Words of Jesus Podcast - Obedience Empowers Christians

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Jesus gave practical instruction. There are sins against ourselves that lead to difficulties in our lives. Jesus wanted to show us physical ways to avoid violation of the commandments. Regeneration - not by will; or will-power.  Good works are required. Jesus brought the ability to regenerate (GRACE). Communication is key to a relationship with our God. We must let our (yes, be yes, and our no, be no) without the necessity of superlatives. Say what you mean, mean what you say; Don't lie. "...all else proceeds from evil..." "Help us develop character for a good life."***Chapter 19: The Sermon on the Mount. . . Again, you have heard that it was said to them of old time, You will not perjure yourself, but will perform unto the Lord your oaths: But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither will you swear by your head, because you can not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these comes from evil. You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That you repay not evil: but whoever will smite you on your right cheek, turn to him and offer the other also. And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat forbid him not, let him have your shirt also. And whoever will compel you to go a mile, go with him two miles. Give to every man that asks of you, and from him that would borrow of you, turn not away. And of him that takes away your goods ask them not again. You have heard that it has been said, You will love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you, what thank have you? Do not even the publicans the same, for sinners also love those that love them? And if you salute your brethren only, if you do good to them which do good to you, what thank have you, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans and sinners so? If you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have you? For sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again and your reward will be great, and you will be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. 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...

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. I'm Don Harris, your host, and I'm glad to have you back, especially after the last show. We have many things to talk about what Jesus said, and Jesus has no fear of talking about these things, and perhaps we shouldn't either. Jesus, his intention was twofold, I think. One of them was to show us the way things are

and show us physical ways to combat particular sins and things in our life that lead to sins against God. And I think the last show was very much in that area. If you missed it, we were talking about the difference between fornication and adultery. We were talking about the ideas of pornography, masturbation, these kind of things that are simply just not talked about in the church. But I believe that Jesus was mentioning them and teaching us how to avoid these kinds of things in our life. Most of all, friends, we just need to be regenerated. We need to be made into the people that God intended for us to be.

And that is not an impossibility. And it's not done by your will. Of course, you can do it by will. We talk about people in the affirmative. We brag on people that have, you know, that guy's got a will of iron, able to do things, to say things, to live his life in a certain way, according to some rule, whether it's his or God's or anybody's rule. He does it because he has the will to do it.

We talk about the value of willpower. But, you know, Paul talks about will worship. And that is that we have a will within us to do what we think pleases God. Jesus is trying to tell us, no, you see, if you were the people that you need to be, these things wouldn't be a problem. I'm here to help you become that person. And what is the difference? What is the difference in the person that seemingly has no control over his life and the

person that seemingly does? Well, there's an empowerment in obedience. And obedience is something that we don't want to talk about. We don't want to talk about that in Christianity because that'll sound like works-oriented salvation, which is, you know, that's a silly thought because our works are important. And without good works,

I don't know that anybody is going to see the kingdom of God and not having suffered a horrible and embarrassing judgment. So Jesus is teaching us that there are certain things that we can do, certain ways we can think that can help us along. However, the perfect way, as he explained to the rich ruler, is that you become a different man. Now yesterday I talked about the rich young ruler asking, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

The question you have asked, the question perhaps your friends, your church, your family, the people around you, everyone has asked that question. And Jesus answered it and the conventional church will not will not will not answer that question the way Jesus did it was asked four different times in three different Gospels all answered the same way everyone that was asked that call everyone who asked that question I happen to believe that it appearing twice in one gospel is a reiteration of the same. That's just what I think.

But they were all answered in exactly the same way. Jesus referred every one of those people who wanted eternal life to the commandments. It's unmistakable. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Keep the commandments. He says, I've done that. Jesus at that point could have said, well, that's not good enough. You know, this salvation's by faith and works won't save you and all the rest of the stuff that we hear today. Jesus didn't say any of that. He said when the young man says this I've done from my youth Jesus said this do and thou shalt live.

