Words of Jesus Podcast - No Proof Belief in God

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

In the Old Testament Scriptures (Torah and the Prophets) God proved himself faithful to the people of earth through miraculous events. Then, final proof - He sent His Son! The wisdom of Jesus and the miracles he performed proved to the religious leaders and the people that he was "that prophet" (the son of man and son of God), who was promised for the redemption of the people. Jesus lamented the rejection of the people. Now, faith is required. God is not in the proving-business. Jesus said, "Learn [from] me. Obey the ten commandments. Then, the Father and I will move in and lead you - from the inside." ***Chapter 19: The Sermon on the Mount...Be therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Be therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. Take heed that you do not your charity before men, to be seen of them: otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when you do your charity, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when you do alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does: That your alms may be in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, you will not be as the hypocrites are for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. But when you pray use not vain recitations, as the heathen do: for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them: for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him. After this manner therefore pray: Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread, day by day. And forgive us our sin debts, for we also forgive everyone indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Moreover when you fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face That you appear not unto men to fast, but unto your Father which is in secret: and your Father, which sees in secret, will reward you openly. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust corrupts, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye were single, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye be evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will put on. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothes? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your...

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, and I've been having a good time going through the Sermon on the Mount. And this is going to be something today. But I'm going to have to ask you to be a little less fleshly and a little more spiritual today than usual. And that is because Jesus used a term that in the flesh, in the physical, in the vernacular, in our vocabulary, in our society of our particular language and stuff,

what he says just doesn't make any sense. And so we're going to have to understand what he says this doesn't make any sense and so we're gonna have to understand what he says he was explaining that when we don't lay our treasures up in heaven but we do lay them up here on the earth we're kind of telling on ourselves I know where your heart is, he says. This is simple. It's where your treasure is. Some people wonder, you know, they say, I just don't feel like I'm as dedicated to God as I ought to be. Well, you want to go to Jesus on this?

You want to ask his opinion? You know what he's going to do? He's going to say, what, do you want me to do an eval on you? Is that what you want me to do? Sure, okay, hand me to do an eval on you? Is that what you want me to do? Sure, okay. Hand me your checkbook. Let me look through it and see where your treasure's going. I'll tell you exactly where your heart is.

Hey, friend, you don't want him to do that. What you want to do is do that yourself at home with the door shut and the shades pulled on the windows. Because if you want to find this out, you really want to find this out on your own, make reparations and changes, and then magically you're going to feel like that you're really doing something for God. Because you will be.

Because where your treasure is, that's where your heart is. This is what Jesus said. I've never found it to be otherwise. Now, he says that one of the reasons why he doesn't say this, I'm saying this from what I'm reading here, it's easy to understand that the reason a lot of people do not invest in the afterlife, if you will, is because they just don't believe in it or they can't see it.

Jesus warned poor old Nicodemus, unless you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God. Well, friend, I want to see it. I want it to be very real to me. I want to understand that when I do forego vengeance or revenge against an enemy, that I want to know that there is a kingdom of God and there is a sovereign God somewhere that is going to see to it that not only that I'm rewarded, but perhaps, you know, going to offer perfect justice in that situation. I don't know if you've ever avenged yourself of your adversary or dealt with a certain situation with force or with vengeance or these kind of things and then find out later that you were wrong about that. That they didn't deserve that.

They didn't deserve to be treated that way. That's not what they were saying. That's not what they were doing. That's just what you thought and you acted on it. You made a horrible mistake here. You want to eliminate that from your life? Let him avenge your adversary. He knows what's going on, and nobody's going to fool him. You know what? He's going to find people that you don't even know are your enemy

that are causing you trouble, and he'll avenge you of enemies you don't even know you have, and he will avenge as friends people that you consider to be enemies. It's perfect. It's just absolutely perfect. How are you going to do that? Well, you're going to have to see the kingdom of God, my friend. You're going to have to understand that the kingdom of God is here on this earth.

It's right here. Now, I know that there is coming a day when the physical, tangible kingdom of God is going to come on the earth. I know that the city of the great king is going to come down out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And it's going to sit here on the earth and Jesus is going to rule and reign over us

for a thousand years. I understand that. And that is indeed the kingdom of God. However, before that happens, there's a kingdom of God here on this earth. You know where it is? Jesus says, you remember? Jesus said, it is within you.

