Words of Jesus Podcast - The Identity of Jesus Is A Matter of Revelation

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Tradition is not truth. Examine "Who told you that." Historical Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Son of God, "All-knowing, all-powerful, all-present" - Is that true? Our job as Christians is not to evangelize through education and/or declarative statements. Jesus says, "My church is built on revelation." Our witness is our life. We must strive to meet the expectations of Jesus. Our hands are His hands in the earth. Be honest. Be faithful. ***Ch. 32 - JESUS HEALS A GADARENEJESUS AND HIS disciples came to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to the country of the Gadarenes. As soon as Jesus was on the shore a man came to meet him, one who had been possessed of devils for a long time. He wore no clothes, and abode in no house, but in the tombs. No one could bind this man, not even with chains. It had often been tried, but he had broken the chains. No man could tame him. He spent his time both night and day in the mountains and tombs --crying loudly, and madly cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus he ran and fell down before him, and in a loud voice said: "What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not." Jesus spoke, saying: "Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit." Then, to the man, Jesus said: "What is thy name?" The man answered: "My name is Legion; for we are many." And he asked Jesus not to send them out of the country. Near by a large herd of swine was feeding. The unclean spirits beseeched Jesus, saying: "Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them." Jesus gave them permission; the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the entire herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea and drowned. The herdsmen fled and told what they had seen. Many came to see Jesus and found the demoniac, clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Those who had seen Jesus drive the unclean spirits from the man told the latest arrivals how the man had been cleansed and made sane. The Gadarenes were afraid and asked Jesus to leave their country. He started to enter his boat, when the man who had been cleansed of the unclean spirits asked to go with him. Jesus would not permit it, but said to the man, "Go hove to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee." He who was healed departed and told in Decapolis the great things Jesus had done for him. All men marveled.***Scriptures: Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26-39

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series. The words of Jesus run the gamut, don't they? He comforts us at one time, and then turns around and spanks us at the other time. But He does everything according to His plan. And He does everything with, at least in my life i absolutely trust him he's proven so many times to me that i know this hurts i know this doesn't necessarily feel good i know this doesn't even look like the way you should go and um and there's been times when he's encouraged me that it is indeed the way to go and there's been times that he's been absolutely silent

and let me figure it out for myself but one thing that always seems to prove itself out and prove itself to be true is the fact that he cares for me and he loves me and he wants the best for me so that being said and that being understood, he can have whatever I have. He can have whatever he wants.

Whatever he wants me to do, that's what I'm going to do to the very best of my ability. And my intention is to be faithful until I die. Come on, go with me. All right, we started last time in chapter 32 talking about the demoniac of Gadara and Jesus coming to this man and asking him what his name was. He told him his name was Legion.

He had that name because they were, he says, we are many. And there was a man there that was indeed possessed of a devil. We talked about devils and spirits and demons and such as that. And I hope if you have an interest in that area or even a concern in that area, our intention is to make all these shows available to you. And that particular show, the one prior to this, is talking about those things. And even when I'm done, even when the time runs out on the show,

I just realize that this need is great. There's a lot of people out there that need. And I just hate to see the Christians struggling. I understand why the world has to struggle with this, but I don't understand why the Christian continues to struggle with it. Again, it has to do with that honesty, doesn't it? We just don't want to be honest and say, this isn't working. It's not a failure to say it's not working.

It's the beginning of success to say that. What, are you just going to continue to do that? No, that's failure. But to come to the point and say, this isn't working, I need to find another way. there's no shame in that. It's the way we do it. You're not going to start out knowing everything. Alright, we have Jesus dealing with this demoniac of Gadara

and I want to talk today, perhaps we can touch on the fact that he asked this demon what his name was, which I always thought was interesting, because the demon surely knew who he was, didn't he? He says, I know thee who thou art, the Son of God. Have you come to torment me before the time, one of the Gospels says? And in that particular case, Jesus told him to hush. And why did he do that? Well we'll get into this but you know our responsibility as evangelists in the world

is not, is not, is not, is not to declare Jesus Christ as Messiah, the anointed one, the son of God to this earth. I know we do it all the time, but that's not our job. And here you have this demon, essentially, preaching the gospel. He's saying, we know who you are. I know who you are. You're Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the judge of all the earth. you're going to torment us and

everybody else that doesn't believe in you right and Jesus tells him be quiet you're wondering about the other situation well it was when Peter came back from Capernaum I believe it was and Jesus says who do they say that I am? You remember? And they gave him a list. Well, some people say you're this person.

