Words of Jesus Podcast - No Reason to Doubt Jesus

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

Christianity works. Don't discard Jesus' words. It is tempting to take a message from out of context to find justification for our actions. "Jesus drank wine...so I can..." Follow your conscience. Jesus instructed us to keep the commandments; so that - the Spirit of God can lead and guide us. The story of the Gospel should be read (and applied) in context. Jesus, not the Bible, will be our judge - one day.***Chapter 7: Jesus Changes Water To Wine (Part 2)Jesus unexpected response; transfer responsibility of His mother to his brother - water turned to wine. It was a big day. Jesus and his disciples - also Mary, his mother-were guests at a wedding in Cana of Galilee after he had gathered the first of his disciples. When it was time to serve wine to the wedding guests, Mary said to Jesus: "They have no wine." Jesus replied: "Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." Mary said to the servants: "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." Designating the six water pots of stone, Jesus said to the servants: "Fill the waterpots with water." When they were filled, Jesus instructed the servants: "Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast." When it was carried to the ruler of the feast, it was fine wine. The disciples, seeing this manifestation of the glory of Jesus, believed on him.

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. Man, I'm glad to be doing this. I hope you're enjoying this series. One of my favorite things to do is to look through the scriptures and find out what Jesus said. I didn't know it was so rare that people even would hear or remember or read what Jesus said. But it seems like everything that he had to say has later been, can I say adulterated? It has.

It gets watered down. It gets mistranslated, misunderstood. It's such a shame because, you know, when you have the Son of God speaking, you've got, first, you have a huge intellect speaking. If Jesus were just a man, if he were I mean as a matter of fact if he were just an animal and had been around before the foundation of the world he would be extremely intelligent. I mean let alone

set aside the fact that He's the Son of God, just the fact that He's been alive for, that we know of 6,000 years, He has an incredible amount of intelligence. Now, I happen to believe that when He was on the earth, well, I mean, it's almost not even a matter of faith because the scriptures plainly teach that He told His Father one time, restore unto me

the glory that I had with Thee before the foundation of the world. So prior to that we don't know that much about His station or who he was, what he was we don't know much about him. We do know that the Bible says in the beginning was the Word and eventually as the verse goes on the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. I understand that, but what exactly was He before that? We don't know. As a matter of fact, we hardly know

anything about Him at all, even though He mentioned being with the Father before the foundation of the world. But here's what we do know. And I realize there's a lot of faith that must be placed in the Scriptures and faith in translators and faith in people who copied out the Scriptures and these kind of things. And by the way, let me tell you the Bible is worthy of your investigation. You're not going to break it. You're not going to

find out something that you're going to have to throw it away and say oh goodness, I can't be a Christian anymore because I found a contradiction in the Bible or anything like that. You're not going to break anything. Go ahead and investigate it. The Scriptures can actually stand your textual criticism and I mean it has withstood can actually stand your textual criticism. And I mean it has withstood for many many ages. That being said we don't have any reason to doubt

what Jesus said. I remember it wasn't so long ago, well maybe it has been that they decided to go through the Gospels and decide exactly what did Jesus say and what did he not say. And there were a bunch of educated men sitting around the table and they would go verse by verse and decide yes, indeed Jesus said this or it's doubtful

that he said it or it's likely that he said it or yes, indeed he did say this. Well you may not be surprised, I certainly wasn't, to find out that pretty much he didn't say anything that we have in the scriptures. There's a couple of verses in there that they say are accurate, and all the rest of them, eh, that's just somebody's opinion. Well, I don't happen to believe that. It's been my experience that when I take his advice, my life runs better.

When I do what he says to do, I have peace with God. When I do what he says to do, I have peace with God. When I do what he says to do, my sleep is sweet. My life is good. Things seem to work when I obey him. Friend, I hardly need anything other than that. The depth of what he has to say just runs throughout most every situation in life. It's intelligently rich.

