Words of Jesus Podcast - Love Truth To Avoid Deception

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Listen for the message behind the words of the Scripture. Who is speaking and to whom? Abraham received imputed righteousness because of his actions. Why would Jesus apologize for praying in public? Why do we think its fine. Jesus was grieved that his people did not know him. Lazarus was healed to die again - not resurrected. Jesus' crowd had mixed appreciation.Resuscitation of Lazarus was not a resurrection. The writers of Scriptures were intentional. Grace defined as unmerited favor (now the traditional meaning); is not based on Scripture. ***77: Jesus Raises Lazarus From The DeadJohn 11:1-53Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, whose home was in Bethany, was sick. The sisters sent a message to Jesus, saying:            “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.”            When the word concerning Lazarus reached Jesus, he said:            “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.”            Jesus remained where he was for two days, and at the end of that time said to his disciples:            “Let us go into Judea again.”            His disciples replied:            “Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee. And goest thou thither again?”            Jesus answered his disciples, saying:            “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of the world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.”            Then Jesus told his disciples why he wanted to go into Judea, saying:            “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.”            The disciples, not knowing that Jesus meant that Lazarus was dead, thought only that he was resting in sleep. They said to Jesus:            “Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.”            Then Jesus spoke plainly, saying to them:            “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.”            Thomas, the disciple who was called Didymus, said:            “Let us go, that we may die with him.”            When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he found that Lazarus was dead and had been in his grave four days.            Because Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs away, many Jews from that city had come to comfort Martha and Mary. When Martha heard that Jesus was approaching, she went out to meet him while Mary remained at home. She said:            “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know that, even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it...

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. Don Harris your host, Think Reddick Ministries, Pytown, New Mexico. I'd love to hear from you if you'd like to write to me. Let me know what you think of the program, if you have a question or a comment. Don at ThinkReddick.com We left off in chapter 77 of our little book

where we're talking about the resuscitation of Lazarus now you know resuscitation may not be the word that you've heard all your life you've heard about the resurrection of Lazarus and I think that there's probably some honest error there because Jesus was trying to explain to Mary and Martha that he was indeed not the resuscitation of life, but the resurrection and the life.

And so I can see how that word gets applied. But technically, and I really think that we need to put emphasis on the technical definitions of words. One of the reasons why we need to put emphasis on the technical definitions of words. One of the reasons why we need to do that and we need to pursue that is because the authors of the scriptures were not uneducated. They were not, you know, the average kind of the way people speak at a bowling alley or on the golf course or at a baseball game or whatever else, they took what they did very, very seriously. I would recommend people

look into the lives of men like Wycliffe and men like Tyndale and the kinds of men that were involved in the translation of the scripture. Oftentimes when we work around here at Think Red Ink, it occurs to us as we're doing editing and as we're trying to make things like they should be, we realize, you know what, I think we're putting more time into this, into writing this copy than anybody's going to put into reading it. But this didn't slow these kinds of men down at all. They knew within themselves that what they were doing was going to be around for many years. They took it very seriously. Words meant things. As a matter of fact, you know, Tyndale is responsible for creating many,

many words in our vocabulary today. And so I guess what I want you to know is that words mean stuff and we need to know exactly what they do mean. We're going to talk about the difference in resuscitation and resurrection in just a moment. I remember last show I used a word that is, it's commonly used, but it's commonly misused, and that is imputation, or to impute. And I wanted to expound on that a little bit. Time didn't allow. But, you know, we were talking about sin and things being imputed to us. And over the years, the idea of imputation has taken on an attitude of something that is given without merit. Much like the ideas of grace,

they say that grace is unmerited favor, and it's not. There's no reason to believe it. If you destroyed all the Bible commentaries in the world and closed all the doors on the seminaries, that definition would eventually evaporate. It's one of those definitions that hangs around because we just keep saying it over and over and over again. And you can ask today, you can ask a thousand people the definition of

grace and 999 of them will tell you unmerited favor. There is no such thing as unmerited favor unless you happen to own a dog. They have that unmerited love or that in many cases unrequited love, but those kind of things really don't exist outside of fairy tales. God has always looked toward and offered grace to those who merit it.

