Words of Jesus Podcast - Miracles

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

The authority and principals of the Kingdom of God were illustrated throughout the ministry of Jesus. The people rejoiced.  However, the religious leaders were so saturated with preconceived ideas, that though Jesus stood in front of them performing miracles, he was rejected.  Jesus says, "I bear witness to the truth; John the Baptist bare witness of me; my works bear witness of me."  Jesus repeatedly proved his identity.  He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.  Selah.***Chapter 16. JESUS DECLARES HIS SONSHIP WITH GOD (Part 3)THE AUTHORITIES persecuted Jesus and sought to slay him because he had healed the lame man on the Sabbath and had told him to carry his bed on that day.  Jesus said to them: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”These words angered the authorities further; because Jesus had not only broken the Sabbath but had also said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.     To his persecutors Jesus replied: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.  Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.  If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.”            “There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.  Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth.  But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved.  He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.”  “But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.  And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not.”   “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.  I receive not honour from men.  But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.  How...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello friends, welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. My goal is to reinforce Christianity with the wisdom and words of Jesus, which you might not be so aware are written in your Bible in red ink. I know there's a lot of Bibles that don't have red ink, but many of them do. And thus the whole crux of our

ministry, the whole push behind what we do here, we want you to think red ink. Do you know what Jesus did? Do you know what He said to do? You will after this series. It's based on Jesus, His life, His friends, his ministry, his relationship with his Father, as recorded in your Gospels. Now you know, if you look into what Jesus has said and these kind of things, you're going to be surprised, perhaps a little shocked, I don't know.

But it's going to occur to you, oh my goodness, Jesus wasn't a Baptist. Nope, sorry, he wasn't. He wasn't a Presbyterian, he wasn't a Catholic. These denominations are, I believe that they probably all came about because of the good intentions of many people that were trying to make religion usable, tolerable, livable, I don't know, whatever their reasons were. But for whatever reason that they

had for what they did, we have very, very many denominations that love to just not preach on some of the things we've been talking about. I don't know if it's because they don't understand it or because they feel sorry for you that you're not going to understand. I don't know what their motivations are, but frankly, we don't care. We're just going to go ahead and read these things and talk about them anyway. And we're going to believe what we see written here. And if we find out that Jesus wasn't a Trinitarian, I'm not going to cry about it. Are you?

If you find out that Jesus wasn't all excited about water baptism, is that going to bother you? Because these are things that you're apt to find. And if you do, it's not because we're delving into some secret and mysterious thing out there that is going to carry us all away and carry us to hell. No, no, no, no. These wonderful things that are written for us in the Scriptures, they're for our admonition.

That's what they're there for. So we should read them and understand them as best we can. We have been talking from the 15th chapter of this book, Words of Jesus. And this all happened when Jesus decided to heal this crippled fellow at the pool of Bethesda and the Pharisees are going nuts. They're saying you can't do this. He's not of God because he does these things on the Sabbath day. Jesus is trying to explain to them a few things. One of them is

that my father works on this day, therefore I work on this day. Do you want to know how it works between me and my father? Do you really want to know this? Do you want me to explain this to you? I'll explain it to you, but I doubt you're going to understand it. As a matter of fact, we're going to be talking about John here in just a moment, John the Baptist. And Jesus actually used John the Baptist in another gospel. I think we may be coming up on that pretty fast, but there was a time when the Pharisees came to Jesus

and said to Him, how are you doing these miracles? By what authority do you do these miracles? And who gave you this authority? Well here I think that these incidents here are the same, they were just recorded differently because different men heard things that they wrote down. But I think this is that very interchange that took place in another gospel, and we'll run into that when they ask him by whose authority do you do this?

And as it continues and as we will read in the future Jesus explains to them And as it continues, and as we will read in the future, Jesus explains to them nothing at all. And he does that by saying, okay, you want to ask me a question? I'll ask you a question. Answer mine, I'll answer yours. Now, there's many people who say, ooh, isn't he tricky? He was able to avoid that question like a New York lawyer or whatever else they say. I don't know what they say.

But it's like Jesus snuck out of that question. He didn't have to answer it. Jesus was not sneaking out of the question. Jesus was saying that if I find that you understand authority, I'll explain it to you. But if I find out that you don't understand authority, you don't respect authority, I'm not wasting another minute with you. That's all that question exchange was. And I think that this is some of the things that these things that we're reading today

are some of the things that he went into about, well who gave me this authority? Well my father gave me this authority. And how is it that you have this authority or this power? My father gave me this power. He's explaining these things to them. But he doesn't always do that. He has the ability of listening to a question that is presented to him and seeing behind that question many things that perhaps if you're kind of dull of hearing or you don't have that kind of perception, you might miss.

