Words of Jesus Podcast - Our Duty Is To Send People to Jesus

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

There is an amazing story in the Bible. Jesus, the Son of God, left his Father and came to interact with mankind. Faith is required to believe and to figuratively step out of the boat of convention. Movies, Sunday school, and traditions lend an inconvenient familiarity in thought to the story. Imagine if you can being in the boat with the disciples, being in the crowd on the shore or standing in the distance watching the scenes in the Scriptures - not knowing "the back of the book". Jesus came to reveal the Father and to teach us His ways. ***Ch . 37 - Jesus Walks On The SeaMatthew 14:24-33; Mark 6:47-52; John 6:16-21While Jesus was alone in the Mountain praying, his disciples entered a boat and started over the sea toward Capernaum. But the wind rose and lashed the sea into great waves and held up their progress.             About the fourth watch of the night Jesus came down to the shore, saw the boat, and walked upon the sea toward them.            When they saw him in the water, his disciples were troubled and said:            “It is a spirit.”            They cried out with fear.            Jesus heard them and said:            “Be of good cheer. It is I; be not afraid.”            Peter replied, saying:            “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.”            Jesus said:            “Come.”            Peter descended from the boat and walked toward Jesus on the water. When he saw that the waves were boisterous, he was afraid and began to sink. He cried out, saying:            “Lord, save me.”            Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, caught Peter, and said to him:            “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”            When the two of them entered the boat, the wind ceased. All who were on board came and worshiped Jesus, saying:            “Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris. Hello my friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host. Hope you're enjoying our series as we continue talking about what Jesus had to say and applying that to our lives. The whole idea is to get to the point that these stories and what Jesus had to say is so familiar that you find yourself thinking red ink. Last time we talked from chapter 37 of our little book about Jesus walking on the water.

And if you'd like, I'll read it again and put us all there if we can. While Jesus was alone in the mountain praying, his disciples entered a boat and started over the sea toward capernaum but the wind rose and lashed the sea into great waves and held up their progress about the fourth watch of the night do you know how that works by the way um watches are essentially hours um and you'll also find the word watch when it talks about a military occupation for a particular time.

Example is the Pharisees were a little concerned when they put Jesus into the tomb. They said, they're going to come and steal his body and they're going to make up this big story about the resurrection. We don't want that to happen. So if you would, put a watch on the grave. And a watch is a, it could be as, you know, a handful of soldiers, could be one, two, whatever. But you remember he says you have a watch, make it as sure as you can. So you'll see this word a couple of times in the King James. But essentially when you're talking about a watch, you're talking about a certain watch of the night. And if I'm not mistaken, it actually is not comparable to an hour. It's comparable to a shift.

And there's different opinions on it, so you can't be so precise about it. But because the days were reckoned from sundown, the first hour of the day is actually well, again, you have the day and night thing because remember when Jesus says, are there not 12 hours in a day? Well, no, Jesus, there's 24 hours in a day. But it is that their

reckoning of time was that there were 12 hours of daylight, 12 hours of dark. But the first hour of the day is actually the first hour of nighttime. If you're talking about a 24 hour day, as the sun comes up, that becomes daylight hours. And that's usually reckoned from about six o'clock. So the reckoning of time is probably not particularly what we're used to, but you'll get it as you read through the scriptures. You'll see that when they talk

about certain hours of the day, it can easily be translated so that we understand what it was. Now, this particular fourth watch of the night tells us that this was in, indeed, the nighttime. And Jesus decided to walk out to these people on the water. And he's walking on the sea toward them. Now, if you can put yourself on the boat for just a moment, these people are probably soaking wet. The Bible says that the wind was so bad that it lashed upon the boat. I don't know if you've been in a boat in a little heavier than what we would consider calm seas, but as the water lashed upon the boat and the winds carried that water, these people were probably soaking wet.

There was a lot of up and down and back and forth motions. There was mist coming from the sea, coming from the waves and such as that. So when they looked out there and they saw a figure of a man and they knew they weren't close enough to shore to actually see a man, they were amazed that they indeed saw a man standing in the water. Now, their ideas, I promised I would read this, didn't I? Well, perhaps I'll read it as we go. But as they saw this man coming to them on the sea their preconceived ideas uh usually get in the way of our understanding i mean even in this book this

