Words of Jesus Podcast - Prophesy - Who You Are to Be

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

Are you hungry for clarity? Are you anxious because you think you might-not-know what you need-to-know to be saved; to please God? Don't be afraid. Relax. God does not require that we know all truth. Our desire, as Christians is to hear "well done", not "well-believed", or well-educated; simply, "well done." Christians can live by Spirit, and keep the commandments, and not be under the law. How? The Commandments reveal who God wants us to be! ***Jesus and His Message Rejected at Nazareth (Part 2)HEARING that John had been cast into prison, Jesus returned to Galilee. He began to preach the gospel of God in the synagogues, saying:            “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye, and believe the gospel.”           His fame was spread through all the regions round about.            Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been reared, and went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. He stood up and read from the book of the prophet Isaiah, were it was written:           “’The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.’”           All eyes fastened on him as he began to preach, saying:           “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”           Many of those present were bewildered, and others were awe-inspired. They questioned among themselves.           “Is this Joseph’s son?”           Others hearing him were astonished. They said:           “From whence hath this man these things? And what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?           And they were offended at him.           Jesus continued, saying:           “Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.’ But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when then Heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many the lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.”                When they had heard these things, those in the synagogue were filled with resentment. They

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series brought to you by Think Red Inc. Ministries in Pytown, New Mexico. And those of you who've been watching the show, there's folks out there that are enjoying this, and you want to see it every day, but I still haven't heard from you. If you'll walk over to your computer and write me an email, I sure would like it.

You don't have to say anything other than, hey, I'm watching you on TV. That's all. If you like it or if you don't, I'd love to hear from you either way. I'm certainly not afraid of detractors. I'm certainly not afraid of hearing that some people have questions. And I know sometimes when things go against our traditional denominational understanding, people handle that different way. Some people just run like scared rabbits

because they've been pretty well pounded by their pastor. Beware of false prophets! So they're scared to death i understand that and some people uh just kind of blow up like a junkyard dog and want to fight with you and i understand that i hate to say i understand that i wish i could say that i'm not guilty of that but there was a time when i yeah wanted, wanted to fight my way through. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. But then there are some people who are just hurt, and they're a little bit scared, and they're

thinking, if things aren't the way I always thought they were, you know, perhaps I'm not saved. Perhaps I'm really not a Christian. Well, I'm afraid that a lot of times those thoughts come to us because of what our preachers say over the pulpit. You need to be sure. Look, friend, you're sure. Are you trying to tell me that the creator of the universe has leaned

off of his throne of the universe and touched you and changed you on the inside and made you a child of God and given you the power to become a son of God and is actively involved in changing your life and regenerating your spirit and you don't know it? It's one of the silliest arguments I hear is that people say, you know you need to be sure. Well how do I be

sure, preacher? Well, you know, have you been baptized? Are you a member of the church? Do you believe the Trinity? Do you believe the doctrines of the church? Do you sing hymns and not rock music? Do you wear your dresses a certain length? Do you do this? Do you do... What are you going to do? Just come up with a big long list of things that we check ourselves by? I got a letter from someone recently that said he was worried about his salvation because he didn't love

his neighbor like he should. And you know I wrote him back and said you should be worried. Because you know all the silly list I just gave you, you're not going to find that in the Scripture. Well you won't. Try as you might, none of those things I listed there are Scriptural principles that Christians are supposed to obey or believe. But there is something in there that says we know that we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. And this fellow is saying I'm a little

concerned about myself. And I said, well, you should be. You should be. Because if that evidence isn't in your life, I don't care what else is in your life. I'll pay my tithes every month. Well, good for you. But you don't love your neighbor? You know, how do you do that?

How do you pay tithes to first whatever church and then go to the demonstration downtown to run all the Muslims off or whatever? I don't know. Who are the people you hate anyway? You need to take a look at them and wonder why do you do that? I guess I don't want to discourage you right off here.

I really want to encourage you because I know that there is that element of people out there that hear something a little different and they're thinking maybe I don't understand everything. Hey, you don't! Maybe I don't know as much as I thought I did. You don't! Look, we're all trying to find our way. Our God has decided to run this earth by a remote location.