Some people say you're that person. Some people say you're this guy, raised from the dead. And he was just giving the list of Jesus was wanting to know, who do they say that I am? Which, by the way, is more important than do they know my name? Do they know where I'll be appearing next week? Do they understand how big we are? He wanted to know if they know who he was.

And he said, ah, they've got it all wrong. Well, Pete, who do you say that I am? Well, I know who you are. You're Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of the living God. You're the Messiah. You're the anointed one. You're the one we've been waiting for.

And he said, see that you tell no man that thing. Why would he say such a thing to Peter? What? You don't want me to tell everybody you're the son of God? He said, no, you don't do that. You see, the church that I've come here to establish on this earth, to perfect on this earth, the church that I've come to establish,

it's going to be based on, do you know? Revelation. It's the rock of Revelation that he's going to build his church on. You see, Peter, the seminary, the yeshiva, your best friend, your grandma, your grandpa, your dad, whoever that you respect in life, your teachers, they didn't tell you that. But my father told you that. You see, that's been revealed to you by the father.

Peter, I didn't even tell you that. The father told you that. You need to respect that, Peter, because that's the revelation of God. And that's the rock I'm going to build my church on. The rock of revelation. What, you're not going to build it on good evangelistic efforts? You're not going to build the church on good solid eschatology, on education, on the yeshiva, on the seminary? Nope. You're not going to build your kingdom on good preaching?

Nope. I'm going to build it on revelation. Well, then what's left for us to preach? Teach them to listen to my father. Teach them to sit at his feet. Let's get them into a situation where they can have communion with God. Encourage them to do so and let the Father teach them.

That's the way I live. You think I'm out here doing what I think is best, Jesus would say? Of myself, I can do nothing. I do what the Father tells me to do. Listen, a servant's not greater than his Lord. But it should suffice that a servant be as his Lord. You want to be as your Lord? You want to be like me?

Then you're going to have to operate by revelation knowledge. Not by what you learn in Sunday school or what you learn in your private Bible reading or any of the rest of the things that you hold so dear. You're going to have to receive this from the Lord. This is imperative. We find Jesus saying the opposite to a man. That he said to another man that was healed. Remember when this man was healed

and Jesus said, see that thou tell no man or don't go and spread this around town. But the Bible says that that person went out and spread and blazed abroad the matter as it says in the King James. He blazed abroad the matter and told everybody. Well what happened was because he went and told everybody what Jesus had done for him, Jesus was not able to minister in that city because the crowds pressed him so badly. He had to go someplace else.

Now, in this particular case, Jesus is being run out of town. The chances of him preaching in Gadara were very, very slim. So he told this man, he says, what I want you to do is I want you to go and let everybody know what God has done for you this day. And so we see him doing these change-ups. This is not a formula. He's actually changed his advice to one person and given another person another piece of advice. Why? I think it's because there was no way he was going to go into Gadara.

There was no way he was going into Decapolis. He was not going in there to teach because they were throwing him out. Some people speculate why they were throwing him out, but I happen to believe it's because, you know, swine was their major crop there, and he just cost a whole lot of money, and there's all kinds of controversy about this guy anyway, and now this demoniac that we can't even keep in chains is going to be normal from now on. You know, something spooky is going on here. Get rid of this guy.

So people react to good news in different ways. The other portion of this that I wanted to talk about is the omniscience, the supposed, the proclaimed omniscience of Jesus Christ. Somehow, because we're not really interested in worshiping a God that's not all powerful. We're not about to worship a God that doesn't know everything and there's some things that he can't do,

some places he can't be. We're not really interested in a God like that even though we find that our God has those limitations. Instead of accepting those limitations and realizing perhaps I'm wrong about this. No, no, we're not going that way at all. I'm right about this. And so what we're going to do is ignore when we do read in the scriptures that God has certain limitations

whether those are put on him by himself or whether they're put on him by particular circumstances or promises that were made in the past or whatever the reason happens to be. Instead of talking about those limitations, instead of admitting that God is indeed not in every place at one time. Do you really believe he's in every place at one time? Everybody has told you that?

