Words of Jesus Podcast - Listen For The Word of God As You Read The Scriptures

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

"...Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given." Things have not always been the way they are now. The world was created good. Bad things happen, expect it. Don't look for someone to blame. Some actions are required to open the doors of communication: 1) Keep the 10 Commandments.2) Never violate your conscience. 3) Spend 20 minutes in silence every day to hear from God. ***Ch. 30 - Jesus Teaches the Kingdom in ParablesThe Tares (Weeds)  (Matt. 13:24-30; 36-43)THEN JESUS told another parable, saying:            “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, ‘Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?’ He said unto them, ‘An enemy hath done this.’ The servants said unto him, ‘Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”            Later on, after the multitude had been sent away and Jesus had gone into the house, his disciples came to him, saying:            “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.”            Jesus answered them, saying:            “He that soweth the good seed is the Son of many. The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one.  The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.  As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of the world.  The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”THE SEED (Mark 4:36-29)            Jesus spoke another parable, saying:             “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.  For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.  But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.”A MUSTARD SEED (Matt. 13:31, 32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18, 19)            Then Jesus, speaking another parable, likened the kingdom of God to a mustard seed that grows from a small grain into a large plant:            “Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris. Hello, my friends, and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host and your guide through the red ink. What's wonderful about the red ink is the guide and the author are one and the same. I'm not your guide. I'm not your teacher. I'm not your guru. The only thing I'm here doing is my whole intention is to get you in touch with the one that is. Jesus said one is your teacher. The apostles said you have no need that any man teach you. So what we want to do, what the whole purpose in this is, is to introduce and perhaps for some of you reintroduce the scriptures pertaining to what Jesus had to say to us and see if they do, if they don't fit,

if they're applicable for us today. Certainly they are. Perhaps the words are a little archaic and sometimes hard to understand but what we have to do is we have to find the thought behind them. And we have to listen for the Word of God as we read our Bible. So that's what I'm doing here and I'm glad to have you as a part of it. We left off in chapter 30 of our book where Jesus was teaching about the kingdom

of God. He made some statements at the beginning of this that I kind of ran off with, chasing rabbits. I hope you don't mind. But there was an interesting concept that was, I think, introduced in this by just a few select words of Jesus that are important, or should at least be important to us. And we're going to have to stop and look at them and not just read over them and continue.

And when he was talking about the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field I think that what he's doing is he's drawing this picture, he's depicting by use of agricultural terms when the earth was created and by the way this earth was supposed to be the kingdom of God. We use the term now, the kingdom of God on the earth.

When we talk about the kingdom of God on the earth, what it is, is we're expecting His kingdom to come. Well, there was a time when it was here, and He was king of the earth. And so, yeah,'d only had two subjects in it but his intention was to grow it. And we're going to talk about that as that goes on. But I think what he wants us to know here is you've got some trouble with these trees growing in the garden that God's saying those trees

are beautiful over there and they're wonderful and they have lovely fruit on them, but I don't want you to touch them. And you're thinking that this is wrong somehow? You're thinking that this was unfair on his part? And I think we explained this fully in the last show that there was nothing unfair about that, but that there's a certain amount of obedience between a father and his children and between our God and His children. Obedience is absolutely crucial. Honor

and respect to our Father. Adam's sin was a lack of respect toward God. Eve's sin, a lack of respect toward God. Eve's sin, a lack of respect toward her husband. All these kind of things were manifested because of a basic lack of respect, a lack of love, a lack of trust, a lack of understanding of who they were, their sovereignty, their power, their rank and file. All these kind of things that we still struggle with today. We still have problems in these areas. Trying to seek power over other men and these kind of things.