It's spiritually rich. It's just a wonderful thing. I don't understand why it's not more popular. As a matter of fact the ministry actually gets some criticism from some people that say that mostly what they refer to themselves as Pauline Christians. You ever heard that term? Pauline Christian? These are people who believe that the Apostle Paul carried with him absolute necessary knowledge that

we have to subscribe to what Paul says in order to be Christian. Now I happen to believe that that is so. But what you won't find me doing, not without protest, is saying that what some people insist that the black words in the scriptures are just as important as the red words. That I do not believe.

I just simply don't believe it. You can believe whatever you want to, but I don't happen to believe that. If I find Paul making a comment that, you know, you have a lot of teachers, but you don't have a lot of fathers. I am a father to you. Alright. Now I look over and I find Jesus says, one is your father. One is your father. We're not supposed to be called father. Now, I have something

in me that allows Paul to say that. I understand why he said that. I think that Jesus' concern about calling people father was the insistence on people's part of being called father. I know that a lot of my ministry in Africa, many times people would come up to me and call me father. I was father. And I'd question them about that and they'd go, oh no, that's

a term of endearment. That they hold you in as high regard as they do their own father here on the earth. And so I had to say, okay. I had to back away and say, you know, we don't have an earthly spiritual father. I know that sounds contradictory, but I mean there's not a man on earth that is our spiritual father. It's just, that's just not so. Jesus didn't allow it. Paul used the term and told people that

he was their father. Alright, what am I supposed to do with that? Am I supposed to let those scriptures argue with each other? Or am I supposed to understand that Paul is not the egotistical aristocrat that everybody said that he was. Everybody said that he had some kind of an ego problem. No, he did not. And I appreciate everything the Apostle Paul says. As a matter of fact, except for this pitiful example I'm giving right now, I can't think of anything that Paul preached that Jesus didn't

preach as well. I don't understand what the big huff is all about. Jesus doesn't threaten Paul's teaching. Paul doesn't threaten Jesus' teaching. I don't know what the big deal is all about. Well, you know what? I'm not being honest when I say that because I do know what it's all about. People's denominations are built on the words of the apostle Paul. They're built on the words of Peter and of John and of Revelation

and all the rest of the New Testament. Some denominations are based on Old Testament writings. But when you go to Jesus and you go to him exclusively, well, you find him saying, what are you doing building denominations? What's this all about? Now, what are you trying to do, be a teacher? You have one teacher, that's me.

All of you are brethren. We're not building this thing like a bunch of Greeks. We're building the kingdom of God. And I happen to be the king of that kingdom. And that's not conducive to building churches. So we go to the black words. Listen, the red words have to do with Jesus ministering to us individually. And he did just that. And perhaps that's why it hurts so badly when He says something that hits us between the eyes. I don't know. I really don't understand people's attitude about the Scriptures.

I mean, other than some wicked or you know, I try to be nice by saying people are just ignorant. I don't want to believe that they're wicked. I don't want to believe that they really want to take people away to drive them off or lead them astray. I don't want to believe that. Perhaps that's true. And in some cases I'm sure it is. But for now let's just say that they're ignorant

and they don't know any better. That's really the kind thing to say. You can't say they're right when you know they're not. So what are you going to do? And it's not a matter of me wanting or trying to please people. It's really just a matter of just being kind and realizing, wow, five years ago? My doctrine today doesn't look like it did five years ago. It certainly doesn't look like it did 15 years ago or 20 years ago. What in the world's going on? Well, you're learning as you go.

You're learning as you go. You don't get all this in Sunday school, the first six weeks of your salvation experience, the week that you join the church. You don't get all this. You don't know it all. Of course you don't. It's going to take a lifetime. And our teacher, the Lord Jesus, he says, I'll teach you what you need to know. But relax and be nice to people for Pete's sake. It's like the people that the disciples found casting out devils.

