Words of Jesus Podcast - Subjects Obey the King

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

Be Christian. Not having everything you want, but wanting everything you have. Our natural inclination is to dispense with God’s rules and do life our way.  We make our fences to protect the commandments and we make our fences to avoid doing what is commanded.  Servants obey.  When we meet those who “…walk not with us…” love them anyway. Christians have the power to suffer wrongfully, to forgive and to live humbly. Our goal is regeneration.***Chapter 39: Jesus Defends His Disciples for Eating with Unwashed Hands Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23Certain Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus, finding fault that his disciples ate bread with unwashed hands.             For, according to tradition long handed down, the Pharisees and Jews could not eat without first washing their hands. There were many other old laws concerning the washing of cups, pots, brass vessels, and tables.            The Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus:            “Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? They wash not their hands when they eat bread.”            Jesus replied:            “Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups; and many other such like things ye do. Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ and ‘Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death.’ But ye say, ‘If a man shall say to his father or mother, “It is Corban,” that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.’ And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or mother; making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered; and many such like things do ye.”            Then Jesus called all the people to him and said:            “Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand. There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”            When Jesus retired from the people into the house, his disciples came to him and said:            “Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?”            Jesus replied:            “Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone. They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”            Then Peter, the disciple, said:            “Declare unto us this parable.”            Jesus answered:            “Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into man, it cannot defile him; because it...

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. Don Harris, your host. And we've been talking from chapter 39 in our book. And this is where Jesus is defending his disciples against the accusations of the scribes and Pharisees about them not keeping their traditions. And yesterday we talked about traditions and I tried to do so in a loving way because, you know, our beloved brother, the Jew,

we need not turn him into some kind of a villain that, you know, hates God or, you know hates god or you know he's you know a religious zealot or whatever else because you know the fact is is we hardly differ from these people and many others by the way that are trying to serve god is as best we know and you know when we were talking last time we were talking about how the fences are being built around the commandment and in some cases even fences around the fences in order to keep us from violating a commandment of god uh you and you might wonder didn't jesus do that when he said if you think about it that uh it's as it's as bad as violating the commandment? Well, first of all, he didn't say that. But second, I think that Jesus was teaching at that particular point that there is such a thing as a person moving into another area

that is past obedience, which is regeneration. Not only can you live free from the violation of those commandments, but you can live free from the desire to break those commandments. And that's that point of regeneration that he was trying to sell to that rich young ruler that day. Because the rich ruler was saying, you know, I'm keeping the commandments. What do I lack now?

Which would be a very great question for most of us to ask ourselves. So Jesus was not building arbitrary fences at that point, but religion seems to do that. They want to abstain from all appearance of evil. Well, unfortunately, they want to abstain from all the appearance of evil as interpreted by the particular denomination or church that they attend. There are people who will not, cannot, in some cases, fellowship with other people who love the Lord essentially as much as they do, but they can't fellowship with them because, why, that church, they take their kids roller skating. Can you tell that I was raised up in a Pentecostal church?

They take them roller skating. And, you know, you can't have anything to do with them well it's really time to stop all that foolishness if you want to you want to make yourself a little holier than thou club do it but please you know spell christianity with a k or something to distinguish yourself from the christ of 2 000 ago, who taught us very clearly that, hey, you know what? If they're not against us, they're for us. If they're for us, then they're not going to speak anything ugly against us.

So can't we all just kind of get along here? Now, there are people that are going to have serious problems when we're putting the words of Rodney King into the mouth of Jesus. But, you know, it's really a good question. If Christians don't have what it takes to love one another and to get along with one another and to just, you know, if we don't like something, why not just suffer with it?

If the Christians can't do this, who in the world is going to do this? That's what I want to know. Nobody is better qualified to suffer than Christians are. We're the richest people on two feet in this world. We have more than anybody else in this world. We're tied to a power that they don't even understand. And you want to make sure that you take them to court and sue them for everything they've got? jesus his attitude was different than that wasn't it well they're going to take your coat i give them your shirt too look at the look on their face um anyway this idea of building fences around the commandments i just want you to to know that I'm not speaking disparagingly of anyone who is actually doing that

if what they're doing is not necessarily building a denomination or building a us-for-and-no-more kind of a club, but people who are really trying to worship the Lord and to give Him His due and to live a life that pleasing before him and i just think that that's the case more than not am i naive i don't know don't care but it does help me sleep at night realizing that not everybody who disagrees with me is wicked and on their way to

hell um so jesus is trying to teach these now look, you're putting way too much emphasis on your tradition. And he gave the example, I think it's interesting, I was starting to tell you last segment of the show, that they would make these traditions, and sometimes it wasn't necessarily building a fence around the commandment, but building a fence around the commandment but building a pathway around it oh boy that's that really gets dangerous now now we're dealing with wickedness do you understand the difference if i decide that i am going to um i i need to i need to violate a commandment of God,

I can pretty much come up with what I need to go around this commandment and still have some feeling that I'm keeping the commandment and I'm not so bad, and I'm not as bad as that guy or that gal or whoever. But man, that's just wrong. That's wicked. That's selfish.