The kingdom of God is within you. Well, I don't see it. That's because you're not born again. Sorry. Everything's black and white with you. Yeah, I guess it is. You know, there's just no time to play around in gray areas until at least we get the black and white settled.

So, you know, don't get upset. It's okay to find out you're lost. By the way, you've got to be lost to get saved, right? don't get upset. It's okay to find out you're lost. By the way, you've got to be lost to get saved, right? So it's a good thing. So here we have people that are reluctant to give treasures in heaven where moth and rust don't corrupt because they can't see the kingdom of God. Jesus goes on and the reason I say that it's because they can't see the kingdom of God. Jesus goes on, and the reason I say

that it's because they can't see the kingdom of God is because Jesus is going to give us a little eye exam here. He's going to say, For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, Now, we have antonyms in this particular paragraph that we need to pay very close attention to because they're set in opposition to each other in sentences.

Let me explain. He says, if your eye is single, then whatever. If your eye is evil, then whatever. Do you see that? He's giving opposites here. Single, evil. Now, if he had said single and multiple, we know we'd be dealing with a mathematical thing,

but we're not. He's saying your eye needs to be single. Now, this is going to take on, like I say, you're going to have to listen in more of a spiritual sense than in a physical sense, because all of our eyes are single. I mean, outside of perhaps birth defects, you know, all of our eyes are single.

Now, I don't think he's talking about you have to have one eye. I think as opposed to two, you don't have a single, you don't have single eyes because you have two. No, I have two single eyes and so if that is the case and it certainly is for many of us if your I be single then and and and he continues with what the results of that are. I think that when the results of that is the illumination of a person's soul, when he says that if your eye is single, then it's full of light, it's full of illumination,

it's full of understanding, it's full of all the good things that God has for us. I think that if those things aren't manifest in your life, I think that is proof that your eye is not single, not the fact that you have two pupils or whatever. The idea is that this eye be single in that it not be double. I'll explain. You're thinking oh good.

In Spanish when they use the word duble when they talk about folding something. They're doubling it. They're folding it. You see. And the Bible talks about a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. So here we have double, folded, we have single eye. All these ideas come together in a gestalt fashion to teach us

what? We need to have eyes of faith. We need to live with a faithful eye. Not a doubled eye. You see, we have folded minds. We have minds that are in opposition to itself. When we have a double mind, we have a folded mind. It's folded in that it believes that this is true, it believes that this is true.

It believes that, well, essentially anything can be true that's your truth that's my truth that's her truth that's his truth well how many times you're going to fold this rag you see the problem is is every time you double it you're becoming more and more double minded to be to have one's eye single is to receive what light god has through a mind that has no doubt yeah i mean even the word doubt you ever wonder why they spelled doubt like they did why didn't they spell a d-o-w-t we know we can pronounce doubt that's not a problem why is it d-o-u-b because it comes from that root of doubling it comes from that's what it means double-minded man is a doubtful mind jesus taught us be not of doubtful minds you can't do that

you can't have that and the illumination of god coming and lighting your entire body. He warns us that if you don't fix this problem, then the light that is in you, being as it has come through your doubt, through that lens, through that filter of doubt, when it comes into you, it is no longer light, it is darkness. And if the only thing that you have to illuminate the darkness in your life is the darkness that is coming through your doubtful mind through your eye the only illumination you're receiving is more darkness he says how great is that darkness

boy it sounds to me like a very grave warning here that that you know the doubt is not just it's not a frame of mind it's not a choice you make it's not well you know i'm kind of doubtful or you know it's like it's okay as long as it's not real heavy doubt or man he treats it like it's poison as a matter of fact one time he talked about uh he says uh oh you um faithless and perverse generation how long shall i put up with you now when he says faithless he's talking about doubt faithless and perverse really i mean, to doubt is in the area of perversion? Aren't you taking this a little too seriously? I don't think he is at all. Faith is a huge part of our salvation,

of our regeneration, our relationship to God. It's a huge part. Our Father God has chosen to hide himself from us. You want to know why he's not parting red seas anymore, moving mountains, throwing rocks at our enemies, you know, causing all these, you know, these miraculous things to happen? Because they destroy doubt.