this book that was written or printed at least in the 40s there's a little wood cut of jesus here and he's walking on the sea and he's got wings right well we know Jesus didn't have wings and there's you know we what is this these are all preconceived ideas that we have about Jesus I think many people will not recognize Jesus without a halo or without long hair without a white robe or without whatever they have invented in their mind as to who he is this is why when the antichrist comes many are going to think that he's jesus christ because he's going to look exactly like you think jesus ought to uh another story for another day well when they saw this uh jesus uh when jesus was standing there, Peter looked out there and said, it is a spirit. Now,

this comes not from any theology that Jesus taught. This comes from the theology, the understanding, the doctrine. Just growing up under all this for so many years, this was the way that he interpreted what he saw. And it was obviously a tumultuous night it was obviously you know visibility was very low and uh it would be very difficult to believe what you're seeing so jesus uh peter translated all this into it is a spirit now i would caution any christian especially those of us who are concerned about truth and there's many christians who frankly

are not but if you are one who is concerned with truth i think that it would behoove you to examine the kind of words you use the thoughts you use and the and the things that you that you're you're trying to translate something that's that's spiritual into some kind of a of an understanding so that you can grasp what you see that's why when people say they're going to heaven when they die i know what they mean they're not going to heaven when they die but i understand what they mean and there's no real point in uh you know giving them that that thing that wagging finger and telling them that is that they're wrong about this or that or if they want to talk about it fine but if they don't that's fine too um you know there's people who want to believe that jesus you know appears in some certain way or all these things are very insignificant unless

they're being taught as doctrine and you know you you probably noticed that my complaint is not with the the the vast membership of people out there that are trying to have a relationship with god and they're constantly being fed these pablum diets of man's opinion over the pulpit, they hardly have anything to work with, bless their hearts. And so they say things that are ridiculous, in some cases even stupid, ideological, trying to explain what they understand in the Spirit.

But I don't think that we need to be so critical about the way each other, one another, our brethren, express themselves. However, when it comes to the area of teaching, a minister is under a totally different set of rules. As a matter of fact, the Bible the bible says brethren be not many teachers seeing that we shall receive the greater condemnation i don't know how you're going to read that and not understand that you're going to be held teacher to a higher standard than will be any of the body of christ. Millions and millions of people, I believe,

will be saved, will be brought into the kingdom of God, even in the worst cases of ignorance. But I don't believe for one moment that anybody is going to be brought into the kingdom of God in willing ignorance. And when we are willingly ignorant of what we know to be so, we know it to be fact, we've read it in the scriptures, we understand exactly what the scriptures are trying to say, yet we rebel against what the Bible says and insist on our own way, you're walking a very dangerous path there. So Jesus didn't come back and give him a diatribe on,

look, when somebody's dead, they're in the ground, and they're awaiting the resurrection. What are you talking about, these spirits? What are you even saying that? Christians today, they have no compunction whatsoever of talking about their grandmother or their grandfather, you know, and oh, I feel like he's here. he's not here he's in the grave and the spirit that made him alive has returned to the father and will one day come back to that body if he's if he's brought back in

the first resurrection and he's going to be made alive again yeah you find that hard to believe you want to hear another story that's really hard to believe two people can mix microscopic particles and create a child is that do you understand that nobody does you want to hear another miracle take a seed that's been dead for 20 years and the little dry seeds stick it in the ground spit on it and you're going to have a plant you want to hear another miracle they go on and on so the miracle of the resurrection it's hardly even uh it's hardly even debatable is it i know i know you want to think that you're that your relatives are still alive and they're all floating around in here or whatever but there's nothing in

scripture about that now as i say it's it's not a matter of just chastising one another and trying to you know trying to correct them or make them see your way of thinking or whatever else we need to be a little kinder to each other but you teachers you ought to be ashamed of yourself you preachers you ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying some of the things you say you're just reinforcing things that are just simply not true and you're creating havoc in people's understanding and in their logic and their and their understanding of what's right and wrong you know when you when you say jesus can do anything do anything, do you really need to say that? Why would you need to say that to somebody? So Jesus can save people in their sins?

Look, the fact is, us fallible people, we fallible people, we're going to take whatever you say, and we're going to make a reason for us to continue doing what we've always done and expect a different result. So you ministers and teachers, you're under a totally different mandate, under totally different rules, and you're going to give an account for that. So, you know, I wouldn't brag about being a teacher, especially not to the Lord, when he says, one is your teacher.

Now, so we hear Peter say, it is a spirit. Well we hear peter say it is a spirit well jesus didn't say it's it's a spirit he says it's me and cheer up relax it's just me now as i say i think it was a playful thing on the part of of peter to say okay if it's you then i want to come out there too that you look like you're having a blast. This is great. And so Peter steps out of the boat and the Bible says he descends from the boat. This was not a little Sears John boat. This was a fishing boat. This was a boat of considerable size. And so when he descended down out of the boat, buddy, he was committed. You know, it's not like standing one foot in the John boat and then touching the water with your other foot and tapping it around and seeing if it's firm.