It's very, very unchristian. Now, the temple in those days and the priest, you have to understand that the priesthood was a group of men who were called by God to be priests and they had different ministries within the temple. Some of the guys were just maintenance crew. Back in the days when they used to carry the tabernacle there were people who struck the tabernacle who broke it down and packed it up and carried it to wherever the Lord wanted it set up and they would set it up. And then there was another group that would take care of

the ministry of the temple they would do the sacrifices and they would make sure everything was according to the scriptures and and and everything was just as the lord wanted it to be but this group of of priests um they were peculiar peculiar in that the Lord says, I don't want my ministers... Boy, this is going to go against the grain of a lot of ministers today. But he says, I don't want my ministers encumbered with money and possessions, making a living, and all these kinds of things. We're going to have to work out

some kind of a deal here so that the tithe from the people who bring tithe to the lord the ministers can use that for their living and for taking care of their families they didn't they couldn't own flocks of sheep they couldn't even own the land to graze them on they they couldn't essentially own anything and so they were very dependent upon people obeying the lord in the area of tithe as a matter of fact you know the the bible speaks of three different tithes uh one of which is you know the one that's commonly known and everybody seems to avoid. Everybody seems to relegate that to the past and the way, you know, we don't have to do that anymore.

That's a big surprise, huh? 10% of your income, 10% of your increase, actually, not your income, but 10% of your increase is to be given to the Lord for the ministry of his kingdom on the earth. That's what that money is supposed to be doing. It's a well-known fact. You can't get around it. Insurmountable fact that ministries require money from time to time, and there's just no other way around it.

It would be nice if material goods were met without money, but they're not. And in many cases, it doesn't even make sense to try to do that. Now, that 10% is a well-known tithe. Then there is the second tithe, which is the money that you, as the priesthood, as the priest of your home, dad, you're supposed to set aside 10% of your income to see to it that your family participate

in the Feast of the Lord. Did you know that? I know, you're sitting there wondering, the feast of what? Well, see, these are the things that we just dealt away, that we threw away, ignored, put them behind us, and now we have our own feast. We don't need his feast anymore. We've got Christmas, we've got Easter, we've got Oktoberfest,

and we've got every other celebration you can think of uh you know i mean everything from birthdays to you know every every excuse to celebrate but the feast of the lord go unattended and people don't pay attention to it they can't even imagine christmas coming and going without sending and receiving christmas cards they can't even imagine christmas coming and going without sending and receiving christmas cards they can't even imagine that but the feast of the lord can come and go and say well when was that what was that was that this year is that next month when is that you know what it is it's just a matter of priorities isn't it well the second tithe was supposed to be set aside so that you could attend those feasts you have to understand

that in a lot of cases you know israel was pretty well spread out and if the feast of tabernacles was being held in jerusalem it was quite a trek to go to jerusalem for eight days and that doesn't include travel days so you know a two, perhaps three weeks of their life was going to be dedicated to this attendance of this feast. And so it was going to be expensive. God gave them a provision saying, you don't have to lead all your cattle or your livestock with you when you go because they're going to bring 10% to the temple

to feed and to clothe and to take care of these priests who are running the temple because they were going to pay tithes. Do you want to see this in action? You need to read the book of Tobit. You don't have a book of Tobit? Oh, I'm so sorry. The American Bible Society decided that you didn't need that book. So they took it

out of the Bible and many people have never even heard of it. Get yourself an apocryphal Bible. You see how thick that monster is? Boy, look at the books they decided that you didn't need to know anything about. But get yourself an apocryphal bible and um and and get to know the apocrypha because um uh by the way all you folks out there that are dancing around hollering how much you love the king james bible and we're a king james bible church i love it when i go to a church and they have you know on the sign out front or painted on the building or they put it in an advertisement. You know, KJV. Like, you know, that's supposed to impress somebody.