I'm sorry. Because they destroy faith. They destroy faith because they don't have to understand them by faith. I don't have to believe this table is here by faith. I can feel it. I know it's here. I know it is. I can't believe it's here. I can't because I know it. Well God does not want that kind of relationship with you. He want that kind of relationship with you.

He had that kind of relationship with Adam and Eve, with different principles of the Bible. There are a lot of people in there that, you know, their faith in God was essentially cut short and thwarted by having a personal relationship with him. Moses didn't believe in God. He had conversations with him. Do you understand what I mean? Faith is a huge part of our relationship to God. And if it is such a huge

part, then we need to make sure that whatever illumination we receive from God comes through a doubtless mind. We need to have faith in this kind of thing. There's only one way to do that, and that is to simply believe. We just have to believe that we're being led of the Lord. And as time goes by and these things prove to be true,

it becomes easier and easier. You know what's happening is our unbelief is being helped. Remember the guy that says, I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. That's what we need. We need our unbelief helped, and he can do that for us. Let me read you these few things here. And as we continue the S on the mount lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt

and and this is when he tells us about the light that is in thee that your eye needs to be single to to prevent prevent the light that is in thee being darkness. How great is that darkness? And he goes on to say, no man can serve two masters. There's that double again, isn't it? Do you see that? The double-mindedness? No man can serve two masters.

Or either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other you cannot serve God and mammon two again double therefore I say unto you take no thought for your life what you shall eat what you shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on is not the life more than meat

and the body more than raiment behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not much more than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? Why take ye thought for the rest? Why take ye thought for raiment consider the lilies of the

field how they grow they toil not neither did they spin yet i say unto you that even solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these wherefore if god so clothed the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you? Oh, ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or wherewithal shall we be clothed?

For after all these do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things but seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all of these things will be added unto you take therefore no thought for tomorrow for tomorrow will take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof i'll be glad to explain that and we will as we come come to it again but i think what he's telling us here is is he's giving us instructions as to how to make sure that our eye is single first of all we have need to have faith in god we need to believe that he's going to take care of us just like he does everything else on this on the planet that he's responsible for um second i think that one of the one of the most detrimental things that

a person can involve themselves in that cause these kinds of problems with faith with believing in god and uh and you know having the faith that we need to make it day by day, is the idea of taking thought for tomorrow. Now, there are some who, my counsel to people is always pretty much the same. God is today. God is today. He's not yesterday. He's not yesterday. He's not necessarily tomorrow.

I understand the scripture that says, you know, I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever. I understand all that. However, what I'm saying is when it comes to you, he knows you're not a transcendental being. He knows that you can't just time warp, jump between one time and another, one nation and another. He knows you've got limitations on you. You know what he does for you? He lives with you every day. He's not sitting at the end of time waiting for everything

to turn out like you always knew it would. He's living with us today. God is in today. You want to spend time in concern and prayer, if you call it that, and worry about your past? You are wasting your time. There ain't a thing in the world that can be done about the past other than understanding it, recognizing it, being properly ashamed of it,

and getting forgiveness for it. There's nothing else to do. You can't fix it. There's damage else to do. You can't fix it. There's damage that was done in the past that'll never be fixed. There's damage that's done in the past that isn't even finished getting worse yet. But it's not going to do you any good to live there. In the future, it's a different problem. A future is what's unknown my goodness that just opens the mind to do and to think just about anything it wants but there is one place that we can live that we can pray that we can speak and have our and have our being in christ without any concern at all

you know what that is that's today it's right now yeah right now it's it's you know it's not where with will we be clothed it's what are you wearing today it's not what you're going to wear tomorrow that ought to be your concern what you're going to eat tomorrow what you're going to you know that that is not your concern and if if you feel like it's your concern uh you are dangerously close to this situation where there is nothing that the lord can send to you through that illumination of that single eye that you're not going to taint and ruin and destroy by your fascination with the past and the future it's a real problem a huge problem because we have to understand it all look friend you don't understand any of it so understanding it all is just pretty much out of the question um he goes on to say here that

if you take therefore no thought for the morrow will take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Does anybody know what that means? Oh, you know, what a way of saying that. I've seen the different translations. I've heard people preach on it. I've heard people teach on it. But I've never been able to understand this clearer and say it better than the fact that all of

what you need to think about today is all the evil that you can handle. What is sufficient for today is all the evil that you can deal with. What you're going to wear today, what you're going to eat today, what you're going to be clothed with, where you're going to live,

