Words of Jesus Podcast - Not all Scripture is True - Consider the Speaker

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Just because God cannot lie, it does not follow that Satan cannot tell the truth. Jesus said, "It is written..." Satan also said, "It is written..." When Adam obeyed (worshiped) Satan things changed. The dirt which Adam was made, no longer belonged to God. It was going to take some work to right things. Immediately, so the error did not become eternal, God removed the Tree of Life and sent Adam and Eve from their home. Banished. ***The Temptation of Jesus (Part 5)IMMEDIATELY after he had been baptized the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan. After fasting for forty days and nights he was hungry.           Satan came to him, saying:           “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”           Jesus replied:           “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’”           Then Satan took him into the holy city and thence to a pinnacle of the temple and said:           “If thou aret the Son of God, sast thyself down; for it is written, ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’”           Jesus replied:           “It is written again, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’” Then Satan took Jesus to the top of a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, saying:           “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”           Jesus repulsed Satan with these words:           “Get thee hense, Satan; for it is written, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.’”           The temptation overcome, angels came and ministered unto him.***CHAPTER 3 SCRIPTURES (KJV):MATTHEW 4:1-11Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris Hello, I'm Don Harris. Think Reading Ministries is glad to present to you this series on the words of Jesus. I hope you're enjoying this. We find ourselves still in chapter 3 of this little book, talking about the temptation of Christ. But the scripture and the story is so rich,

it keeps taking us off in different directions, but all good things that we need to know. I think that as we examine what Jesus had to say, and boy, when we are through this, you're going to be a different person. I think what happens in our particular ministry at Think Red Ink is that we receive from people comments about, I've worshipped the Lord Jesus Christ all of my life. I've been a Christian all my life. And I'm just amazed at some of the things that he says that goes against what I've always believed and what my church believes.

How did this happen? Well, a lot of times it's innocent. It's not that people are looking for some reason not to believe. They're not looking for an escape. Some people are, but a lot of times it's good intention on most people's part to want to have a deeper walk with Christ. The only thing we know to do is to go to the people that we essentially trust. And that is the pastor or the preacher or the priest or the guy wearing

the robes or the guy with the parking place or the guy that drives the Lincoln or whoever he happens to be. That is, or at least we determine that he is in life where we want to be. And so we go to them and we, you know, a lot of times we're grabbing little shortcuts and we're grabbing little cliched phrases and little trite sayings that comfort us for a while or give us an answer to somebody's objection.

And after a while what we gather from one another tends to or seems to hold more sway than the Scriptures themselves. Then that horrible thing happens in many Christians' lives is they feel like that they've arrived. That they wake up one day and they realize, gee whiz I guess I really am a Christian and I do know a lot and people are coming to me now and asking me questions

and I must know quite a bit. And that's where it gets kind of dangerous to realize that, or to presume that we have the comprehension of, or the ability to comprehend within ourselves this wonderful and nearly unknowable God. And a lot of people would have to answer, if they were answering according to what they actually feel, they would have to say, yeah, we do. I do. But the fact is,

is that in many cases, we don't. And we don't like saying, I don't know. We don't like saying, gee whiz, I never read that. Or, you know, I don't have an answer for you. We don't like saying, I don't know. We don't like saying, gee whiz, I never read that, or I don't have an answer for you. We don't like saying that. But I think if it's honest that you really don't know, then why would you pretend that you do? You're not doing, you're not helping anyone with that. To say that, every time I add three and five, I get seven.

You know, what's wrong? Well, you know, it is just a matter of opinion. It is, you know, if that works for you, then no, no, no, no. If it's not true, we don't need to teach people that that's the way we need to do or that it is okay. But you know, if you just don't know, then just say you don't know. Let's work it out together. Let's examine it together, me and you. Let's take the scriptures and find out.