And Jesus says, well, what'd you do? Well, we told them to stop it. And he's just thinking, oh, man. You told them to stop it? Why? Well, they walked not with us. I don't know, is this a human characteristic? Is it a flaw in our character that you either have to be like me or just be wrong? I don't know. But people are rude and they're cruel to each other. And unfortunately the Christian church

doesn't have many exemplars to point at and say, see now that's the way we ought to live. But we can at least try that, can't we? We've been talking about in the sixth chapter of this little book called The Words of Jesus Jesus changing water into wine. We talked about the fact that Mary asked him to get involved in this and he was a little bit put out that he was asked to be involved in it but when she gave the instructions

to the servants at the wedding she says whatever he says to do, do it. And so he pointed out, what was it, six water pots? I forget. Yeah, six water pots of stone Jesus said to his servants fill the water pots with water. And when they were filled, Jesus instructed the servants, draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast. Now,

let me say something here. There's a lot of people who like to justify whatever it is that they're doing, whatever it is that they feel even slightly convicted about, there's people, there are people who like to go to the scriptures and point at certain things and say, see there? One of the things that people like to do is they say, well, you know, Jesus drank wine. Yeah, so what are you saying? Well, I think it's okay for us to do that. Really? Based on that? Really? Based on that? That's how you justify it look I'm not one who believes that it's a sin to drink wine

but people who are raised in those kind of churches feel like that it is and as they become a little I don't know they get a little looser in their faith or they hang around with different people. I don't know what it is, but all of a sudden it seems like the right thing to do. And so they try their best to say, well, Jesus drank wine. Jesus turned water into wine and so on and so forth. So it's okay for me. Look, if that is your method of justification

or it's your method of understanding what the Lord expects of you, well, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. You know, what we do, we should do in answer of a good conscience toward God. Paul said, you don't have a conviction in that area? Fine. But there are people who do.

So how about just not exercising so vociferously, so loudly, so predominantly, how about just not advertising that you think people who abstain are fools or they're clothesline preachers or they're whatever they are, they're straight and narrow, they're teetotalers or whatever else. And I'm more enlightened than they are. He says, no, I'll tell you what. If you have something in your life that is

considered to be an offense to people but to you it's all included in the freedom to be found in Christ. Let not your good, your good, be evil spoken of. Now, that kind of person is very rarely in that group of people that point and say, well, Jesus drank wine. Very seldom is there anybody with that kind of understanding. If you're just looking for things in the scriptures

perhaps things that Jesus did that allow you to do it isn't it amazing that in a lot of cases those kind of people who will readily point out, you know, Jesus did this. Jesus did certain things that you think are wrong, but He did them. I know that some people trying to defend me, bless their heart, I appreciate

people loving me enough to stand up and say something, but some people think I'm crude. Can you believe that? Some people think that, I don't know, that I say things a little too loudly or perhaps dwell on them a little too long or I don't know. They got trouble with my personality because I don't stroke them. In defense of, oh perhaps some comment that's made that someone may think is crude or cruel

they'll say, well Jesus called people foxes and he called them snakes and he called them scorpions he called them hypocrites, he called them sinners, he called them whatever. And they say that he was a rough character. Well let me tell you, although you're correct about that, I get that, I understand that, I believe that, that has not a thing in the world to do with what I

have to say or do I feel any license to continue or to do whatever it is I do because Jesus did it. That's just a really poor reason. When people worship their that's just a really poor reason. When people worship their Bibles, this is one of the outcomes that's just inevitable. This is an inevitable outcome that we start to

take permissions from the Scriptures. Well, in the Scriptures they did this, and they did that, or, in the Scriptures they did this and they did that. Oh, so-and-so did this and that. And no consideration whatsoever about whether or not God was pleased with them about what they did or I guess we assume that God was pleased with everything that Jesus did. I think that's a safe assumption. But there are people in the Scriptures that did things that

I wouldn't think about doing. There's people that did things in the Scriptures that I don't feel the least bit justified in doing, even though I find it in the Scriptures. But see, I don't worship my Bible. I don't consider my Bible to be some kind of a rule book or a permissions list or anything else like that. There are well I mean even now thinking about some of the

situations in the Old Testament that were absolutely common among those people and that they felt no convictions about doing. I don't even want to say them on television. They're horrible things that I would not put up with. And good wonderful men, there are people that were in Jesus' bloodline. There were people that were considered to be God's chosen people.