This was a guy that when you go over the side of a larger boat, you're committed. And buddy, he was committed when he came down out of that boat. It's also interesting that Jesus was probably far away from this boat at this particular point. As I say, the visibility was probably very, very slight at that time. So you could expect him to be 50, perhaps 100 feet away from this boat and still be recognized as a man um and uh so peter he's decided to go out on the water to him it wasn't that jesus was at the boat when this happened um you know jesus peter didn't want to go stand on the water he wanted to walk on the water bid me to come you see this this shows the distance between these men. So Peter decides he's going to go out there because the Lord said, come, good for him. And he's going to, none of the rest of the

disciples dared try this, but Peter decided he was going to go. And so he walks out and as he's walking on the water, he's, I can't believe he doesn't have this really goofy grin on his face and he's uh you know looking all around and he's fascinated with what's going on and i think that this is indicative or at least a a picture um a simile a metaphor metaphor of those of us who actually step out of our boat, the thing in which we trust to keep us afloat in life, and we're going to try something else. We're going to try something that kind of goes against nature. It goes against everything we've ever understood. Now Peter was a fisherman. He was well acquainted with the sea and with boats and with water. He's probably been in it a couple of times.

He understands these kinds of things. Now you're going to find that in your Christian experience that you are very well accustomed to doing things in a certain way. This is what gets the job done. This is not what gets the job done if i have to go from standing on this shore over to that island i know through experience that i'm going to have to have a boat to do that peter was well aware of this and um and you're going to find that what he acquired as far as knowledge of of boats and and water and fishing and storms and all these kind

of things starts to creep into his spiritual life so to speak as we continue with this thought as a metaphor many times i think people who have decided to step out of their boat and go toward jesus realize that, man, we're under a totally new set of laws here. We're under a totally new set of physics. I mean, things are really different in this situation, in our spiritual life, than they ever have been in our physical life and it's it's i don't know fortuitous i don't know that these two stories that we dealt with the last show and then this one the last show when we were talking about uh the uh jesus feeding the five thousand i was showing you that it's very important that we understand that our

physical needs and our physical nature and what we understand about life needs to merge in a very homogenous way to our spiritual lives, and they need not be separated. And many times when we do separate them, we push the spiritual part of our life, the spiritual power in our life, away from the physical and, you know, never the twain shall meet. This is when we spend all of our money and all of our time in doctors and hospitals, only to have the doctor finally come to us and say, all we can do now is pray. Well, you know, you could have done that before. What do you mean all we can do now is pray?

Well, what he's saying is the physical's been exhausted here, and if there is any turn for the better, it's going to be some spiritual manifestation or some good graces of God and these kind of things. I understand what they're saying. But I really think that this comes from this idea of separating spiritual from physical. And as I say, I think it's fortunate that we have this next story to come right behind this because what this is doing is showing us an opposite view that we must separate these two things. We have to do this. Well, is this

contradictory? Many times when we have to understand something and it's not in our mental purview to understand, we're going to find things that look like, smell like, they sound like when we talk about them, contradiction. When in reality, they're not contradiction, it's just that you cannot see the whole picture. So there is a time when things spiritual are to be separated from things natural and and there are times when things natural and things spiritual must overlap for for both of them to have their their their full impact in our life well so what's the rule how do we make this work friend you're going to have to make this work for yourself that's that's all there is to it you're going to have to figure these things out i wish i could tell you to turn over to second opinion 16 1 and read and it'll tell you exactly

what to do i wish i could do that but i can't so what do we need we need the word of god not our bibles we need to hear from the lord so you're going to find two essentially two different kinds of instructions and you're going to have to receive from the lord and the lord speaks to you and says now down in this situation here you're going to have to separate the spiritual from the physical your physical is getting in the way of the spiritual you're blocking you're blocking you know what i'm trying to show you here by your own intelligence and your own abilities and whatever else is in your life that is clogging up this understanding.

Well, then it's time to do that. There may be a time when you're saying that you're becoming so spiritually minded, you're no earthly good. And there may come a time that things have to be merged. Friend, I don't know how you're going to do this with a Sunday school quarterly. I really don't. I don't know where you're going to find a book that's going to explain this.