Let's see if we can find an answer to your question. You know, let's consult the Lord and let him speak to us and perhaps He'll reveal this to you. We will as time goes by. Of course we're going to read every word that Jesus ever said. We will run across a particular parable that I frankly just do not understand. I've looked at it in every way I know to look at it. I've seen it in different languages and translations and different criticisms

and different biblical expositories and people who have the commentaries in Bibles. Some commentaries skip over it completely because it is very difficult to understand. And I haven't received from the Lord the revelation about that parable to this very day. And when we get there, I'm going to have to do the embarrassing thing of looking at you and saying, I don't know what this means. But you have to be willing to do that if you're going to be, well, at least you're going to be

an honest Bible teacher. You're going to just simply have to do that. Well, I hope you appreciate that for what it's worth. And frankly, it's worth a lot to have somebody that you're entrusting to teach you and I appreciate you showing up here each time this show comes on the air. I appreciate you being here but one thing that I can make sure of is that I don't knowingly lie to you

or pretend that I know something that I don't knowingly lie to you or pretend that I know something that I don't. And I hope you appreciate that. When we get to that parable, you're going to remember what I've said here and perhaps write to me and give me the revelation that I need. Sometimes when I talk about receiving revelation from God and the fact that teachers, I'm sorry, Christians who have

moved past the idea that they need other Christians to teach them, they need Bible teachers to teach them, and are receiving the revelation from God there's, I understand the danger in that. It's not my first time around the block I've met people that have some really strange oh boy, strange ideas about the scriptures and what they mean and I wonder sometimes how in the world, how did you

get into this particular situation? They got into that situation because they started to receive their revelation from God. And they've forgotten the Scriptures of the men who spoke with Him and He spoke with them, and they have neglected to put any of their revelation to a test of Scripture. Now, I, again, I'm not so foolish as to believe that the Lord can't reveal anything that's not in the scriptures. I've heard people say that. Yeah, that's fine, getting your revelation from God.

But God won't ever say anything against the scripture. Look, let me tell you something, pal. God is a sovereign king. He can change his mind. He can do whatever he wants to do. He can say whatever he wants to do. He can say whatever he wants to say. And sometimes it may go against what you're thinking that the Bible says, but the truth is it's going against your

denomination's interpretation of that scripture and not necessarily against what the scripture says itself. You're going to find that happening a lot when you read the words of Christ, as is our intention. And starting back at chapter 3, we're reading about the temptation of Jesus, and we have Jesus making the comment, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

I tried to make it clear to you that it is that proceedeth, not that which proceeded. I told you the story of the children of Israel who were told by Caleb and Joshua, the land is ours, the Lord will give it to us. And they did not want to go and the next day they decided that they were wrong and wanted to go and frankly the Lord wasn't with them. And frankly they were chased. It was said in the scriptures they were chased

like bees chase a man, which is a very pitiful and very helpless sight to behold indeed. And why is that? Because I said that yesterday. I didn't say that today. And you can't, you have no license, no right to go through the scriptures and pull scriptures out that were not written to you or perhaps written 2, 3, 4,000 years ago to someone else and arbitrarily apply them to your life and expect any kind of results.

Well, that's discouraging to some people because some people love to do that. And I'm sure there are people out there who will say, well, you can say that, but, you know, I read this scripture over my Aunt Hattie, and she got up out of her hospital bed and went home. Well, that's great. I'm glad to hear that. But that is not a power that should be attributed to a book. That is a power that should be attributed to the Word of God, the living Word of God

Jesus Christ. And should that be the case without embellishment? I am pleased about that and I love to see that. But I will probably be very combative if I hear you teaching somebody else that that's all that you need to do is to find a scripture in the Bible that has an answer to your question and just repeat this over and over and it'll

happen. As I said, the pagan denominations have taught incantation for years, for centuries, for millennia. There are people who believe that if you say something over and over again that it does indeed make it true. There are people that believe that because it's written in the Bible it is a fact upon which you can count and you can stand. And unfortunately if the truth were known and it will be if I have anything to do with it

that we need to seek a personal relationship and most of all a communicative relationship between us and our God. It may very well be that it is not the will of God for someone to have what you may particularly consider to be good for that person, something that perhaps you would want to see manifest in their life, but it's just simply not the will of God.