He doesn't miss it. He never misses it. You remember when Nicodemus came to him and said, you're a wonderful man. You're a teacher sent from God. You're so wonderful. And Jesus looked at him and said, you have to be born again, Nick. Well, he didn't even, who said anything about being born again? I was telling you what a wonderful guy you are. Look, I know why you're here. And this is the subject he came to talk about, and so let's just get started. That's the way Jesus dealt with things.

My son is sore vexed, and he needs to be healed. You're not going to be convinced that I'm the Messiah unless you see signs and wonders? Well, this cut right to the guy's heart, because Jesus exposed his heart right there in front of everybody and what did he do he defaulted to emotion oh heal my son hear my son die right turned in into emotion to escape uh that scathing remark that j Jesus made to a guy who's essentially suffering with his son's illness and you might think, well Jesus is mean. A lot of people think Jesus is mean. They think anybody who tells the truth

is mean. They think anybody who stands up for what they believe is mean. Frankly, I get a little tired of that. But, you know, be mean if that's what it takes. But stand up for what you believe. Know what you believe. Spend some time in the scriptures. Figure out what you believe. And you know what? If you indeed have read the scriptures and it's not been revealed to you, can you just say that's not been revealed to me? You want to see some biblical arguments diffuse, go into vapor and just float away? Use that as a, instead of arguing with people

and trying to convince them about things, tell them, I don't know. I wasn't there. And what's the next thing we talk about? Hey, how about them reds? I don't there. And what's the next thing we talk about? Hey, how about them Reds? I don't know. What are we going to talk about? Because I don't have an opinion on that. People say everybody's got an opinion. No. That's your opinion. Alright, Jesus is trying to explain to them that because the Jews were, as a matter of fact

they said to him once he says, you bear witness to yourself. Matter of fact, I think this is where it actually happened and it may be left out of this little book. And they said, you bear witness to yourself, therefore your witness is not true. There's another example of the Pharisees taking a colloquialism or a commonly held, commonly understood

idea and pushing it to its nth degree so that they don't have to believe anything he says. So that they don't have to acknowledge his authority so that they can condemn him where he stands. And hear what they said. They said, you bear witness to yourself. Therefore, your witness is not true. Now let me ask you this. If I bear witness to you that 2 plus 2 equals 4 and nobody agrees with me,

does that make 2 plus 2 not equal 4? No. If it's true, it's true. They've taken an idea of rules in the world of adjudication, of the judicious world in that in those days. If you accuse somebody of breaking or violating a commandment of God that was punishable by death, all you had to do was go get

a friend that's willing to lie with you and have him witness on the stand, so to speak, that he knows it to be true too. And there was an understanding among the Jews when it came to judgment, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word will be established. But out of the mouth of one witness, nothing will ever be established by the mouth of one witness. Now the Jews took that concept and tried to apply it to Jesus

and I'm going to show you how this fits into today. They took that concept and tried to apply it to Jesus arbitrarily, forcing this on Him and saying, you bear witness to yourself. Therefore, or because of that, because there is only one witness here, your witness is not true. Now if you want to say your witness is not valid, I'm with you.

It is not, you can't establish anything by the mouth of one witness. The Bible is very clear about that. Your witness is not established. Your witness is not valid. I get that. But when you say your witness is not true, you're saying that he's telling a lie. Well, these people grew up in this judicial system and they understood fully that it always took the mouth of two or three witnesses. Do you know this is why the Bible says, I know a lot of people think that when it says,

thou shalt not bear false witness, and we've taught it in Sunday school until, you know, all those kids in Sunday school have grown up and now they're preaching and they translate that, thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt never say anything that is not semantically true. They don't go to that kind of extent but they have pretty much dwindled down that commandment. That commandment is thou shalt not perjure thyself. This is to lie under oath.

You're taking an oath that what I'm saying is true and the Lord says that I don't want anybody punished. I don't want anybody executed at the mouth of one witness. Two, Three people. Let's go for more than one. One person will not put anybody to death. Now that's an interesting concept and if the Lord came up with it, it's got myriads of wisdom and years of understanding behind it and we're going to look at these kind of things as time goes by.