how you're going to keep the rain off your head. All the problems that you may think of that have to do with today, that's all you're equipped to keep the rain off your head all the problems that you may think of that have to do with today that's all you're equipped to deal with you want to talk about the past you can talk about it if you do it in an entertaining fashion and not in a worrisome fashion wondering how things can be changed

go back in some time machine and change things it's never going to happen you want to talk about the future you have no idea what the future is i don't care what you say you go buy yourself a pack of tarot cards is that going to help ouija board dice i don't know what are you going to do when you start looking at the future, nor does anyone else have any idea what's going to happen in the future. And I'll tell you something. God has limited himself to living in the day that we live.

He wakes up with us in the morning, and he goes to bed with us at night. He lives with us every day. He deals with everything like it's a brand new problem. I don't know how he does it but he does it i remember one time him telling jeremiah you know i've i've done all i can do for these people oh yeah what have you done and he says man i i send them prophets i wake up early in the morning and send them prophets i wake up early in the morning and speak to them i'm thinking

is this god i thought he never slept what do you mean he rises early and sends prophets what is this supposed to mean and when jesus is asleep in the boat you know i'm thinking i thought god never slept what is this all about you know there's a lot of things that you may not understand if you think about them too much. So you got a choice. You can either figure it out or you can just pretend like it doesn't exist. Or what was it somebody said to me one time?

He was talking about the, I was talking about the contradictions in the Bible and the problems with, you know, one thing saying one thing. Something else saying something else. And he decided that he thought it was going to be really cool to say, well, the Bible may not be inerrant, but it's all true. Huh? What? What in the world is that supposed to mean? Well, a lot of people play

games like that. Like, I know things, you know, they don't necessarily happen the way the Bible says, but you know, God knows best. You know, he works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. No friend, that's a song. That's a a song what we need to do is find out the way these things do work and work them to the best of our ability you know this this can be a wonderful life uh you know if you forget all the foolishness and you know walk away from a lot of that stuff that's clogging up your brain all this stuff is going to make sense to us. And when he says sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, boy, when you're on the other side of that,

and the past is not occupying all your thought, and the future is like non-existent, you know, ideas of, you know, just of playtime in your mind, and that's all it is, that's all it ever will be, but today is the day in which we live that's all it is that's all it ever will be but today is the day in which we live today is the day that he's working if he's going to move a mountain he's going to do it today if he's going to heal your baby he's going to do it today if he's going to do anything in your life he's going to do it today that's always true so live in today

um let's see if we can do this uh judge not that you be not judged with what judgment you judge you shall be judged and with what measure you meet it shall be measured to you again i think that the idea of it really it hardly matters what you're complaining about when you're talking to another christian some well-versed you know bible memorized christian and you talk to them about something or or you offer them some kind of correction or some kind of directional change or or something that that they may need if they feel offended one of their favorite things to say is, hey, you can't judge me. You can't judge me.

Isn't that right? And, you know, we're not supposed to judge. And I think that people have used this concept, this idea, in order just to get people to shut up and quit judging people because it's uncomfortable. Nobody likes to sit around and listen to somebody that's, you know, reading the riot act over some poor sucker that doesn't know any better or whatever else his problem happens to be. Nobody wants to hear it. So they throw out this blanket idea of, hey, you can't judge me or you can't judge. You're not

allowed to judge. But you know what I found is, is people you can't judge me, or you can't judge, you're not allowed to judge. But you know what I found is, is people who don't judge make the same mistake over and over and over and over and over again. People who don't judge have the same kind of friends. Doesn't matter what city they move to, they find the same kind of people. People who don't judge end up in the same financial condition, no matter what job they have,

no matter how much money they make. People who don't judge, see in the same financial condition no matter what job they have, no matter how much money they make. People who don't judge, see, what is this? There's no discernment. There's no judgment in their life. We must judge. So what in the world is he talking about here? Well, I think it's better for us to look into Luke, where he uses the word condemn. Don't condemn anybody. Certainly you could judge them. They need to be judged. They need to be held in the light of scrutiny. David needed to hear from Nathan. Nathan needed to judge David.

And when he did, David dealt with it in the way David should have dealt with it. The idea is not that we're not supposed to judge. We're just not supposed to condemn. All right, time for us to go. Think Red Ink. Bye-bye. you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you