Do you know that that's a good basis for becoming a Druid? I mean God's in trees trees let's worship trees god's in dogs and cats and god's in the floor and he's in the ceiling and i don't know you're turning them into construction materials now you know why not let god be god i understand that he's sitting on his throne in heaven that's where i understand he is i. Sure he has the ability to be wherever he needs to be. He has a whole angelic messenger force. Why does he need that? Why does he need angels to run messages for him? To bring back prayers of the saints?

To send blessing to his people out there? Why does he need angelic force to minister to those which shall be heirs unto salvation? If he is indeed omnipotent, that seems superfluous, doesn't it? Why would we pray that where two or three are gathered together there I am in the midst of them. Well what if there's not two or three gathered together? He's in the midst of them anyway. Why would we pray for God's presence in a meeting? Oh God, be with us, which is a very common thing for people to pray. You ever heard it?

Sure you have. Every time somebody prays, oh God, be with us. Well, I thought you thought he was omnipresent. You're right. I mean, there's just a whole lot of... It's just mouthing words. It's just ridiculous. It doesn't mean anything to anybody. They don't care. It doesn't matter. Oh, God, be with my friend today as he does whatever.

Be with him. Well, of course he's with him. You do believe he's omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent, right? Why are you telling him about your friends taking an exam at college? God doesn't know that. I thought he was omniscient.

He's not with him unless you pray for him to be with him. I thought he was omnipresent. Who's going to make these arguments? Well, essentially nobody. Number one, we don't care. Number two, we just don't want to stick our heads above the log like the turkey at the turkey shoot. We just don't want that kind of notoriety.

And we're afraid of who we deem as our superiors. But here we have Jesus looking at a demon and saying, you know who I am, huh? I don't know who you are. So is the demon omniscient and Jesus not omniscient? Jesus was known by that demon by reputation. They both lived in the same heaven with the same God at one time. Before the demons fell, everybody knew who he was.

He couldn't hide himself from this demon. This demon knew exactly who he was. But the demons, as plentiful as they are, as they were, Jesus, of course he didn't know this guy. Who are you? I don't know you. So he had to tell him his name. Legion, that's a funny name.

What's that all about? Hey, you're the omniscient one. Why don't you tell me? No. We just need to lay down this Santa Claus God that we've created. We need to lay this aside. You want to find the characteristics of God,

let's go to the scriptures and find out to what he lays claim himself. Let's let him do this. We don't need to do this for him. We don't need to make him into something that he's not. And certainly don't need to ignore who and what he is you know uh yeah i understand david says if i make my bed in hell thou art there really is uh is that what david is saying he's not he's not burning in Gehenna. God's not in Gehenna. David was just saying, I know that you're capable of being wherever you need to be to save me. And I appreciate that. That's all. It's poetic language. We don't need to make these rules for God to live by. Well it's obvious that Jesus doesn't know this demon's name.

There was a time when a man brought his son to Christ to be healed. Jesus says how long has this condition been on him? Why would Jesus ask such a thing? Because he wanted to know. Lazarus is dead. Where have you laid him? Why would he ask such a question? Because he wanted to know. I don't know about you, but this gives me great comfort to know

that God is not sitting at the end of the world drumming his fingers on the arm of his throne, waiting for everything to turn out like he always knew it would. What kind of a God is that? He doesn't live with us every day. He doesn't help us make decisions every day. I mean, these things just don't make sense. They're fairy tales. I much prefer a Messiah like Christ who lived and suffered in flesh and knows what temptation is all about and understands what it's like not to know everything like we do on a daily basis,

he just becomes more and more valuable to me in that situation than anything I've ever experienced before in my life. Any doctrine that's ever been attached to him, any idea, anything we've ever, any characteristic we've ever given him is nowhere near the actual truth that he doesn't have it. I just think we have really caused ourselves a lot of these problems. You do this. Check me out on this. Next time that you're talking to somebody about being a Christian, and this person happens to believe that there is no such thing as God, you're talking to an atheist. And say, you know, what's your complaint with God? What is it? Friend, let me tell you something. You're going to be shocked.

You're going to be shocked at what the atheist argument is against believing in God. The atheist and the agnostic, their arguments are along the lines of, well, you know, and I've had this happen to me. So God's omniscient. And I say, wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute, friend. Where did you hear that? Where did you get the idea that God knows everything? Well, I mean, I've heard it all my life.

Yeah, but it's not so. He doesn't make that claim. He told the children of Israel one time, it never entered into my mind that you'd do something so sinful. Was he lying? Or did we add to him some characteristic that he doesn't have? I love knowing that he lives with me every day. Okay, alright, the atheists will say, alright, that aside.