But the commandment is thou shalt not bear false witnesses, not thou shalt not lie. That commandment is don't perjure yourself. Don't ever bring a witness against a neighbor falsely. This was the preservation of our judicial system. This was the preservation of truth in our judicial system. You know we have what they call a very litigious society which means

that everybody's got a lawyer and everybody's looking for a reason to sue somebody else. We've had presidential candidates run on what they call tort reform. We've had them talk about frivolous lawsuits. We all know what this is all about. And there are ideas that people are out there looking for reasons to sue people for large amounts of money and placing blame upon people that in a lot of cases are indeed frivolous.

Almost ridiculous. So in order to stop that, this is why that commandment came about, that you're not going to bear false witness. I have said before that you could fix this situation with tort reform easily with one little rule, and that is that if you sue somebody and this law, I'm sorry, this lawsuit, this case proves without a doubt to be a frivolous lawsuit, inflated lawsuit. You never hear anybody being sued for

millions and billions of dollars. And you find out later that that particular state has a cap on lawsuits and it cost them $100,000. You might think justice was served, but it wasn't. So you find these people making these wild lawsuits. Well, you could fix this simply by saying whatever you accuse them of and whatever you're suing them for, if we find out that you did this without evidence, without provocation, for the express purpose of

frivolity, of express purpose of making money at it, then whatever you were asking of those people, you have to pay that to them. Do you know that would stop this overnight? It would stop it. There would be dockets being erased today that would stop this overnight? It would stop it. There would be dockets being erased today that would absolutely unclog the courts of America from coast to coast. Today, if that was enacted. Because there are people that, eh, what the heck, we'll sue them. If we win, we win. If we lose, we lose.

No, not according to the Scriptures. Because that concept came from the Scriptures that if you accuse somebody falsely then whatever you're accusing them of whatever penalties were going to be invoked upon that person will be then turned upon you. And so that kept those kind of things down to a minimum. Isn't God wonderful? The way He does business? The way He runs His courts?

The way He runs His people? The way He tells them what to do? He's worthy of your attention and He's very much worthy of your admiration and your worship. Now Jesus was trying to explain to these people about authority and I think he wanted to be convinced that they knew something about it and so he explains to them as they accuse him you bear witness to yourself. We don't see anybody else out here bearing witness

to you and therefore your witness is not true. He explains in the verse that's essentially not in the scripture okay, I guess it's not. He explains to them, he says, I do bear witness to myself, but my witness is still true. Well that's entirely possible. You can bear witness to the truth alone, but that doesn't make the truth a lie. And that's exactly where Jesus

found himself. But as he was speaking to them, he was saying, you know, there are other things in the world that bear witness to me. Let's read what he had to say. He says, I of my own self can do nothing. As I hear, I judge, as my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will, but the will of my Father which has sent me.

I bear witness of myself, and my, I'm sorry, if I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. And he is saying, not valid. I know that that is against the rules that are set up about the judicial system of Jerusalem. I know you're not under any obligation to believe what I say because I am bearing witness of myself. Then he goes on to say, there is another that bears witness of me

and I know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true. You sin unto John, talking about John the Baptist, and he bear witness to the truth, but I receive not testimony from man. But these things I say, that you might be saved. I'm not here to prove truth to you or to, you know, try to change your thinking about what you think is true. I'm here to save your soul.

You want me to save your soul? I can do that. Talking about John saying, he was a burning light and a shining light and you were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. What happened? Well I'll tell you what happened. John insisted that people repent. That's not a popular thing to do. But I have a greater witness than that of John for the works which the Father hath given me to finish

the same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me and the Father himself which hath sent me hath borne witness of me and ye have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen me. And ye have neither heard his voice, nor at any time, nor seen his shape, and ye have not his word abiding in you. For whom he hath sent, ye believe not. Jesus is saying that

our God has witnessed to me by bringing about these miracles. Look, if Jesus was God on the earth, as people insist that he was, and he had the power within himself to heal these people, that is not a witness as to who he is, because he didn't say that he was God. If he said he was God, that would bear witness to who he is. But he said he's the Son of God and subject to his Father

so when the miracles take place, they're not witnessing that Jesus is God, they're witnessing that God is witnessing to the ministry of His Son. Do I need to say that again? Do you understand what I'm saying? That if He were God and He had the power to do these miracles, then He could have easily proved Himself to be God and left the Father out of it completely. But there's no such desire