They constantly plague us because these were the sins that were present in the Garden of Eden. And we inherited all this bag of noise in our life. We got all that from our ancestors Adam and Eve. And they were given certain instructions that they should have followed. And had they followed those instructions who knows what the earth would resemble today. Now in this situation

to parallel the creation of the earth the establishment of the kingdom of God on the earth and of course when the earth was first created it was the kingdom of God and when it was in that condition Adam and Eve decided to take it on themselves, disobey God, and do something that they were not supposed to do. And the mentality of the theologian, the preacher, the atheist,

whoever, wherever the argument comes from, I hear it from time to time come out of nearly every segment of religious society from the atheist to the super religious. And that is how it's just a wonderment. It's a puzzlement. It's a, you know, why would God do that? Well here you have this question is actually being posed to Jesus as He well not posed to Him but certainly being posed to the character Jesus has created in this particular parable. The parable teaches that the man sowed his field

with good seed. And if you remember that when our Lord created the earth, the Bible says that He stood back and looked at it and noticed that it was what? Very, very good. It was good. Everything was fine. Everything was just fine. The workers came to the Lord of the field the husbandman and said

didn't you sow good seed in your field? Now what they're saying is that are not the seeds of destruction among the seed that you planted? Think about this. I've learned as my life has continued, there is a saying, and I don't know who said it, but it was somebody in our political past,

one of our presidents or someone. If you know, I'd love for you to tell me who it was that said it. But at the inception of every good thing, at the inception of every good event institution, when things are beginning, at that beginning are present the seeds of its destruction. And it teaches people that

if you are going to build an empire, whether it's a financial empire, I don't care what you're selling. If you're selling brooms you've got delusions of, well I don't know they're delusions, they may not be. But you've got delusions of, well I don't know, they're delusions, they may not be. But you've got the idea of creating not a broom store, but a broom empire, right? We want to do things and do things well and do them big. We want to be successful. And the warning is

you need to be very careful at the inception of that idea, when this thing begins because it's back in those days when things begin are the seeds of its destruction. And do you know I have never found that not to be true? I've had a lot of projects come and go. A lot of them begin and fail in my life. I've seen it happen in my secular life, in the secular world, in the work-a-day world, even in the ministry, and even

in different aspects of my own life. I've seen things happen where my intention was to do this, but the final outcome was destruction. And when I see the cause of that destruction, I can go back and find the seeds of that cause way back at the beginning. It's always been, it may not necessarily always be true, but buddy, for me, it has never ceased to be true that whatever has destroyed me or my work or my dreams or my goals or whatever was present all along.

Now here you have the creation of the world and essentially this is the kingdom of God that was on the earth before it was destroyed. But at that inception are the seeds of its destruction. Here these men ask the man who sowed the seed, the wheat, Master, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Now farmers know that you have to be

careful where you get seed. You have to be careful where you buy sand where you buy anything that goes on the ground especially if it comes out of natural environments because the difference in essentially the difference in good seed and bad seed are more than its hybrid values and the strain of that particular product or plant or whatever. But the problem of carrying weed seeds from one side

of the nation to the other. These are some of the things that the Department of Agriculture are concerned about. And you can buy seed that's actually bagged or sold or provided by some company that really doesn't care so much. And you can get bad seed. Not that the seed that you bought, the wheat seed is good seed, but among it are the seeds of its destruction. And which are the weeds that grow up out of there.

And so, you know, clean seed is very, very expensive as compared to the cheap seed that they don't really care about that's got weeds in it. It can happen. And it does happen. And it's disastrous when it does happen. This guy was asking the husbandman you didn't cut corners did you? You did buy good seed right? And he says yes. Now here's what we should understand about the creation

of the world. We didn't have some narcissistic God that just gets a kick out of being the sadomasochist or the sadist that wants to punish people. And He's going to do this. He's going to accomplish all this by creating a bad world for us to live in. Now you will hear me tell you that it is the sorrows and the setbacks and the problems in your life that will perfect you.