He doesn't live on this earth anymore. You can take umbrage with that comment if you want to. But the truth is, is God's on his throne. And he rules from heaven. And the earth is his footstool. You know, this is where he's located. Now, Jesus, the good news that he gave us was, footstool. You know, this is where he's located. Now Jesus, the good news that he gave us was, if you'll keep my commandments, keep my commandments,

if you'll keep my commandments, then I'll move into you. We'll both take up our abode in you. By the Spirit of God they do this. And they become a part of our life. Nowhere does the Scripture say you have to know everything. Do you know the Scriptures don't even say that you have to know all truth? What it does say. What exactly does it tell us? What does it say that we need to do in order to

be safe from the strong delusion that is coming on the earth that's going to cause people to believe a lie and be damned? What protection do you have against that? Do you have any protection? I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that you need to read your Bible more. You need to go to seminars. You need to buy books on prophecy. you need to go to the denominations that

teach prophecy all the time. So you, somebody wrote to me the other day and said, you know, if you can get a hold of this concept that I'm, you know, he sent me this paper, you know, if you can get a hold of this concept, you'll be able to identify the Antichrist. I don't care. I don't care. Why would I do that? I got a feeling that when he shows up, his intention is not to hide.

His intention is to let people know exactly who he is. And I don't want you to take from this that I happen to believe that the Antichrist is a person, not necessarily a spirit or a spirit, not necessarily a person. I've never really come to grips with all that anyway. I'm trying to make sense of it, but you know what I want to do? I want to love my neighbor. I want to do the right thing for the right reason every time. I want to do? I want to love my neighbor. I want to do the right thing for the right reason every time. I want to please God. I want him to look at me and say, well done. Not well believed,

but well done. Not well educated, but well done. The testimony that we have about some of the disciples that got around folks that recognized intelligence and recognized education when they saw it was that their evaluation of the disciples were that they were ignorant and unlearned men. But they knew they'd been with Jesus. Can you get better than that? Can somebody say something about you better than that? No, we want them to say that we're highly educated. And even today, I notice that even from the time I was a child until an adult, it

has changed in the parlance of Christians when they talk about a man. I can remember my mom pointing out or my dad pointing out or somebody pointing out a certain person and saying, that's a very spiritual man. Well, over the years as I've gotten older I found out that that means well educated now. That means that he has an ability, an educated

ability to think in spiritual terms. And I'm thinking, wow, man, things are changing. Look, you don't need education, friend. You need revelation. And when we have revelation, what you have on the other end of that revelation is an almighty God who loves you and cares for you and he will give you what you can do. He's like a perfect teacher. It's not a teacher that has intention on making sure all 40 students are all on the same level and pulling the advanced students

back a little and pulling the advanced students back a little and boosting the slower ones and trying to get everybody on the same level. He couldn't care less about what level you're on or what level the class or the whole is. He cares about what level you are on. No, he hasn't explained eschatology to you? You don't know the word eschatology? It's okay! It's alright. It's just a part of hermeneutics and

exegesis. You see, there are people who love to use those kind of words to impress you, but look, the truth is that the Lord may want to teach you the right way to speak to your son. He might want to teach you the right way to handle your daughter's situation. He might want to teach you how to get along with your wife or how to get along with your husband. Now those things we can use. That's where

our Lord lives. And that is how we live with each other. It's the most important thing there is to Him. Nowhere do you find Him pushing the idea of that we need to learn. I know the Apostle Paul talks about to get a hold of and learn sound doctrine. I understand that. And sound doctrine is good for us. But do you know if you look at the characteristics of God

and His character way back in the Old Testament and when He would speak to His people what was He concerned about? You guys are cheating each other. You're taking each other's wives. You're not doing the right thing. People go to court and the judge is bought off before they get there. You're perverting justice. What was his concern? Well, he sounds more like a Berkeley graduate than he does a preacher.

Social justice. But I'm going to tell you something. There's something to that. We're supposed to live with one another like we love each other. And if you don't love each other, perhaps you need to look into the only power that I know of, the only religion I know of, the only philosophy I've ever heard of that if you'll follow this, I'll change you on the inside and you'll love your brother. I love that idea.

