Words of Jesus Podcast - Ready To Give An Answer

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

The instruction of the Scriptures is often opposite the instructions of men. Jesus said we must deny ourselves, die and follow Jesus. We show the light to the world by our lives. If the world is not asking "of us" no light is shinning. Muslims, Jews, Christians are known as people of the book. Disciples are not people of the book; we are people of the author.***Ch. 54: Jesus At The Feast Of TabernaclesJohn 7:1-8:59Jesus Rejects The Advice of His Brothers To Go To JerusalemWhen the Feast of the Tabernacles was at hand, Jesus’ brothers said to him:            “Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, if he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world.”            Even his brothers did not believe in him.            Jesus replied to his advisers:            “My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this feast. I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet fullcome.”            And Jesus continued yet a while in Galilee. But, after his brothers had left for Jerusalem, he also went to the feast, not openly but secretly.Jesus Defeats An Attempt To Arrest Him            The authorities, suspecting that Jesus was in the city, asked:            “Where is he?”            The people murmured about him. Some said:            “He is a good man.”             Others said:            “Nay, but he deceiveth the people.”            However, all were afraid to speak openly of Jesus, for fear of the authorities.  About the middle of the feast Jesus went into the temple and taught. Many people, surprised at his words, said:            “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?”            Jesus answered them saying:            “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory; but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why ye go about to kill me?”            The people answered:            “Thou hast a devil. Who goeth about to kill thee?”            Jesus replied:            “I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;) and ye on the Sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the Sabbath...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris. Hello, my friend, and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris. Glad to have you on board as we kind of walk through the words of Jesus, get a little red ink on our feet, let it soak up into your bloodstream. Pretty soon, I bet it's already starting to happen to you that as you get to know the Savior like we're getting to know Him, you start to think like He thought. Buddy, when that happens, what's happening to you in scriptural parlance, you're receiving and walking in and living in the mind of Christ,

thinking red ink. All right, we are still in chapter 54, a rather large chapter in our little book, The Words of Jesus, and he's talking about Jesus proclaiming the light of the world. Jesus spoke, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The light of life is a pretty significant statement. Jesus used the term to walk in darkness.

He said that if you walk in darkness, you're going to stumble. Now, I know that in the modern idea of Christianity, we have tried to erase this problem by saying that, well, we all stumble, we all sin, we sin every day, can't keep the commandments, you know, and that, you know, his mercy endures forever, and we can get forgiveness and these kind of things, which are all, you know, have value in themselves. But it's not Jesus's intention for us to walk in darkness and continually stumble. The idea is to walk in light so that we do know our footsteps.

We know where we're going. We know what's going on. And we don't stumble over things. We don't have these rocks of offense that cause us to fall on our face from time to time. Jesus says, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Remember he said, his three-part advice to us was, one, to deny yourself. Two, to take up your cross and follow him. Two and three is to take up the cross and follow him uh two and three is to take up the cross and follow him and he's saying that if you follow me you will not walk in darkness now i know that as as you

read your scriptures i used to like to ask people, does the Bible say that Jesus is the light of the world, or does it say that you are the light of the world? Well, the answer to the question is both. And we are the light to the world. Jesus is the light to us. Now, when he says that he's the light of this world, he is the light in this world. He is the light by which we as Christians ought to live so that we don't walk in darkness. The Bible is very clear that the world is in darkness. They are in darkness. And the only way that they are ever going to receive any light

is by Jesus Christ who is the light of the world and they are brought to that light by us who are the light of the world as well. It's not a contradiction. It's not really as difficult to understand as you might think. There is such a thing as the light of the world. There is such a thing as a guiding light in this world. And the fact of the matter is, is that the world has no relationship with the light of the world.

The only thing they have a relationship with is you. This is why that true and honest New Testament scriptural witnessing is not us going out and telling people that they're living in darkness and that they need to come to Jesus and asking them questions about their eternal home or their eternal existence or how they plan on going to heaven when they die. The scriptural method of witnessing is to give an answer to those who ask of the hope that is within us.