Don't want to get into that. We'll get into it over and over again. So we're not going to skip it. But for now, I wanted to talk to you about imputation because I felt like we kind of left the subject dangling when we were talking about sin. The Bible teaches that we are imputed with righteousness. Abraham, it was imputed unto him for righteousness. And in the day and age of free salvation and unmerited favor and unconditional love and all these kinds of things, that idea has kind of pushed its way into the idea of imputation, where imputation is not the righteousness that is given to someone who's not righteous

any more than the imputation of sin is put upon a person who's never sinned. The imputation is the, it's the rubber stamp. It's the notary public symbol. It's the, you know, here's the way I've explained it. If you go to a bank and you give them $500, here, put this in my account. And they say, yeah. And he said, well, could you do that now? Well, I'm going to do it after lunch. No, I want you to do that now. What is he asking for? He's asking for the imputation of that credit. Yes, he gave them the money. Yes, it's supposed to go on his account yes but it's not been imputed

it's not been made into uh an irrefutable matter of record now when we do works of righteousness like abraham did he obeyed god he went into a country that he didn't know, and he did so at the word of God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. But we've taken the imputation of righteousness and somehow turned it into some gift where God just gives it to you because you have faith. There's no reason to believe that at all. Abraham wasn't imputed righteousness because he had faith. He is imputed righteousness because he did righteousness. David said, blessed is the man to whom God will not impute sin. So you can sin against God, but if he imputes that sin to you, in other words, he recognizes it as sin, marks it down as sin. It's on your record.

So an imputation is really kind of an officialization. Is that even a word? I don't know. But it's a recognition of an action and making it an official situation. And so what we want God to do is impute to us our righteousness. And when we do things like we're supposed to do, or we don't do what we're not supposed to do, we really want him to impute that to our account. Just an aside, I felt like i kind of left it off the last show uh we left lazarus um in the tomb and jesus telling them to take away the stone and so uh let's start there in our story

and we'll continue with the story of uh lazarus being raised from the dead take you away the stone martha replied lord by this time he's been dead for days he stinketh in another gospel he says he stinketh and jesus said to her said i not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of god now he's having to remind her again because it didn't it didn't go in it she she hasn't taken the you remember martha was the one who uh said uh oh yes we know that you know you're the son of god you came from god and uh you're you're the anointed one the messiah that you come into the world and i called it a methodist responsive reading. Sorry, Methodist. But it was pretty much a recitation of something that she knew. It was words in her head, perhaps even words in her heart.

However, as you will notice, no matter what uh you know faith you boast that you have you can believe just a whole bunch of stuff but buddy when it comes down to you know the rubber meeting the road and you really have to depend upon that that's when uh you're going to realize that your faith talk and your life have never really commingled one with the other there is a there's a spiritual understanding that has never really infused itself into your mental understanding this is what was going on with martha uh and and and it goes on with us essentially all the time there's many things that we say we believe people believe that they're going to heaven when they die they don't act like it when they are dying they don't act like they're

going to any reward they don't act like uh you know i've i've run a good race i fought a good fight you know this you know therefore there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness blah blah blah blah i see you know the panic in your face when you realize you've got a couple of weeks to live. Look, I can't believe that dying is a wonderful thing, but it certainly can be a pleasant thing. And it should be pleasant to those of us who have lived by faith that the Lord's not going to forget the good things that we have done,

our righteousness, our faith in Christ, and that he's going to eventually reward us in our eternal home. And, you know, so, you know, what do we, what's our faith in? Well, Martha was struggling with this. Jesus saw this happen. I, it's, it is a fact that Jesus was weeping over this very thing that, you know, many people can take on faith. They can take on the spiritual life and this perhaps even spiritual understanding and these kind of things but when when it comes down to brass tacks it's it's a very difficult

thing to do because it's never really been brought into our spirit and made a part of our life uh we talked about uh big and little faith and uh how silly a lot of those ideas are uh and and if you remember what i was telling you was if you have faith you have it if you don't have faith you don't have faith that's all there is to that there's no big and little faith what the big and little part is, is how much, how much that, that understanding of that faith, that faith in you, how much of that is, is actively relied upon. And that's what makes great faith is people who really do act upon what they believe. And you don't need to grow your faith. What you need to do is grow your corresponding action. Did you order the book Word First?