But we don't pray for those things. Friend, you don't have to. They're coming and you'll be tested on it. But God didn't create this world with these problems in it. But God didn't create this world with these problems in it, but with His power, His grace, His power used on our behalf. As we encounter these problems, we can become better people because of Him, because of what He's provided in His grace. But it's not Him

that's created these problems. Mostly everything that we can't explain. Mostly everything that causes incredible harm. Storms and tidal waves. I almost said microwaves. We might find out that's a problem too. But tidal waves, I almost said microwaves, we might find out that's a problem too, but tidal waves and earthquakes, volcanoes and all the troubles, the hurricanes, the things that plague us, we have in our society,

I don't know how far back it goes, never really researched it, but these are known as what? You don't know how far back it goes. Never really researched it. But these are known as what? You don't know? Go look at your insurance policy. You're going to be embarrassed. They're called acts of God. Now, I know God's not his name, and I know that doesn't necessarily, it may not necessarily mean exactly what it says,

but it does lend itself to the idea that God is doing these kind of things. I think that legally it means that there are things that are unexplained, that they're unpreventable, there's nothing we can do about them, and they just happen in our lives. I think perhaps the motivation for that term is innocent, but somehow it just doesn't sit right with me. Because I think that there are people on the earth that believe that bad things happen and that God

not only allows them, but orchestrates them. And there are times that He does withdraw His hand from certain protections and such. But you'll find that a lot of times that originates with us and not a thought that originated in his head. He loves us. And Jesus said it's his good pleasure

to give us the kingdom. You know, it's hard to reconcile that with a God that decides to give you cancer to teach you something so you know we're going to have to balance a lot of these thoughts and just be a little more careful about the way we speak about our God now Jesus is making it very clear here in this parable if you couple this parable with the creation of the earth, he wants you to know a couple of things. Number one, I did sow good seed.

There was nothing wrong with what I did. I did sow good seed. I had good intention toward you. You want to act like those trees were some outlandish temptation that I would put there to check you out? Well, that's not my way. When I created the earth, I created it good. And the seeds that I planted were good seed.

And the second thing he wants us to know is this. An enemy has done this. It's really good for us to know, and I've said it out loud when discussing a horrible situation and some storm hits already ravaged Haiti or it comes in and wipes an island off of the map and you see the destruction and the hurricanes and New Orleans is underwater

and there's floods all over the earth and there's all kinds of problems. Some people are very quick to say, you know, that's God's judgment. Oh really? And why is that? Well, that storm came on Gay Pride Day. So isn't it nice to know that God hates homosexuals as much as you do um the truth is is that that's yeah now friend look there's no room for hatred in your life there's nobody you need to hate other than perhaps yourself and you

know hate that enemy that's inside your shirt. That's just fine. But everybody outside your shirt, you've got to love them. What? You've got to love them? Yeah, the Bible says to love our neighbor. Well, he's not my neighbor. Well, what is he, your enemy?

The Bible also says love your enemies. Friend, you're locked in. You need to be nice to people. Nevertheless, that storm came because well, the weather patterns came together and it happened. But I'm going to tell you, those weather patterns that are all out of shape and all bent out of shape and causing all kinds of trouble, that wasn't from the beginning. There's strong scientific evidence that this earth was

living inside of a cosmic bubble that there was good weather all over the earth. I mean, according to some scientific research, this is so. I happen to believe that. As a matter of fact, if you have my DVD on the calendar where we talk about the Creator's calendar, that is a huge influential factor in the reformation of God's calendar on the earth.

If you're ever tempted to blame God for the horrible world we live in, I think Jesus wants us to know here that when this field was sown, it was sown with good seed. And if you're experiencing some kind of a problem, if the weeds in your life are choking you to death, you need to know that an enemy has done this. And I don't think we have the capability of understanding a weed from anything else, to tell you the truth. I think that a lot of times we root out things in our life that would help us later on, and we allow to live

in our life things that are going to ultimately destroy us. We don't know what to pray for. We don't know what to do. So what can we do? All right, Don, big shot. Tell us. What are we supposed to do? Well, I've told you over and over again. Keep His commandments. Never disobey your conscience. And take time every day to hear the voice of God. Alright, you don't want my advice? Here's the Christian world's advice. Go to church. Be good. Don't smoke. Don't chew. Don't go with girls that do.