He has something else in mind. The example that comes to mind is the man who sat at the gate called Beautiful. The Bible says that he had been there at that gate and been in that condition for longer than Jesus was alive. Do you understand he was there for 38 years and we find that Peter, James, and John

walked through this gate, saw the man, perceived that he had faith and said, stand upright on your feet. Do you realize that that story essentially proves to us that Jesus walked by this man all of his life and never looked at him and said stand upright on your feet. Did not heal him. Didn't evidently feel any compulsion to heal him at all. Why is that?

The Father had a purpose in mind for this particular man to be healed by the apostles and not Jesus Christ. He's sovereign God. He can do whatever He wants. And so this is why it's important for us to ask the Lord for nothing short of His will in the matter. That's what we want is His will in the matter. And so that kept in mind

you'll find that you may pray for something that is essentially not the will of God. And so you can incant any scripture you want and things are not going to happen. However, you will never go to the Father and Him acknowledge your prayer or say yes, go to that person, tell him to stand upright on his feet and I'll heal him. You know, I believe that can happen, but he's not going to do that

and leave you holding the bag. However, you may very well find a scripture in there. Well, this story I'm telling right now. And then try to arbitrarily apply that in a physical situation and walk away having failed. The idea is not to avoid failure as much as it is for us to become the people that we need to be, which are worshipers and servants of the Almighty God. We find here in the temptation of Jesus

that he says it's written that we're going to live by every word that proceeds, which is a present tense proceeding. This is the Lord speaking to us now, not yesterday, not the day before, but speaking to us now. And we hear that within ourselves. That is the bread by which we should live and will live if we practice this. Continuing in the story,

Then Satan took him to the holy city, and thence to a pinnacle of the temple, and said, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down. For it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus replied, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. When I talk this way,

it's often countered by people saying that the word of God does have power in it. Jesus actually defeated Satan on the Mount of Temptation by quoting, it is written, it is written, it is written. And because it's written, it cannot be changed. Well, you know that was a not only can it be changed, but

it's a fact that if you put your faith in it, then it will actually happen. This was also a characteristic of Jewish worship. As a matter of fact, Jesus one time says, and I believe he was quoting a cliche phrase from the Jewish faith when he says, the scriptures say such and such and if the scriptures cannot be broken then whatever he said.

And I think that this is an age old problem that we have adding to the scriptures this very fact, the scriptures cannot be broken. Now by broken means that if the scriptures say it is so then it is so. There are faith healers and people who teach in what's called the word of faith movement that are real big on saying that if it's written then it's a fact and you can

count on it to the point that if the Bible says you're healed and the doctor says you have leukemia you're supposed to run around saying I'm healed, I'm healed, agreeing with the Bible. And if any two of you agree it's touching anything. And this is nothing more than just piecemeal grabbing scriptures here and there putting them all together and essentially making for yourself a scripture cocktail

that is supposed to make you feel better. As a matter of fact it will come up sooner or later. But the disciples were also guilty of this. You'll be surprised at what they try to accomplish by taking scriptures from hither and yon and trying to make them into something that they're not. Nothing could be further from the truth that we have the ability to make what I call

a scripture cocktail where we go and we pull different verses out in order to make something happen or to bring about something in our life. I think it's a mistake and frankly it's almost insulting, especially when the Lord has promised that I'll speak to you, I'll give you what you need, and you need not manufacture Scripture for me. I don't necessarily need it to bring about what I want to bring about in your life. As I say, the people who try to counter this idea

that we can actually count on the Scriptures for miraculous things, Jesus defeated Satan with it is written. Well you have to understand that just because Jesus quoted it is written before what he had to say, it happened to be written but Jesus was under no impression that because it's written that this particular idea or concept or scripture cannot be broken.

Now I think that it's interesting that within these temptations, there were only three temptations, but it is written was actually said and printed in our scriptures four times. Well, who said it other than Jesus? Well, Satan himself said, for it it is written thou shalt not dash thy foot against a stone that the angels will bear thee up. It's written. Now

if you don't think that you can be tempted to do wrong by quoting scripture you're naive. If you don't think that you can develop a bad doctrine by the scriptures, you're naive. And you need not be that naive. For example, I don't know if you know this, but there are about 4,000 major Protestant denominations.