Go and look for the book Word First, and it will be a trove of information on these very things that we're talking about here. So I offer it again. If you need help finding this, I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal because it's published with Amazon and with all the online publishers, but it is a Kindle book, but you can make whatever changes you need to make or additions or apps or whatever you need to do to see it. But I would love for you to have that book called Word First. It's the missing ingredient in faith. You ever wonder why you pray for things and they don't happen? Well, sure sure you have who's answering that question for you

all right so uh jesus said said i not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe thou should see the glory of god then the stone was removed from the grave jesus lifted up his eyes and said father i thank thee that thou has heard me and I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by, therefore I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. Here is a perfect example of a perfect man praying to the Lord,

and in this particular case, this is a peculiar situation. of a perfect man praying to the Lord. And in this particular case, this is a peculiar situation here. You have Jesus apologizing for praying again. When was the last time you did that? Well, I know we've been taught by our, our, you know, preachers and our teachers and our churches and such as that, that if you want to receive anything from God, you have to. And they say that, you know, in the Greek it says that we are to keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking until we essentially and i i move from their words to mine at this point

until we eventually just make a pest of ourselves and wear god down and finally get what we want because he's sick of us knocking and asking and seeking and uh so therefore uh we just weary him to give us what we want. No, there's no truth in that kind of a doctrine at all. That's silly. It's absolutely fleshly and carnal, and you're not going to get anywhere with that. So what is happening here? Why is Jesus saying, what's this contrasting conjunction here

what is this provisional conjunction when he says but he says i i thank thee father that you heard me you always hear me but i have asked you again here in front of all these people, he obviously prayed that Lazarus would come out of the grave in the name of Yehovah, his father, Jehovah. And he's saying to his father, now look, I don't want you to think this is a matter of me thinking that you're not hearing me a matter of that you're not going to or that i doubt that you're going to do this the only reason i've said this twice is because all these people are standing around here and i don't want them to

mistake the fact that this this credit belongs to you and that I have come from you. He says, I'll read again. I want you to hear it in that light. Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me and I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said it. I said what? He's praying for the Lazarus to come from the dead that they may believe that thou has sent me Jesus cried in a loud voice Lazarus come forth

and at that command the Lazarus issued at that command the dead Lazarus issued, at that command, the dead Lazarus, odd that you put the word dead in there, I thought, that the dead Lazarus issued from the grave. He was bound hand and foot with grave clothes. A napkin was wrapped about his face. Jesus said to the people, loose him and let him go. I've heard a preacher say that had Jesus not put the word Lazarus on the front of his sentence when he said, come forth, that everybody would have come out of the grave. It's a cute notion.

And it makes me smile to think about that. But that he had to be specific. He had to call him by name or everybody would have got up. Nice idea. However, this is not resurrection. This is resuscitation. Lazarus came out of that grave to die again. His life ended and restarted you understand that he was not resurrected

although i mean in the in the broader sense of these terms you could say he was resurrected that he rose up but this is not to be confused with the resurrection at the end of the world. This is a resuscitation of life. Lazarus rose, walked out of the grave to die again. Then, of course, the story continues. Because of this, many of the Jews believed in Jesus, but others went to the Pharisees and related what Jesus had done.

Now, put this back. Let's back up a little bit in our story and remember the climate of what was going on in the society as pertaining to the religious society and Jesus. The disciples were concerned that Jesus was going to go back to a place where the religious leadership had made it very clear that anybody who found Jesus was going to kill him. And there were people who saw this happen and they kept their mouths shut. There were some people who ran straight to the Pharisees to tell them. The crowds around Jesus were not monolithic when it comes to the way they

were thinking and how they evaluated what Jesus did. There were some people there that were absolutely an enemy of Jesus. Not necessarily because they're wicked or sinful or anything like that. There are people who count myself, this ministry, what I say, that kind of thing, as an enemy to them and as a threat to what they preach and what they teach and that kind of thing, and they tell me so. But I cannot, I cannot in good conscience, unless they prove otherwise, I cannot take that person and put them into the category of an enemy of wickedness. Most of the time when people are arguing their religious ideas they're trying their very best to believe what it is that they have always believed and in some people you can hear it in their voice they struggle with you know isn't this true and then there's the other person who said this is true and And here's why.