So if God's all powerful and he can do anything, then wait a minute, friend. Where did you get that idea? That God can do anything? God can't do anything he wants. Well, I thought he could. Who told you that? These are really tough arguments for atheists and agnostics because you know what they're going to find? They're going to find that they're not mad at God at all.

They're mad at the lies that have come out of the church about him. They're holding him to a list of grievances about things that he has never made claim. So what have we done as the church? We've created what I call atheist fertilizer. Why do you think atheism is on the rise like it is? Do you think that the devil is doing that? No, church is doing that. Church is chasing away people that think in droves. People that have the ability to put together two or three thoughts in their mind and mull them over

and think about them and just ruminate on the the truth do you think those people are to be found in christianity rarely are they to be found in christianity they don't think about anything we don't have to it's all been thought out for us the council of trent the council of nicaea the pope the preacher the the high uppity ups, you know, the 12 apostles of the Mormon church, the Brooklyn, New York for the Jehovah's Witnesses. We've all got our little kingdoms up there. We all have our kings that tell us what to believe. Are you willing to die for this stuff? Really?

Are you willing to die for the Trinity? For the concept of Trinity? Are you willing to die for the omniscience of God? Are you willing to die for his omnipotence? His omnipresence? All these things that we've attached to him, are you willing to die for that? If it's true, then we should be willing to die for it. I don't know. Do you think about this stuff? I think about it all the time. Perhaps that's why this stuff doesn't stick on me. Perhaps that's why I'm not encumbered by this. When I go to God in prayer, I know I may be telling Him something, or at least probably

praying in the earshot of an angel that will carry this to him. But when I say something to them, to the Lord, and we're not to pray to angels, don't run off and do that. This is his job. No more than if I call you on the phone am i talking to a telephone or that i should thank the phone for our for our conversation you understand i hope so but as i pray to the lord i fully expect to be telling him things that is information that he wants to make a good decision. I really believe that. I hope this is not so hard for you to believe that you're willing to discount this whole thing

and walk away from it and not incorporate it into your thinking, into your prayer, into your time before the Lord. Because we're working this thing out together. There's changes that have to be made in a master plan. You're living under the delusion that if it's God's will, it'll happen. Where'd you get that idea? Do you really think that because God wills it, that it's going to happen?

There's nothing further from the truth. If it's God's will, then you know what we know? It's His desire. That's all we know. That's what He wills for us. Whether it happens or not, it's not just magically decided because God wills it so. It's a mistake. You're making a huge mistake. Many times God can't have His will because you won't do what you're told. His will is to take care of the people that you know that need your help, that you can provide and you don't. Have you ever thought that you could stop God in his tracks?

Well, you do. Your hands, they're his hands. Your feet, those are his feet. And that's how he gets things done in the earth if somebody's going to help me pay a bill that i can't pay you know what it's going to be a human hand handing me perhaps united states currency i don't know it's going to be a human hand that is standing on human feet in human flesh that is going to meet that need i don't expect the ravens to bring it to me. I don't expect a $100 bill to float down out of heaven. You understand that His will is for us to do what He wants us to do.

He can't get us to do the smallest of tasks. I mean, when it comes to the Sabbath day, you hear me say sometimes, God can't get us to do nothing for Him. And that's not a double negative when you're talking about the Sabbath. He can't even get us to do nothing on the Sabbath day. It's amazing how rebellious we are. And you know what? We're mad at him about it. It's amazing that he doesn't meet our expectations, and we couldn't give that for the fact that we don't need his. Friend, we've got a long way to go. Jesus is going to get us through this if we listen to his words, but it is very important that we listen to his words. Looks like time is gone for the day now.

But listen, I want you to know that I do appreciate you taking time to write to me. If you'd like to write to the ministry, you can do so by writing to Think Red Ink Ministries, P.O. Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico. Pytown. Yeah, I said PytO. Box 718 Pytown, New Mexico. Pytown. Yeah, I said Pytown. Just like apple pie. Pytown, New Mexico. 87827 and that will give you

access to my mailbox. If you would like to send me an email, even easier, just send it to Don at thinkready.com. You know what I want? is I want your questions, and I want your comments. I want to hear what you think about the broadcast. All right, time for us to go. Until we see you next time, Think Red Inc. Bye-bye, my friend. Amen. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries.

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