Well, maybe just Christian denominations. There's about 4,000 of them. And when you add in all the splinter groups and all the little side groups that are, you know, kind of attach themselves to a main group, but they're not quite the main group. You know what I mean. The number climbs to about 40,000. Now that's an amazing number, but it's even more amazing when you can go to

any of those 40,000 denominations, the people of which can't sit at the same table and eat without arguing. And every one of those denominations say that what they believe and what they do and what they practice is all based on the Word of God, they call it. I don't doubt that it's based on the Scriptures, but, I mean, if you want to call it that, but it's certainly based on their interpretation of them.

How could something that is so clear and so obvious, how could it spawn 40,000 different opinions to lead people? This is just 40,000 denominations. This is not the number of people that have these ideas. And then you can go into any one of those denominations and find people that believe things that the denomination doesn't believe. Why do you believe that? Well, the Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible

says, the Bible says, and it just gets it just goes toward being ridiculous from there. Jim Jones you know we all know what happened with Jim Jones don't we? Has it been so long that that's become ancient history that a man could stand in front of his congregation and urinate on the Bible and people think that that's okay? Do you know how he got the freedom to do that very thing? It's much like the people who burn the flag. They burn the flag because they have the freedom to do so because of everything the flag stands for. How do you think Jim Jones

got into that situation? By neglecting the Bible and throwing it away? No, by reading it and claiming words here and words there and felt like that he could do what he did. David Koresh, the situation there. Why wasn't he part of the Seventh-day Adventist church? He was a rogue Seventh-day Adventist. How did he get in that condition? By reading his Bible. How do any of these denominations, as they're splinter groups and split off some main denominations,

how did they get that way? By reading their Bible and believing this is the Word of God and interpreting it so until their own interpretation becomes to them the Word of God. So just because something says it is written, we need to be very, very careful of this kind of thing. Because what we find is, is that Satan is well capable of quoting the scripture, probably better than you. So we need to be very, very careful. I'll tell you something that Satan can't do. And that is he cannot change the word of God. He can change the Bible.

He can change the scriptures in your head, but he can't change the word of God. When the word of God speaks to you, you know exactly what he means. You know exactly what he's saying. Nobody ever says, you know, I was spending time before the Lord this morning, and he was saying something to me,

and I didn't quite understand it. No, that doesn't happen, because he speaks in a language we do understand. He speaks in our native tongue. He speaks in the one that we were born with in the Garden of Eden. There's no interpretation. There's no translation.

There's nothing. We know exactly what he wants us to do. Have I created in you any kind of appetite? Have I created in you wanting to hear the voice of God for yourself? I hope so. I hope so. Because once you do that, once you are on that track, all of a sudden you start to understand scriptures like,

you have no need that any man teach you. You have no need that any man teach you. Jesus says, one is your teacher, even Christ. One is your rabbi, that's me. Do you understand what he means by this? One. How many Bible teachers do you have in your life? How many? Is it more than one? If it is one, make sure that it's Jesus Christ. People who take umbrage with what I have to say on this particular account say, Well, you're a Bible teacher. Yeah, that's true. And I know that I'm going to suffer the greater damnation for it.

So I try to be very careful to make sure that what I have to say to you is that you have one teacher. I'm not him. You have one. That is Christ. It's his intention and duty to make sure that you have exactly what you need. And that you learn what you need to learn. I invite you to join us next time to hear more from the words of Jesus. And we want to hear from you. We want to know who you are and where you're listening. Can you send me an email? I'd love for

you to do so. Just send it to Don at thinkredink.com or write to Think Red Ink Ministries at P.O. Box 718 Pytown, New Mexico 87827 Yeah, you heard me right. Pytown, New Mexico

87827 If you need direction into your life you need to know where to go and what to do what's the best thing to do? Think ready.

We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you