The fathers of some of God's chosen people. That did some things that, wow, man, I can't do that. So what's the difference? Well, you see, if you set out in your Christian life answering a good conscience toward God then you go to God about these kind of things. You never disobey your conscience. And if your conscience isn't clear, do you know what Paul says? To him that knows to do good and doeth

it not to him that is sin. Can we take the reciprocal of that principle and use it? I think we can. If we know something's bad and we do it, it's sin. It's wrong. It's a shortcoming in your life. I don't care how many scriptures you find to justify it. You're not going to stand in front of this Bible on judgment day. He's not going to read out of this book and judge your life by this book, except for perhaps

10 commandments that are written in there. We're not going to answer to this book. This book is not our God. Our God is grieved about some of the things that we participate in and some of the things we do and the way we treat other people and what we say and how we say it. He's grieved about the way we raise our children, the way we treat our parents. He's grieved about the way we live. Well, you know, the scriptures don't say nothing about it. Well, that is such a poor

way to live. There are those who try to counter the Bible worshipers by taking scriptures and saying well, yeah, Jesus Jesus turned water into wine but it was just grape juice. How do you know that? I'd like to know how do you know that? And how can you preach that or

teach that or tell somebody that truthfully and honestly look them square in the eye as if you were there. How can you do that? As a matter of fact, if you learn the red words, you're going to find out that he didn't make grape juice that day. He made full-fledged, fermented, alcoholic wine that day. How do I know that? Well, if you look at this story in other gospels,

you'll find that when it says, bear this to the governor of the feast, does it say it in hours? No. No, it doesn't. It doesn't say it in this particular one, but in other places where this story is told, and he says, take this wine

and pour it out for the governors of the feast. The governor of the feast says, you know, look, it's common. You get a bunch of people at your house and when everybody's taste buds are like they're supposed to be, they're coming in here sober, you serve them the good wine first and then when they get a little bit tipsy, why, then you can go into the, you know, instead of getting it in quart bottles, we'll get it in a firkin' outside, bring that thing in and siphon

off some cheaper wine. Ain't everybody does that. He says, but the person running this particular wedding, they did it backwards. He said, the wine we had before, it's nothing like this. This is good. This is good. This is good wine. All right, what does that have to do with it? Well, if you go on and you'll find that Jesus and we'll see it as we continue.

No man serves the old wine and then the new wine. See, new wine is wine that's much like grape juice, or it hasn't aged, and so it might be somewhat good, and good for drinking, but it's not fermented. And he says, because if you do that, the person you're serving wine to will say the old is better. Now, it doesn't take much sense to realize that what Jesus sold, what Jesus made them that day and gave them that day was indeed old wine. Which means that it was fermented so our time is gone

today did we just talked about booze didn't mean to but I wanted you to get a feel for what what actually happened that day. The people who were there that day said that the wine that Jesus made was better than what was served beforehand. And the reason that they said it was better was because it was old. It was aged. It was fermented. Look when God created the world. You don't think that he just told Adam, okay now in three or four months we're going to have a harvest around here and there'll be something to eat. But right now everything's still in seeds.

No. The world was made in the fall of the year. All the trees had fruit on them. All the plants were up. There were tomatoes hanging on the vine. The world was putting forth. He created it instantly in a state of maturity. So he did with Adam and Eve. They weren't born, they weren't created babies. They were created mature people.

And so for Jesus to make mature wine, I got no trouble believing that. All right, time's gone. Join us next time to hear more in the words of Jesus. I always want to encourage you to write to me. We'd like to know that you're listening and that you're a part of what we're doing every day. And we want you to invite your friends. But I want to hear from you most of all.

Send an email to don at thinkredink.com. And if you're not computer savvy or you just want to write a paper letter, do so at ThinkRedInc Ministries, PO Box 718, Hightown, New Mexico, 87827. We'll see you next time. Thanks for showing up here today, and we'll see you again. Bye-bye. you next time thanks for showing up here today and we'll see you 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