These are the red words folks. That's the red ink. That's Jesus Christ saying that not me. And so keeping the commandments absolutely essential for a Christian to do. Now Jesus was saying that although you may keep the commandments, you need to realize that there's another power within us, which is mostly ourself, perhaps influenced somewhat by Satan. Not all the time. It's not the gospel of Philip Wilson that the devil made me do it. It is the fact

that the demon within, inside your own shirt, that's the one that's giving you trouble. And Jesus is trying to teach us how to get control over that. Mostly by regeneration. And until regeneration occurs, it's going to be a matter of your will. It's a matter of your will whether you keep the commandments or not. And you need to do so. You need to do it. And they're not grievous. They're not hard. They're not difficult. Anybody can keep the Ten Commandments. Anybody can keep the Ten Commandments. Need I say it again?

Anyone can keep the Ten Commandments. Quit telling people that you have to sin every day. We'll talk about these things as time goes by. Now Jesus goes on to say, Again ye have heard that it has been said of them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne,

nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, oh, here we go. What's he talking about here? Is he talking about swearing? Is he talking about communication? Well, he's talking about both.

I'm going to teach you how to cuss today, okay? You thought yesterday was a rough show? I'm going to teach you how to cuss. Let your communication be, yay, yay, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Now, are you still in shock? Well, I think we need to know these things. And the reason is that there are Christians out there that are cussing and that they think they're not cussing because they're not using, I don't know, what are there, 13 words that you can't say on television now? When I first went into radio, it was seven.

I don't know what it is now, but I'm sure a lot of it has to do with political correctness because they certainly don't mind using some of the words that were on the list that I had to learn when I first went into radio. But I think that we don't, first of all, the word cuss is a it's a southern word. It's what they say in Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia and parts of Texas. Perhaps Arkansas.

Or at least it was. And cuss was the colloquial pronunciation of the word curse. That's all it was. When you go up north, I remember when I started dealing with Yankees. No offense. I was amazed that they used the word swearing. I thought, swearing. That's, you know, somebody, if they hollered damn, somebody would say that they're swearing. Well, actually, that's just as misrepresented

as cussing is. To swear, you remember when Peter was outside the temple and Jesus was inside being interrogated, it says that a woman came to him and said, you're one of his disciples. He says, no, not me. Somebody else said, or perhaps the same woman again, said to him, yeah, yeah, you're one of his disciples. He says, no, not me. Somebody else said, or perhaps the same woman again, said to him, yeah, yeah, you're one of them. I've seen you with him.

No, no, no, wasn't me. You're mistaken, crazy woman. Goes to down. And then one of them says, no, no, no, I know. You're a Galilean. And I can hear Galilean in your speech. And he said, no, no hell no you can't I don't I don't have anything to do with Jesus and uh what I don't remember him saying that that's awful that's terrible what was he doing the Bible says he began to curse and to swear.

There are two different things, aren't they? So when a person uses the word damn, uses it to describe something or just make a declaration about something, uses it as an adjective or, you know, it's in their language. You might call that swearing, but that's not swearing. That's cursing. To damn something is to curse it. To damn it is to curse it. That's what

a curse is. But what about this idea of swearing and is it is it cursing well actually no to to swear is to add something to your speech that makes what you say believable you might not understand me when I say, when you ask me if I'm coming and I say no. You ask me again, I say no. I said I wasn't going. Well, we want you to come. Can't you come? No. Well, yeah, but so-and-so's going to be there. No, hell no. I don't want to go. All right, everybody walks away. Why? Well, because you're mad? No, because they've decided, because you added the word hell,

you know, I know this is broadcast on Christian stations, and there are people that are going to be offended by me, but we need to talk about these things. You need to have a little brains in your head when it comes to this. And so someone, if they stick the word hell in front of the word no, then everybody believes them, just like those women. When Peter, curse and swore, they never asked him again, did they? Well, you know why they didn't ask him again is because

that was not an attribute of a Christian. That was not the characteristic of a Christian to swear. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. You don't have to add words to what you say in order to make what you say more believable or I really mean this. Now there's a couple of ways to eliminate this from your speech. One of them is the obvious way, which most people take. You know, they like to play games by saying, you know, what the H-E double hockey sticks, does that mean? Or, you know what I mean, you've seen, it's just, it's women and children cursing, right? And some men who

are unsure of their sexuality. That they don't, you know, they don't want to say the word, but they don't mind spelling it. Like, it's okay if you don't say it. Which is just a huge cop-out. But there are some people who have decided not to have those kind of words in their vocabulary. I've met men like that, and I can't help but appreciate them. It's never been their habit to use language like that. It has been my habit as you can see. It comes pretty easily for me.