Can I get off the subject? Can I get all the way from our book for just a moment? I want to share with you something that the Lord revealed to me several years ago now. But because I became intrigued with the Hebrew roots of Christianity because you know, acknowledging the fact that Jesus is indeed Jewish and that He grew up in that culture, it became very important to me to find out what that was all about. Well, if you try to do that, you're going to find yourself striking hands

or becoming friends with, or at least cohorts of, a really oddball fringe group out there that essentially believe that the Old Testament has, there's nothing ever changed, nothing changed. Some even fond of saying there's nothing new in the New Testament. That everything, that's the only reason Jesus came to the earth was to

reestablish the old covenant. And so they live by what they consider to be the law of God which includes more or less 613 laws. They're very careful about making sure there's no linen and cotton mixture in their clothing and that they eat a certain way and they live a certain way and they do certain things at certain times. All the rules and such are very important to them. Well, when I found

myself frequenting some of these kinds of people and listening to their teaching and their philosophy and these kind of things, they placed a great value on the Ten Commandments, which they very well should. The Ten Commandments have not passed away and will not pass away until all things be fulfilled. I don't know what all things are, but that's what will happen before the law goes away.

Jesus was speaking of the Ten Commandments that He wrote in stone with His own finger. Not 613 laws, not the Mishnah, not the Talmud, not the opinions of rabbis and Sanhedrins over the years, but actually the Ten Commandments of our God. Well, as I read those kinds of things and was hanging around the kind of people who are essentially of the legalistic sort, I get accused

of being legalistic. I don't take any shame in that. I found out that secretly legalistic means obey God. But there is such a thing as wasteful legalism. And when I found myself involved in that, I started to reevaluate just exactly what these ten commandments really are and what place should they occupy in my life.

And the Lord was very, very good to me in that He gave me a revelation about the commandments that essentially I don't know that I ever could have come up with on my own. Which is really the way we're supposed to be living, right? But if you don't mind let me say this in a

modern and familiar vernacular so that you can understand this. I am not, and I get so tired of having to qualify this because if I say the Lord said this to me, and then I said this to him, and then he said this to me, people, they run off with that thinking, oh, wow, he has conversations with God. No, no, that's not what I'm saying. It's not what I'm trying to get across to you. I'm just saying that most of the conversations, if you want to call them, that we have with our Lord are inner knowing.

When he speaks to us, he speaks in our native tongue, the tongue we were born with in the Garden of Eden. It's in our DNA. Adam gave it to us. And he speaks in that language and they are wordless words that are within the heart of mankind. You'll understand what I mean if you'll take time every day to hear the voice of God because he's wanting very much to speak with us. So I'm dealing with these commandments and wondering about the legalism of the whole thing and I was

I'm always fascinated with the atheist point of view because I find that atheists, 80% of their complaint with Christianity in general or religion in general has to do with their complaints with the silly ideas that the church had brought about. God had nothing to do with it. And so they end up hating him because of a bunch of silly preachers that just want to say what other preachers say or getting their sermons from each other.

But there was an atheist piece I don't know if it was something I read or something I watched but he was talking about how hateful these commandments are. Thou shalt not do this and you won't do this and you won't do that. And he was going on about this doesn't sound like a God of love to me. Which is kind of disgusting in itself. Most of these people never experienced love. If they experienced the love that

my father used to give me, they would understand. But I remember going to the Lord about this and saying, you know, I need clarity here on exactly how do these commandments fit into a Christian's life? I understand how they fit in a Jew's life. I get that. I get that. You know, there's the rule, obey it. Just do what you're told. And, you know, no fuss, no must, just do as you're told. But how do they fit into Christian's life? How is it that I can, how is it the Apostle Paul says that if you live by the Spirit of God, then you're no longer under the law? I got really fascinated with

the idea of being under the law. Not something that guides me day to day, not something that sits beside me or walks beside me or is a guideline for my life, but under the law, as if the law was oppressing them or pressing them down. And I thought, that's what I'm trying to avoid. So how do I walk in the Spirit and yet keep the law within my heart? And where do

the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament come? Have I created in you now any kind of questions here? Have I created something in you that makes you want to say, yeah, what is that? Because that's what I'm trying to do here. You need to know with what hunger I approached the Lord about this. Because this was very heavy on me. And I wanted clarity on this. The Lord said to me,