I love to go to those churches because I like to look around and see if anybody, oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't specific enough. It says 1611 KJV on their churches. And they're so proud that they're 1611 king james bible people i just love to go to those churches and ask around does anybody have one well you know what you'll find they don't if you have a 1611 king james bible well not only is it difficult to read because it's uh in a different type of script.

But you can still get them translated into somewhat modern English, at least the King James English that we're all aware of. But what you'll notice is there's books missing from that Bible. Because when the King James Bible was printed, when it was translated and printed and passed out among people, up until what, 150 years ago? All of them had the Apocrypha in them. It was removed. I mean, essentially in your grandpa's lifetime. Anyway, so 1611 King James people, yeah, prove it. Look, I'm a King James guy.

I love a King James. It's my Bible. It's the one I read. It's the one that's in my head. But, you know, hey, it's just growing up in it. That's all. It's not that I have some affinity for it or believe that every other Bible's a lie. It's just a matter of that's what I'm used to and that's what i love so um you know king james people are just wow they're interesting to talk to until you start

talking about the apocrypha well when we're talking about ties one of the best examples of uh of a man participating in all three of the ties i haven't told you about the third one yet have i but the people who participate in all three of those ties um if you wanted a great example of that it was in the book of tobit where he explains tobias is actually see it tobias is the greek rendition of the word tobit of the hebrew name tobit and uh and he was talking about i i gathered up 10 of the best and i was bringing it to the feast you see and and he talks about uh using that money for the feast and uh he talks about a second time then he talks about his third tithe and um it's it's very clearly you can read it there it's just uh amazing but i guess tithing is not a a really uh exciting subject to talk about and you know i've noticed that just recently

uh there's been a rise among uh the the protestant preachers that talk about they don't believe in tithing they just don't believe in tithing it's an old testament thing and it's not for us today and wow man uh i i've never really understood that it's just a perfect way to give to the lord you you do want to give right you do want to you want him to be a part of your finances you want him to bless your finances don't you he said if you tithe i'll open the windows of heaven pour you out a blessing that you'll not be able to receive it i mean it's one of the one of the few general statements he makes to the body that says, you know, do this. Prove me. Test me on this. See if I won't do it.

It's one of the few general declarations to the entire body that this is a fact. And, you know, you're robbing me. You're robbing the ministry. Your church, I don't care how much money your church has your church is if they were properly funded if your congregation was properly funded by tithes nobody in the community of that church would need anything you'd have to hire somebody to see who needs help in that community honest to goodness you'd have more than you know see who needs help in that community.

Honest to goodness, you'd have more than you know what to do with. You know how many people tithe? Almost none. Is it because they don't want the Lord involved in their finances? I don't know. Why do they do that? I don't know. It's just stingy.

They can get away with it, I guess. I guess they think they can. The Lord says you're robbing him. Now, you know, and you're talking about a Lord who remembers for 490 years. He's over there tallying up the Sabbaths that he's going to get back from the children of Israel. I wouldn't mess with him if I were you. But here we have these feasts of the lord that uh were to be attended and these these times oh i didn't tell you about the third time did i sorry the third time is actually not a tenth it's a tenth but it's but it's done every three years so it's really kind of like a 3.3 percent um and that money is for uh the the widows and the

orphans and uh and the levite and i guess i was what i wanted you to see was is that the levite was able to live of a tithe that was not only given for ministry, which I happen to believe was some kind of a salary or stipend or something that came from the temple to the Levites who participated. And then this third tithe was a personal gift from people directly to the Levite. So they actually received in two different ways what they needed for the sustenance of life.

It's a wonderful system. I don't know why people don't do it. I guess we'd rather just pay our preacher a salary and every time he talks about something that needs to be done in the kingdom of God, you can look at him and say, that's what we pay you for. Oh, boy. What a mess. I guess that's how the church turned into such an institution, such a business.

And if your preacher is inordinately affectionate toward money and things and cars and clothes and what were the three g's the the gold and the girls and the glory it might be that you made him that way by paying him to do what the lord has called him to do instead of letting him receive from the ministry what he needs to sustain his life. Look, he chose the ministry. He chose that.

If he wanted more money, he should have went to college and majored in something else. He should go get a job and work for a living. But if you're in the ministry, you do this because the Lord's called you into it. And the sustenance of you, hey, and your family, by the way. Oops. But the sustenance of yourself and your family is now in the hands of the Lord. You think preachers think about this before they go into the ministry?