Now that hope is that light. They see the light in you. They know that it's different and they ask. You say, well, you know, nobody really asks me. Well, what do I need to tell you? I'm afraid it's not good news, my friend. Are you really thinking that you can live in a world that has the problems that this world has, and you don't look any different than anybody else in this world? There's no one that is asking you about the hope that is in you you that's kind of a dangerous situation isn't it i mean for you it's a hopeless one for them because you know if if you know the the apostle paul asked the question you know how how are they going to how's the world ever going to have any hope how are they ever going to come to this knowledge without you being sent as a preacher how should they preach except they be

sent and so until we become those preachers who have the ability to answer the question not not pose a question but to answer the question and that is about the hope that is within us. So we're the light of the world. We're the light of the lost world. Jesus is our light. That's the difference in the two. I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,

but shall have the light of life. The Pharisees accused him, saying, Thou bearest record of thyself. Now what did they mean by this? The Old Testament was not only a religious book. To the Jew it also held the societal values and laws by which a nation should be run. I know that it's very un-PC today to insist that social order can be derived from the scriptures and I am not a theocrat. i just happen to believe

that when god established the the the israel that he gave them certain laws by which they should live the jews understood this perfectly and there are certain laws of of adjudication of deciding whether or not somebody had done something wrong, the testimony of two or three witnesses, these kinds of things. There were derivatives of these laws that became axiomatic to the Jew who would make a statement such as, you bear record of yourself. Therefore, your record is not true. Why is that?

Well, because the Bible says, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. You can say you're the Messiah, but we have no reason to believe you whatsoever because you bear witness of yourself. Therefore, we're off the hook here. We don't have to believe what you're saying.

Jesus replied, Look at this just a moment. If someone accuses you of doing something wrong, according to the Jewish law, you are to have two or three witnesses that witnessed that wrong being done coming to the gates of the city, to the courts, to the elders reporting that, and that person perhaps will stand a trial there, and the witnesses will come forth and

witness against him by the way this is what the commandment means when it says thou shalt not bear false witness i know your mom probably told you probably good advice but it's it's not theologically correct uh that thou shalt not bear false witness and i've even heard it translated this way is thou shalt not lie but that is not what it is saying at all it's it's not good to lie the the new testament says lie not one to another speak man to you. Every man should speak truth to his neighbor. It's very obvious that we shouldn't lie to each other, but it's not the commandment. The commandment is according to this,

what we're talking about now, and that is that the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, some people call it, is very clear that there should be two or three witnesses and he's saying that those witnesses, if they witness against someone or for someone and they do so falsely, they've not only violated a commandment against their neighbor, their friend, their family, whoever it happens to be that they're witnessing

against, but they're actually committing perjury, which we call perjury today, which means to lie under oath. And when it says thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, you have to understand that when God considers you to be a part of Israel, you're already under oath. You're already under oath to speak the truth. And it's one of my arguments with our judicial system that demands that you swear that you're going to tell the truth. Look, I'm Christian. I've already sworn. I'm sworn in, as you say.

And therefore, to swear that i'm going to tell the truth is actually kind of an admission that in most cases i lie most cases i what i say is not necessarily true but today i'm going to tell the truth well no we're to tell the truth all the time and in order to establish what is true that's coming out of a person's mouth, the Old Testament was clear. One was not enough. Two or three witnesses, that'll do it. Well, what about this singular witness?

They're saying that you're only a singular witness, therefore, your record, what you're bearing record of yourself, and it's just simply not true. Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true, Jesus said. Oh, I wanted to tell you that if you swear to, if you have one witness

that witnesses that something is true, if what he's witnessing to is indeed, was indeed a fact, and it is true, just because it's one person saying it does not mean that it's not true. It just means that you can't adjudicate someone based upon that testimony. You can't adjudicate someone based upon that testimony you can't judge a person whether

whether or not they're right or wrong or in or out or whatever the the decision is going to determine you can't do that by one person it doesn't mean that what they're saying is not true. However, the Pharisees took this situation and were trying to say that because you bear witness to yourself, your witness is not true. Jesus replied, though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true. This is what I was just saying. For, because I know whence I came. I know where I came from, is what he said. And I know where I'm going, whither I go. But you cannot tell whence I come, or where came from or whether I go or whether I go. Actually, the word is whither. You don't know where I'm going.