in the Son of God's mind to leave the Father out of anything. He is there to witness to him. And there's supposed to be an unbroken link between he and the Father. Therefore he says, I can't do anything. I can't do anything. I can't do anything. Why is he saying this? We see you doing stuff. Yeah, but that's not me. I'm just doing what the Father tells me to do. He doeth the works. And because he does the works, there's your

witness that I am who I say I am. If we have a witness like a miracle, we have something in the earth that is, I mean, it's unheard of. Well, that's essentially what a miracle is, isn't it? It's something we've never heard of. It's something that defies the laws of nature all around us. It's a miracle. And by nature of it being a miracle we're putting that into the hands of God as His doing

and here you have it. Wow! It's just as clear as it can be. When the Father does these miracles He's witnessing to the person on the earth that is executing those miracles. One of the reasons why I have such trouble with modern day healers and miracle workers and mind readers and all the rest of this stuff is that the idea of these miraculous events were for

witness purposes. They're always for witness purposes. Otherwise it's just totally unfair for God to heal that guy and not this one. No, the unfairness is not a characteristic you're going to find within the Lord God. He's going to do things fairly. So what's happening? Well, people that are experiencing miracles are willing to lie about them and there are many Christians willing to tell big whoppers of stories that are just simply not true and say thank you Jesus

at the end of it and give God all the glory for it. Well there's no glory in a lie. Stop that. Tell the truth. And so when they tell these stories, these false preachers, these charlatans, these fakes and phonies actually pick that miracle up and say, see there, God is blessing this ministry. We have grown so accustomed to this that we find ourselves almost doing this automatically.

I remember my brother talking to somebody about some of the errors in their particular church and denomination, and I don't know how heated the argument got, but he was saying the fellow was trying to win the argument by saying, you know, God is blessing our church. We're growing all the time. We just padded our pews. We just paved our parking lot. God is blessing our church. We're growing all the time. We just padded our pews. We just paved our parking lot. God is blessing our church. Why would He bless us if we're wrong? Can you answer that question? Boy, I can. Can you answer that question? We are thinking that because good things

happen or because growth takes place that this is God blessing us. How long do you need to think about that, really? Is that really a good basis? Well, we use it all the time. And I think we use it because we see that the Lord used it. He says, you want to see a witness of my ministry? Look at the miracles that are taking place. This is my Father bearing witness.

Now, you want to see a witness on the earth? John was my witness. You rejoiced in what he had to say about me for a long time. Then all of a sudden, you didn't like him anymore. But my father continues to witness. The witnesses are all around us. You don't believe because you don't want to. And that's essentially all there is to it. He wouldn't let them off the hook. He wouldn't just let them not believe. He tells them that they don't have the word of God abiding in them.

And now he is going to send them to the scriptures. You think you have the word of God abiding in you. You don you have the word of God abiding in you. You don't have the word of God abiding in you. All you got abiding in you is scriptures. That's all you've got. You just keep repeating them and repeating them, saying them over and over and citing them and giving references.

And the Bible says this and the Bible says that. And that's the way you talk all the time. But here's a little project for you, he says. Go to the scriptures and search the scriptures That's the way you talk all the time. But here's a little project for you, he says. Go to the scriptures and search the scriptures. For in them, and there's many people that believe what I'm saying right now, in these, in the Bible, we have eternal life. Do you think that's true?

Jesus just nearly ridiculed this whole thing. He said, salvation is me. I'm the worker of life. I'm the one who brings about salvation in your life, not the scriptures. Go home. Go get the scriptures. Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. Listen, if the scriptures gave us eternal life, do you think Jesus would have indiscriminately stuck the word think into that

scripture? I don't believe it. He would have said, search the scriptures, for in them you have eternal life, if there were eternal life in them. But there's not. There's not eternal life in your Bible. Eternal life comes from Jesus Christ. He says, search the scriptures. In them, you think you have eternal life? They are they. Let's testify of me. You're not going to get around me. This is one of the reasons they hated him, was because he insisted, you're never going to do this without me

so you might as well settle this authority thing you might as well settle this power thing this sonship thing this God thing you might as well get all this worked out because until you do you're never going to understand anything and I'll tell you something else you're not going to do

you're never going to know the Father because the only way to know the Father is through the Son. To whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. Alright, time's about to go already. Sorry about that. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time. You've been watching the Words of Jesus series. Bye-bye. ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you