It has been my habit in the past and so I don't have that much trouble with it. But there was another way for me that perhaps you will find as the higher way of removing these kind of things from your speech. And that is simply this. Why don't you just say what you mean? Why don't you just mean what you say?

Are you the kind of person that could swear to your own hurt and perform it? Are you the kind of person that says, I said I would do it, therefore I will do it? Are you that kind of person? Well, you know what that is? It's character. Those kind of things come through Christ, or they come through the determinant will of lost people. Some lost people have better character in this area than Christians do. They say things they don't mean. They, I mean, preachers stand in the pulpit and tell stories, you know, that, you know, they, they swear. I don't know if they swear, but, you know, they act like, you know, these things happen to them. I never will forget when I found,

when I first went into preaching, I had an older preacher says, I've got a bunch of books I want to give you. And so I said, oh, that's great. Then I didn't realize the danger of those kinds of things. And he gave me a big old book of illustrations. If you'd like to see this, I encourage you, go to your Christian bookstore and find this book of illustrations, because you will read stories in there that you've heard your pastor tell as if it happened to them. They're lies. He's lying when he says this because it was read in a book

or he heard some other preacher tell the story or it's just been so long since he has ever dealt in truth he didn't recognize him if it snuck up behind him and stuck him with a hat pin. I don't know what causes that but a preacher lying from the pulpit or even in his everyday life, there's no room for that. And there's no room for it in your life whether you're a preacher or not. Why don't you mean what you say? This all

starts when we're children. Our parents say, don't do that. Don't do that. Stop that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Stop that. I'm telling you, don't do that. I'm counting to 10. I'm counting to three. Stop it. Quit it. Stop it. Stop it. Whatever it is. And we train our children that the first time we say something doesn't mean anything. And there are some children out there that are waiting for the swear word. They're just waiting for it because they know that when mommy says that, why she really means what she says. So we train our children to do this. We train ourselves to do this. We've likely been trained to do this. One of the most powerful examples of this is our judicial system i remember one time going to court and they told me to put my hand on the bible and swear i said i won't do it

why won't you because the bible you're telling me to put my hand on tells me not to swear at all how can i put my hand on a bible where my Lord Jesus says swear not at all and swear anything I can't do that well how do we know you're telling the truth because I always do that's why so you know and of course it ensued with an argument with the judge. Actually, that wasn't a judge. That was a, I think it was a mayor of a little town that I was in. It was a long time ago. And it went into a big conversation. And I said, now look, let's say that these proceedings that were, that I go in there and I swear to tell the whole truth,

nothing but the truth truth so help me God and it just goes against my grain just to say that and these proceedings you know just kind of protract themselves into the evening you're going to slam that gavel and say that we're

dismissed and we'll take up tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock. We're not going to walk in at 9 o'clock. You're going to look at me and what are you going to say? When I approach this stand, what are you going to say to me? I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, remember, you're still under oath. Well, I want to know, sir, why aren't you swearing me in a second time? Because you've already been sworn in, in that proceeding. And I said, friend, I have been sworn in to life.

When I became a Christian, that's when I decided to tell the truth. And I'm always going to tell the truth. And I'm always going to tell the truth. And I'm not going to lie. So, you know, you could look at me right now and say, remember, you're still under oath. You could, but you won't. Because you don't understand anything I'm saying. Well, in those days, it was very important to me because being a Quaker, you know, that's one of the testimonies of being a Quaker is that we don't swear. Well, they've made all kinds of changes in the judicial system, many to accommodate Quakers who won't swear. They use the word affirm. I won't even affirm.

I'm telling the truth when I walked in here. I was telling the truth at breakfast table with my wife in the morning. I was telling the truth before I walked in here. And I'm going to be telling the truth when I walk out, when I walk out. I mean, this was my argument. And so you want the truth or you want me to swear? Well, you know, we could talk about this forever. But the fact is, is that Christians should never need to swear. This is why Jesus said, swear not at all. Don't swear by God. What do you mean swearing by God? You've never even seen him. You don't know anything about him. Swear not at all. Don't swear by God. What do you mean swearing by God? You've never even seen him. You don't know anything about him.