You don't know where I'm coming from or where I came from. You judge after the judgment of the flesh. I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am the Father that sent me. It's also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true i am come to that i am come i'm sorry i am one that bear witness of myself and the father that sent me bears witness of me there's your two men if you want them then the pharisees asked j, where is thy father? Now, what was that? What was that little smart aleck, snarky little remark?

Well, this was that he didn't have a father. And the connotation here, and you'll find it in other places, is that Jesus grew up under the idea that he was, and we use the term illegitimate, they didn't. we're just kind of priggish and kind of snooty about some things that they weren't so snooty about for example in our country if a guy and his

wife weren't married when she had the baby that this child is what you know is is that the word bastard that um that kind of scars this child for life when in reality in jewish thought that wasn't the case at all um as a matter of fact if their parents were responsible in that they would be parents to this child and be married, this was not a problem. It is in our society because, you know, a lot of our ideas and the way we run our church and stuff

all come from women that have different ideas than men do and um so uh you know a bastard was in those days this was a a child born of whoredom and not not of not a guy and a girl that made a mistake on prom night so you know that we need we need to kind of we're not kind of we need to stop that kind of talk um so he says that uh i and my father bear witness of myself and so they throw out where is thy father now at this point uh we're kind of thinking that joseph was dead at this point i don't know that how how we can know that, but I'm really wondering if he was or wasn't when this was said, because he said, where is thy father? I think he was saying, who is your father? They were making reference to the fact that he was born under shady circumstances.

And then Jesus answered, he says, you don't know me or my father if you had known you should have known my if you'd known me you'd have known my father also he's seriously indicting these people at this point although jesus spoke these words in the temple still no effort was made to arrest him for his hour had not yet come here it is again that that the time for these things to to come about to come out for jesus to do what it was that he was that he was here to do had it hadn't fallen in place yet the clock hadn't ticked past this time yet here we have jesus arousing anger by claiming sonship with god jesus continued to speak saying i go my way and you shall seek me and shall die in your sins whether i go you cannot come the jews said among themselves will he kill himself

because he says whether i go you cannot come jesus said to the jews you're from beneath i'm from above you're of this world i'm not of this world i said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins for if you believe not that i am he you will die in your sins this is one of the most condemning scriptures in in the bible uh this is probably one of the most misused, the misunderstood, and one of the most resented by the Jewish public. Anybody who's ever watched Larry King's show, and there's ever been a Christian on that show that made his Christianity public, the question was always asked to him,

so if we don't believe in Jesus, we're not going to heaven or we're going to hell i forget how he phrases the question but you get the gist of it and so he leaves the christian to crawl around in him hall and try to crawfish his way through this question because uh nobody's really got guts enough to look at a Jew and say, yeah, right. I mean, yeah, you have to understand that he sent his son here to redeem us. And if, and if, and if you don't receive him as the son of God, I don't know why you think Jewishness is going to help you. You know, well, we do know why a lot of them feel that way. They feel like that they are God's chosen people and that they have some kind of an in or some kind of a pardon that's immediately available to them.