I appreciate that kind of an argument. I don't appreciate people who say, this is the way I've always believed it. I ain't changing. Well, okay. I can't appreciate that kind of an argument. It's kind of silly. But if it works for you and that kind of thing, it's okay. I'm not here to save the world.

I'm not here to create a world i'm not here to you know to create a church or to that that's not my purpose never has been except perhaps in my earlier years but there were people here that ran straight to the pharisees and so the chief priest and the pharisees getting this news called together a council and said what do we for this man doeth many miracles as I was telling you before he had done a lot of miracles but this was like a crowning achievement here you know he raised most of the miracles that he did could be explained away you know okay raised most of the miracles that he did could be explained away you know okay

so he touched the casket and the little boy got up you know he wasn't really dead or you know he'd passed out or something somehow um explain away what had happened but this one was huge this one was huge why because lazarus was friends was friends with the Pharisees and the council. They'd all attended his funeral. You know, they saw him. They touched his cold, dead body. And they laid him in a tomb, left him there to rot and to return a year later and gather his bones. I mean, nobody doubted that Lazarus was dead.

You remember that when the blind guy was healed, they said perhaps he wasn't blind after all. But this one, man, they're not going to get over this. This is why the council started with the declaration, what are we going to do? This guy just keeps doing miracles, and now we're not going to be able to refute this. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe in him.

Now, do you really think that the Pharisees were concerned that people were going to believe in Jesus? Or were they really concerned that if they believed in Jesus, they would put him into the category for which, to which, Jesus was headed from the time that he left heaven to be born of a woman? What was the big concern? Well, the religious leadership didn't want to lose their power. They certainly didn't want to lose their priesthood. Jesus' intention was to establish a

Melchizedek priesthood where there's only one priest. You know the priest that doesn't die? That guy? Yeah, we're talking about Jesus himself. They knew that their days were numbered. Well, the Roman government got a taste of this too. They were a little concerned. But Herod, constantly in the displeasure of Rome, they saw Jesus as a perfect replacement for Herod. This is why they put on the cross, here's Jesus, king of the Jews. This is why Pilate said, shall I crucify your king? I mean, he was flabbergasted that people were acting like they were acting. Because I think that they had focus on Jesus to be king of Israel, to turn it over to him like they turned it over to Herod.

And so they didn't necessarily feel a threat there because, you know, Jesus never threatened the Roman kingdom. He never did. He was accused of it, but he never did. Give to Caesar what's Caesar's. Give to God what is God's. That was his attitude about politics. Well, however, when it came to the church, on the other hand,

these snakes and foxes that are running this church, they got to go. And he made this so clear that they felt that threat. And so when he says, if we let him go, all men are going to believe in him. It wasn't the belief in him they were concerned about. Because, well, if they knew what I know, they wouldn't be worried about it at all. Because we have millions of people who believe in Jesus. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus.

But they don't act on it. Well, in this day they perhaps they did more so than than they do this then then we do now if they believe in him they're going to believe what he says they're going to do what he says they're not going to call him boss and not do what he says right so they saw the threat what was the beginning the inception the conception of the threat believing in jesus believing he was who he said he was which is something that we all have to do so he says many are going to believe in him and the romans will come and take away both our place and our nation they really felt like that that it was their religious leadership that was holding Israel

together. As a nation, they thought that. And so Caiaphas says, you know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people that the whole nation perish not. We're going to talk about this tomorrow and uh it's an interesting it's an interesting concept that we want to talk about and that is that caiaphas did not realize that when he spoke he actually was prophesying as a matter of fact it continues said thus did the high priest prophesy that jesus

should die for the nation but he was to die not for the nation alone but that he should gather together the children of god who were scattered abroad but it's interesting that caiaphas was not prophesying officially standing up and saying, thus saith the Lord, right? He had no idea that what he said, him being a high priest, actually turned out to be prophecy. And there's other aspects we want to talk about.

Our time is gone for now. I appreciate you being a part of the broadcast today. Let me know who you are and where you're from, how you're listening to the broadcast, whether radio or television and that kind of thing. It's just a huge interest to me. You can do so by emailing me at don at thinkredinc.com. If you have a question or a comment about the broadcast

that I can help you with, I'd be glad to do that as well. All right, my friend, we'll see you next time. Thanks for being a part. Until I see you again, Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredink.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you