Swear by heaven, where he lives? You've never seen it. You're going to swear by earth? This isn't your home. This is his footstool. You can't even swear by your own head. You think you own your own head? Change your hair color.

Which would be a really nice thing to be able to do. But you can't. You have no power. You have no authority. What are you doing swearing by things over which you have no authority? And so this is a testimony of well, I mean, it is a testimony of Quakers, but it also should be a testimony of every Christian. We don't swear. We don't add words to what we say

in order to make them believable. We shouldn't do that. So what is the greater way of removing this horrible habit from your life? Mean what you say. Say what you mean. Here's an idea how about just shutting up not saying anything not promising anything not uh you know making trying to impress somebody with what you have to say how about just being quiet there's something you could live with, perhaps. It'll require some practice.

But the best way is to mean what you say and say what you mean. And because you need to understand the last portion of the scripture that we just read is all else. Now, what is all else? It's everything else. Everything other than what?

Let your yes be yes. Your no be no. This is a great way to raise children. Not only is this a great way to behave yourself in court, or behave yourself with other people, but I'm afraid we've taught our children to be this way we've made swearing in court absolutely necessary um now you think we should eliminate swearing in court no i don't i don't but i'm not going to do it. And I don't think Christians should have to do it.

But if I was the lawyer for the opposing side and you didn't want to swear in court I would move for a recess and go and spend 15 minutes with your friends and you'd be on trial

with me right then. What do you mean you don't? You always tell the truth. You said to this person, you exaggerated this story. They said that this didn't happen, this isn't the case. You cheated on your taxes. You've cheated your insurance company. You've told lies to your wife and told lies to your children for their own good or whatever

else. No, you're a liar. And when you're in this court you're going to swear before God that you're going to tell the truth. That's what I'd do. I mean, if I was the prosecuting attorney. I mean, if you really wanted to have truth. But, you know, a man that's got a testimony of telling truth and never lying, I think it ought to be considered. It's just my personal opinion, but I think it ought to be considered. So swearing is the idea of, you know, hell no or hell yes. That's swearing.

But to curse something is, like I say, the addition of damn in your sentence or whatever else like that. Or to, you know, people will say to one another, their enemies, of course, you know, to go to hell. This is a curse. That's a horrible curse. I mean, there's all kinds of ways of cursing. We don't need to go into them all. But these ought not be things that are a part of a Christian's life. And I think Jesus is making

that very clear here. But I think there's different nuances to this that we really should consider. And as I say, that it is the protection of our character that's going to help us to raise good children. And raise children that have a real concern and a real desire that the truth come out. That when they do speak that they speak truthfully. The Bible teaches us

that we should speak every man truth with his neighbor. Now you know if I have a huge downfall in this area, it is in the area of making a story interesting because sometimes there are details in stories that just lead away from the point. Certain things that are said, if they were said just another way,

it would make the point. But the intention is not to deceive anyone or to make them necessarily believe something that's not true by swearing. And to speak every man truth to his neighbor, contrary to what a lot of people believe about the commandment that says that we should not forswear thyself. Don't forswear thyself. This is talking about perjury in a legal situation.

It's a commandment against God to lie in a judicial situation where you're testifying either for or against someone. So, you know, we already have these compulsions in our life. We already have these brick walls that we're not supposed to step over. But unfortunately, Christians look pretty much like the rest of the world. They act like the rest of the world, and they talk like them, and they live like them. And so, you know, if you find yourself subject to the laws of the country, and you don't like it, and you're uncomfortable,

and you think you should be treated differently and treated better perhaps you should live differently and live a little better all right uh well i didn't mean for swearing to take on the whole lesson today but it looks like time has run out for us today um if you'd like to write to me you can do so don at thinkready.com And I'd love to hear from you. You know, we'd like to know who you are and where you live and how you're hearing the broadcast. All these things are very important to us because we take the tithe of the Lord very, very seriously. And we try not to waste it and make sure that every penny is as effective as it should be. So we have to do that with your input.

So please write to me, Don, ThinkRedInc.com. If you'd like to write to the ministry, you can write to Think Red Inc. Ministries at P.O. Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico. What did Jesus say? Are you starting to think red ink? Good. Keep that up. We'll see you next time. 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