But you have to understand, they have to understand, it's written in their scriptures, that there was a time when God winked at the ignorance of men but now he commands all men everywhere to repentance you have to understand that something drastic happened the messiah came to the earth he was or wasn't what people expected him to be i don't know can't really say i don't know what they were expecting but they missed him they missed him so badly that they caricatured him as a wicked man and ended up murdering the son of god this was a huge indictment against firstly against the religion of the jews that even allowed

such a thing as that but they're notorious for going around the laws and getting the romans to do their dirty work or and in some cases getting christians to do their dirty work and they because they really don't feel like gentiles are are much different according to the talmud and not much different than a pig a chicken or a cow and uh so you know they they get around their laws and do some very hateful and dishonest things that they know within their heart their heart is condemning them uh but they they feel like that it's okay because it's okay with the law pretty much like a a girl that goes to get an abortion and you think how can you do that and she looks at you and says well there's no law against it

it's it's on that same level where they feel like that if it's not against the law that it's okay and uh and i'm afraid that that's a that's a originated with jewish thought or probably with thought of mankind in general but here you have them justifying what they do by the law. And because they live that way, they feel like that they're getting to know the Father. They have the same problem that we have as Christians. The Jews, the Christians, the Muslims, all three claim to be and have been called over years, over centuries centuries in some case millennia

the people of the book now that is something that that is said a lot and in the in the day we live in in christianity in the world of christianity when you're dealing with word of faith movements you hear them say it and and even brag on you know we i'm not moved by what i see i move by what i believe and i believe what the bible says all right you know that's all goose bumpy and everything but the truth is we're not people of a book god is not a book not in any way shape or form is he of a book. God is not a book. Not in any way, shape, or form is he of a book. If he's not of a book, then he's not of the print. If he's not of print, he's not of ink, and he's not of paper. Nobody believes those things, but they believe that in many cases people feel like the Bible is God. These people had a relationship with the Torah,

therefore they felt like they had a relationship with God. Jesus said if you had a relationship with God, you'd know who I am. You would understand the witness that I live under, that the Father witnesses that I am the Son of God. I witness that I'm the Son of God. There's your two witnesses. Go off and deal with that you know the idea of the bible being the word of god it's just it's just one of those um

metaphors that breaks down so fast that it's hardly even worth holding on to i've asked people so you believe that that this printed book is the Word of God? Yes. What if it was black ink printed on black paper? Would that still be the Word of God? Are you wondering about that? These pages are all black. You can't see a word on it, but I assure you it's been printed, but it's been printed with black ink. Very, very difficult to read. I ask you, a King James Bible, black ink printed on black paper, is it still the word of God? You see, it's not denigrating, it's not despising or rejecting the Bible for what it is. It is setting aside, calling the Bible something that it doesn't call itself.

And removing a title that belongs to jesus christ a an adjective an adjective phrase that means to hear the word of god within our own selves and we apply all those things to the bible and i'm just afraid you're going to be disappointed mom you ought to be disappointed. I mean, you've got 30,000 denominations to go through before you find 30 or 40, I understand. And 4,000 major denominations. You've got that many to go through to find the truth because every one of them say they're based on the words in this book. Is it a word if it's black ink on black paper?

All right, I'll let you think about that tonight when you're going to sleep. Now, Jesus says, you don't know me or my father. And if you had known me, you would have known my father also. Although Jesus spoke these words in the temple, still no effort was made to arrest him, for his hour was

not yet come. Then we moved into Jesus claiming sonship. When Jesus said, I'm going to go my way, he was saying that he was going to go back to the Father. And the Jews were thinking, what do you mean we can't follow him does that mean he's going to try to kill himself and jesus was trying to say look you don't understand what i'm saying because you're from beneath and i'm from above even the same that i said unto you from the beginning uh was his answer to their question who are you and jesus's answer was i've told you from the beginning who i was what is your problem why is it you don't understand well i'll tell you why they don't understand their god's a book their souls are empty and in some cases even their heads are

empty friend we don't need to find ourselves in this condition. Is time gone already? My goodness. That's all we've got time for today. But we'll take it up here next time. Hey, tell me who you are and where you're listening. If you will, I'd love to get an email from you. You can email me at don at thinkredink.com. Gotta go for now.

We'll see you next time. Till then, think red ink. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of think red ink ministries, email don at think red ink.com. That's think red. I N K. Dot com. ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com.

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