you understand. The Lord said to me, here's the way I want you to read the commandments. Not as a list of rules, but as a list of prophecies. Well, as is His way, he leaves you for two or three days and lets you chew on that for a while. I was totally confused. I thought, oh yeah, that really helps. I must have

misunderstood. I missed this. Prophecies? What in the world does this mean? But boy, oh boy, there was a day when he opened that up to me and I have never struggled with this again. You know when the Bible says thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not bear false witness. I saw them for the first time as just adding a preface to these commandments

like so. To as many as received him, to them gave he power to not commit adultery. To them gave he power to not steal from his neighbor. To them gave he power to become the sons of God. He says when you look at this, I want you to see these things as prophecy.

When you are the way you're supposed to be, you're thinking the way you're supposed to think, your doctrines and your ideas, your philosophy, theosophies, theology is all where it needs to be, and you're living in a purity and in a sanctity like you're supposed to you will not kill. You will not steal. You won't covet. You won't lie.

You're going to honor your father and mother. When you're living like you're going to honor your father and mother. When you're living like you're supposed to live and the regenerating power of God is at work in your soul, you're not going to take the Lord's name in vain. You're not going to worship idols. When you are becoming who you need to be, and we need to remember that the Bible, when it uses the word saved,

is actually saying being saved. So if you don't mind, I'd rather say, as we are being saved, these commandments become prophecies about us. That we're not going to be those nasty people anymore. As we're regenerated day by day, all of a sudden, we don't lie. We don't steal. We don't do our neighbor wrong.

We honor the Lord. We keep the Sabbath. We do everything that he wants done. It's just a part of us. And the law changed in my mind from a list of rules and things that were going to condemn me and throw me out of the kingdom of God, things that were going to ascribe my soul

to destruction in Gehenna turned into prophecies about this is the end that I expect for you. This is my expected end for you. This is where end that I expect for you. This is my expected end for you. This is where I see you going. And I thought, wow, the commandments aren't things to run from, they're things to run toward. Wow, this is not something to be avoided.

These are goals. You know, many different reasons I share this with you. One is that we kind of got off the subject. But, you know, that aside, I'm trying to encourage you. Because I know if you've been watching the show, as we started out saying, you've heard some things you've never heard before. And you sit and wonder, and wonder if that's right, or if this is wrong, or what I've always believed was wrong.

And you can get a little discouraged. Here's what I'm saying. The law used to discourage me that way, too. And I used to think, this is awful. This doesn't do anything but condemn me. Every time I turn around I find myself in violation of these things. And then when, you know, people take the law and turn it into the spiritual aspect of

I mean, for example, stealing from someone and then extending that into, you know, if you download software and don't click that I agree or something, that that's the same thing as stealing. And look, I'm not for pirating software, but I'm saying that when you put these things in the nth degree, the law just starts to condemn you everywhere you look.

Well, here's what I found. The law doesn't have to condemn you. It can be your goal by which you can and should live. However, there is one thing that is going to make that change in your life. One thing is going to pull you out of that fog you're in now wondering have i done the right thing am i really a christian am i really the way i ought to be you know do i really understand you know do i need to really get saved that's that's the word that most protestant preachers stick on there to make people doubt their salvation.

But those kind of times when you're in that funk, there's only one thing that is going to pull you out of that, and that's revelation from God. And I gave you this wonderful little, you know, this little candy sucker that he stuck in my mouth and said, you know, don't sweat these commandments. They're your friends, not your enemies. I give you that example to let you know that those kind of revelations, those kind of wonderful, beautiful things, they're available for you. You're going to have to pursue them. You're going to have to keep his commandments in order for him to come inside you and lead you by the Spirit of God.

And I'm not saying all this stuff is so easy. I am saying that it's available to you. All you have to do is receive Christ as king. That he is indeed Lord. To as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become a child of God. What could be better than this? Oh, time's gone. Time for us to go. Join us next time to hear more of the words of Jesus. Hey, we want to hear from you. Let us know you're listening. Send an email to

Don at ThinkRedInc.com or you can write to ThinkRedInc Ministries at Predinc.com or you can write to Think Red Inc. Ministries at PO Box 718 Pytown, New Mexico 87827. Alright, bye bye for now. See you next time. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you