But your father sits and waits and bids us to the throne to hear him teach us exactly what he wants us to do. What are you afraid of doing that? Are you afraid you're not qualified? What is it that keeps us away from the most valuable resource of knowledge and understanding that could be available to any man on the face of the earth? This is so important. It's more important than anything in your life. Think, what's the most important thing in your life? Got it? This is more important. Why? Because when it comes to the physical thing in your life? Got it? This is more important.

Why? Because when it comes to the physical things in your life that you feel like are important, you're going to need the wisdom of God and the knowledge of God to handle those things in such a way as to not exacerbate the problem, make things work, make things worse, make them explode in your face, or find yourself with multiple problems because there's

another problem out there brewing that you weren't aware of while you're dealing with this one. And oh, does that sound like your life? Well, that was mine. And I think it's a lot of people's lives. We're just so busy trying to make things work that we're just not stopping and saying, you know, let's consult a manual on this. And our manual is not necessarily a book. Our manual is to sit at the feet of the Lord and let him teach us. So here we are. We've got these two stories that one, I believe, is trying to tell us, trying to teach us that we're supposed to combine our spiritual and our physical.

But in here was another one with your physical may be your problem. I explain. Peter is stepping out of a boat, a boat with which he is very familiar. He knows it has the capability of bearing his weight. And he has never, ever thought of his shoes as boats or something that can suspend him in the water and so he's he's trying something brand new well he needs to know that he's trying something brand new and that the the the laws by which he's lived the physical laws by which he's understood things

do not count in this situation it's going to take it's going to take the voice of the Lord in your life to tell you these things, but you need to be told these things because you're going to find yourself fighting against God's will in your life, fighting against your own conscience, fighting against your own common sense, and it's just going to be problem after problem after problem. Example. Peter is standing on water. He is standing on water at this point. Something that I assure you he's never done. And the Bible says that he looked about him and he saw the wind and the seas boisterous

and began to sink. Begin to sink, I boisterous and began to sink. Begin to sink, I'm sorry. He began to sink. Now, what in the world happened to poor old Peter? He switched back over into his understanding of physical things. Look, he's a fisherman. He knows that, I mean, even boats get destroyed and capsized by waves and wind. This is a problem.

And if a boat that's a thousand times his weight has the ability of being capsized, chances are these wind and waves around here are going to capsize him. He doesn't put his eyes on Christ as he did when he stepped out of the boat he didn't say bid me to walk out the other way or i want to walk toward the shore i want to go toward that island he said bid me to come to thee so what was in his what was in his sight it was jesus christ but when he looked about him what happened was is that he switched over into his understanding that he's had since he was a boy and he knew that wind that's a problem waves that's a problem this may not work like i thought now i mean you think about this the wind and the waves

what in the world does that have to do with walking on the water? Are you thinking in your wildest imagination that if it's calm enough, that you can walk on the water? Are you thinking that if it's not raining, and there's no wind, and there's no waves, that you can walk on the water? If a pond is still enough?

If it's glassy enough? See, it doesn't even make sense but we need the father to tell us no you're thinking about this wrong don't go that way that's not a concern here i've commissioned you i've called you i said go to the other side remember the other story when the when jesus calmed the waves in the seas he did that because these men were operating under a commission let's go to the other side of the lake and uh under that commission nothing counts nothing counts it's a wonderful place to live it's a wonderful place to exist but, that is not going to come through Bible study. It's not going to come through even your experiences. So there is a separation to be

made. Now, where you're going to make that separation, I wish I could give you instructions on this, but I can't. I would love to, but I can't. I i don't know but i do know where to send you and i and i just i i love the the words of the the quaker founder george fox when he's when he was trying to trying to tell people that we're not people's teacher jesus christ is our teacher and he says our duty in and friend let me tell you if you're a minister this is your duty too you step over this line you're stepping into that dangerous area where he says be not many teachers seeing that we shall receive the greater condemnation why would we be condemned for trying because our duty is clearly this we need to take people to the feet of Christ

and leave them there. That's what I'm trying to do for every person on earth. I don't have the wisdom to get you out of your mess. I don't have the wisdom to fix these problems for you or give you cute little sayings or little maxims to live by or little breakfast cards or scripture references. I can't do that.

But our Father can, and He's made it possible for you. Keep His commandments. Don't ever disobey your conscience and take time every day to hear the voice of the Lord. Keep His commandments, I'll come into you, and I'll guide you from the inside. I wish you the best on this journey I want you to start it today

If you haven't started it already, and if you have started it and you're finding great results I want to hear from you write to me would you please? It's the end of the broadcast now But I'd love to get your email to hear what you have to say Don at think red ink calm All right until next time 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