Read your Bible every day. Pay your tithes. Get baptized. Join the church. Whatever their little list is. But you're talking to a guy that lived in that list for a while. And I come to find out that I just got worse and worse and worse. Perhaps my habits changed. Perhaps there's many things about me that from the outward appearance made a lot of changes. I spoke like they did. I talked like they did. I taught like they did. I preached like they did.

But it wasn't doing me any good. It just wasn't. Because I found that I had a relationship with my Bible and none with God. I had a relationship with my church and none with my Savior. And that's a problem. If you are one who wants to blame our Lord God for whatever troubles are in the earth, and you want to believe that He created these things, you're not going to have the Lord Jesus behind you on this. His attitude is, an enemy has done this. And this is not an admission

of, or a resignation to say, you know, there's nothing we can do about it. There are some things we can do about this, and probably should. But I think that the origin of thought needs to be very, very pure in that every word of God is good. Everything He's created is good. Everything He's created is in our best interest. He loves us and cares for us. And these are all good things that we can have.

And likely should. Jesus continues, But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. And when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said to him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field?

For whence then hath it tares? I think it's important that he says, whence then hath it tares? It's pretty obvious that the husbandman at this point answered his question, did you not sow good seed in your field? I think that the husbandman at that point answered, yes I did. Because the next thing he said is, well then whence then hath it tears? In other words, if what you're saying is true, then why did this happen?

You will find that little construct of question throughout your life and throughout, and it's even in the scriptures. Even poor little Gideon. You know, when the angel showed up to see Gideon, he said something to Gideon about the Lord is with Israel and Gideon said well if the Lord's with Israel then why have all these things befallen us? Talking about the Midianites coming in and taking all their grain and burning what they couldn't haul off and when the angel came to Gideon he was hiding corn shocks in the woods from the Midianites and he was really irritated about it.

But listen to the construct of his question. If God is good, if God is for Israel, then why are all these things happening? And you'll find that construct in many of your own questions. It's kind of within us. And Jesus is taking that in hand at this particular point. And he says, if you did sow good seed, then why has these things happened? Where do these weeds come from? And Jesus is trying to make it clear to him and to everyone else today

that an enemy has done this. Jesus is kind of drawing a line in the sand here. He's saying you need to know who your enemy is. And who was it? One of our famous generals in our history said know your enemy. Was that one of our generals? Maybe not. But you should know your enemy. And friend I don't think a lot of times we know our enemy. Just like we've constructed a Santa Claus kind of a God, you know, the ho, ho, ho, and tell me what you want and I'll give it to you, God.

We have created a devil of opposite characteristics like, you know, he's over there, God is saying ho, ho, ho, and he's over there going, he, he, he, he, He's the witch, the wicked witch of the West. And we've created both of these beings. And we've set them both on our shoulders, which by the way is a derivative of Muslim culture. And we have these so-called angels or God and the devil

whispering in our ear. We've actually created this dichotomy of power over the earth that essentially we don't know either one of these beings. And I don't really recommend that anybody study the devil, but perhaps you need to give him a second look. He's got a different plan than you might think he does. He's not out in the world sowing cocaine. He's out there sowing in the hearts of men and in the minds of men a character that does not prevent cocaine.

He's not out there tempting us with sex drugs and rock and roll, but he's out there keeping out of our minds the protective spirit of God that keeps those kind of things at bay in our life. If you don't know your enemy's strategy, if you don't understand that his purpose is not to poison the ground that nothing grow, but to plant weeds that will slowly but effectively choke the life out of the wheat. You don't understand the process of good versus evil in this earth. You don't know how to pray.

You don't understand what's going on in your life. What an impoverished place for a Christian who's supposedly full of the Spirit of God to be. It's very, very sad. Well, these are the beginnings of our understanding of the world. I hope you enjoy this. Our time is gone for today. I'd love to hear from you. Write to me. Quickest way to do that is to send me an email, just to Don at thinkradinc.com. I'd love to know how you're hearing the broadcast, what you're listening to, or what you're watching, where you are.

And if you have a question or comment, I'd love for you to include that too. All right, the time has come for us to go. We're going to see you next time here on 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 thinkredink.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series.