I don't think they do. I think they think it's just a paid position. And in many cases, well, it is. And the more education i got the more i'm worth i suppose i really don't know i've uh never received a salary for preaching nope ever all right so um here we have uh the ministry of of the levites and they are somewhat well in some cases i guess it could get to the point that they're severely dependent upon the the obedience of the people and the goodness of the people first time third time you see that well as time goes on and uh things start to drop off and uh the the priesthood the ministry and

the church and all the religious stuff kind of drops out of vogue and now it's more important we got a war going on or we got famine going on or we got something going on uh you know something that's taking the attention of the people. Happens all the time. You find that the priests end up being neglected. Did you know that the Lord says, don't ever forget my Levites? Did you know he said that? Don't forget the Levite. Don't forget the Levite.

He said it all the time because people did. Well, somehow they instituted kind of an automatic payment plan. Took their parishioner down to the bank and set up an electronic payment or whatever else. Set up some way that these people could give money to the ministry. And somehow, in some convoluted way it would take hours to explain it but in some convoluted way they taught the people that this is obedience to the fifth commandment which is to honor your father and mother. And so whatever you give your father and mother, they need to know that you've already dedicated that money to the temple.

It is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me. Wow! And Jesus is saying, here's a good example. You're a silly traditions you you you are you're causing people to violate the fifth commandment which is you will take care of your parents until they're in the ground you will see to it that they have what they need you will honor them you know it's it's really um i would say it it very well could be the number one concern that i receive from people uh as they decide to keep the commandments of god they get to that fifth one and and my phone rings. People have real trouble understanding what it's like to honor their parents.

My dad's not honorable. You know, he's a drug addict. He's a drug pusher. He's a pornographer. He's a child molester. He's a whatever. I can't honor my father. You see the problem here?

Same thing with mothers. you wouldn't believe some of the things people say oh and i'm not saying that they're making it up i'm just saying that people are just as wicked and they really have difficulty in this area and you know what we're going to talk about that as time goes by uh so more reason to stay tuned to the words of jesus in this particular situation the lord is saying look okay fine you're doing a wonderful thing with the money yeah the levites are being taken care of and all the rest of the stuff however this is all being done by your tradition why don't you just do it the way i said to do it why don't you let the first tithe take care of the

priest why don't you let the third tithe be a gift from people to you know person to person uh where a person can give to the levite and and in and enrich them that way why don't you just do it the way i said to do it why do we have to have this this plan of this this corban plan because frankly i don't know how you how you took the person's responsibility to their parents and coupled it with this stupid idea but when you did so you made the commandment of god of no effect and jesus brought it up to him now i'll bet you he didn't make any friends that day but uh he felt that it was uh necessary to do so and then as he was finishing he says and many other such things you do i would love to know the list that was flying through the mind of our lord that day

when he talked about the washing of pots and cups and things like this. Washing of hands. He talked about Corban. But he didn't even leave it there. And many other such things you do. Like things you do. You do this in a lot of areas. Your traditions are more important than the commandments of God.

Well, who are you talking to, Don? Every one of us. I don't know how this happens. Is it just a degradation of our sensitivity toward the Spirit? Is it just an enhancement of our sensitivity toward the things we want in the world? Is it sin? Is it wickedness? What causes this? But you're looking at the degradation of religion here. When a person cannot distinguish between what is necessary and spiritual and what is unnecessary and physical.

It's a real problem. We've been talking about this as we go through. If you remember, we were talking about this as we go through we were we if you remember we were talking about um how we're supposed to balance uh the spiritual with the physical and how we're supposed to keep them separated and the next uh the next parable was that we're supposed to make sure they're combined and now he's he's talking about this again. You're leaving something out of the most important thing in the world, which is what? The commandments of God.

He gave them to you so that you can be happy and so that you can live in prosperity, which is not having everything you want. But it's essentially wanting everything you have and having to be whole and complete and entire and wanting nothing. There's no better place to live. No better place. But we're going to dispense with his rules.

We're going to do it our way. That's a bad idea. Bad idea. All right, time's gone for the day. I really enjoy doing this. Can you tell? That's a bad idea. Bad idea. All right, time's gone for the day. I really enjoy doing this. Can you tell? I want you to do something for me now.

I want you to go to your computer or your phone or whatever, however it is that you send emails, and I want you to write to Don at thinkredink.com. Until next time, Think Red Ink. Bye-bye. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries.

Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you