better believe there is. Whether they're hired to mourn, hired to preach, hired to teach, hired to do whatever it is they do. If money has something to do with it, be very careful, very cautious. I have a doctor that I respect so much because I brought to her an article about a particular medication

or a particular cure about something. I said, what do you think about it? She flipped all the way to the back of the article and says, hmm, they're not selling anything. Perhaps I'll read it. Wow, give me a handful of Christians that feel that way and we'll change the world. Time's gone. Gonna have to say goodbye. We'll see you next time. Thank you so much for being a handful of Christians that feel that way, and we'll change the world. Time's gone. I'm going to have to say goodbye. We'll see you next time.

Thank you so much for being a part of the Words of Jesus series. Bye-bye, my friend. 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