Words of Jesus Podcast - The Words of Jesus Correct

Starting point is 00:00:00 Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris and looking forward to getting into the red ink. Plenty of red ink today. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about this for just a moment. I know that as I read very familiar scriptures to you

Starting point is 00:00:41 that you can easily switch into that kind of a sing-song thing where you pretty much have the attitude, heard it. And I don't want you to do that. I want you to know that words have an invisible component to them that we cannot, should not ignore, and that is authority. It's not just me here reading these things to you. It's not, this isn't based on my authority. I didn't write this, but I know that our Lord Jesus said these things,

Starting point is 00:01:14 or I have faith that that's true. And so we need to hear them as if he has come to town and he's rented a meeting hall down at the Holiday Inn and you got your invitation and you're nestling into your seats and waiting for him to step to the microphone. Would you be disappointed if what he said into the microphone was the same thing that he said 2,000 years ago? I don't think you would be. You're going to be excited to be there and hear it, now wouldn't you? And so we just, I don't know, it's a mental game, I don't know what it is, but go get your coffee, go get yourself settled in, and take a close

Starting point is 00:01:53 listen to what he has to say. Now, what's going to happen is, is as we read this, we're reading his commission to his disciples when he sends out his 12 disciples. And the closest thing that we have to understand what's being said here is the fact that we have prophets and teachers and preachers and such in our life with which and with whom we are very familiar. And you're going to hear him say things that are just going to flatly condemn the processes,

Starting point is 00:02:29 the characteristics, the words of some of your favorite preachers. Can you just let that go and not hang up on it so badly? Listen, he demands perfection from us, and he's given us these outlines that we're supposed to follow. No, not every man follows these. It doesn't make it right that they don't because not every man does but um i i guess what i'm saying is let's put the judgment on hold because that will stop your understanding it'll just clog up your um your ability to hear the words of Jesus Christ. And these are, are they tricks? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:03:10 But we have to do what we have to do in order to get his words into our spirit. And sometimes we can just be so judgmental of our favorite preacher or judgmental of preachers that we don't like. And, you know, stick out that see their finger and uh just kind of ruin everything just listen to his words and uh and if you're if you're in the ministry as these disciples this this commission is is very universally understood among all of us who preach the gospel of the lord jesus christ So let's say that's a part of your life. Accept these things and take them in. And if they hurt, they hurt. But sometimes we just need to

Starting point is 00:03:55 hurt a little bit. Sometimes we need to know that we're a little off track. I love the scripture in the Bible that talks about the spirit of God and how he is our teacher and how he is. He's the one that guides us. He's the one that shows us what to do and what to say, or at least he should be. And I love the scripture where he says, you'll hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way. Walk ye in it when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left. Look, he knows you've turned to the right hand. He knows you've turned to the left. He knows we've made mistakes, but this is the way. Walk ye in it.

Starting point is 00:04:32 It's really a beautiful thought when you think about it. Alright, we're starting in chapter 35. Jesus commissions, empowers, and sends forth the twelve disciples. Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter you not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Starting point is 00:05:00 Heal the sick. Cleanse the lepers. Raise the dead. cast out devils. Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses nor script for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman is worthy of his hire. And into

Starting point is 00:05:29 whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire in it who is worthy. And there abide until you go thence. And when you come into a house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. For verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

Starting point is 00:06:13 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be you therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they'll deliver you to the councils. Be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they'll deliver you to the councils, and they'll scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak, for it shall be given to you in that same hour

Starting point is 00:06:50 that you shall speak. For it's not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father, which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver the brother to death, and the father a child. And the children shall rise up brother to death, and the father a child. And the children shall rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death.

Starting point is 00:07:11 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee unto another. For verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over all the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord. It's enough for the disciple that he be as his master,

Starting point is 00:07:42 and the servant as his Lord. If they've called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call you? There's nothing covered, nothing hid that shall not be made known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the light. And what you hear in the ear

Starting point is 00:08:05 that preach on the housetops and fear not them which can kill the body and not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall to the ground

Starting point is 00:08:28 without your father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you're more valued than many sparrows. Whosoever, therefore, shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

Starting point is 00:08:57 Think not that I am come to bring peace on the earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law. And a man's foes will be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Starting point is 00:09:30 And he that taketh not his cross and followeth not after me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it. And he that loses his life for my sake shall find it. He that receiveth you

Starting point is 00:09:49 receiveth me. And he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. And he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whosoever shall give drink to one of these little ones, a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you,

Starting point is 00:10:21 he shall in no wise lose his reward. What was Jesus doing? Was he not preparing his disciples for the best and the worst? Was he not empowering them so that they could walk into this situation and not fear the situation, the people, the consequences? And was he not focusing their fear and their concern toward the one who can actually inject consequences into our life that are most unpleasant

Starting point is 00:11:00 to the point that what he can do as far as punishment, if you will, is concerned, can take both body and soul and place them into hell. Very, very serious circumstances indeed. But you need to focus in the right direction. I know you're being threatened every day. I know there are people out there that want to take your life, but that's not who you should fear. Here's what you should fear. Adding leaven to your soul, adding hypocrisy to your soul, softening the outcome, Not being obedient to your Father and trying to be in compliance with everyone else. I don't know that there's not a minister worth his salt

Starting point is 00:11:54 that does not stop and try to consider for a moment, is that what I'm doing in my ministry? Am I really concerned about the biggest givers? Am I really concerned about people who arevers? Am I really concerned about people who are going to make sure that I have something to eat? Oops, go back to the words of Jesus that we just read. I'm going to take care of you. You don't have to worry about having two coats,

Starting point is 00:12:17 making sure that you have shoes on your feet, making sure that you have a place to sleep or something to wear. I'm going to take care of you. And that's very difficult to think about when you see an entire kingdom that you've constructed based on the backs and the purses of other people and have to tell those people the truth.

Starting point is 00:12:39 Do you have what it takes to do that? That's an incredible amount of character well friend as a minister and i speak to the ministers of the gospel no matter what it is no matter what what your ministry is if you if you're out there in the world presenting jesus christ as an answer to people's problems i consider you to be in the ministry i think the lord considers you to be in the ministry and he just wants you to know that he's going to take care of you. And it has nothing to do with the people that you coddle in order to not to offend them. Don't make anybody mad. Don't make anybody get up and leave. Because after all, we've built everything we're doing on the backs

Starting point is 00:13:22 and on the wallets and the purses of these people that you're offending i've sat in the board meetings i've had i've had the board members look at me and say look you know if you do this do you have what it takes to finance the ministry no i don't i've i've been in the board board meetings. I know what kind of pressure these men are under. And they really don't need your, what I call it, the finger of accusation. They really don't need you to condemn them. They need you to help and understand. And most of all, when a preacher has given you the scripture, and he's preaching from the very heart of himself and he's and

Starting point is 00:14:06 he's being led of the spirit of god to tell you would you not be so thin-skinned would you not just take five minutes and concern yourself with perhaps he's talking to me perhaps there's things in my life that need to be done not call your friends and say what did you think about that sermon today don't you think he overstepped his bounds or whatever else how about calling the preacher how about going over and talking to him and say man this smacks me right between the eyes can you help me why not this is the way we're supposed to live inside the kingdom of god in which we live today look we need people out there that are in touch with god while you're off doing whatever it is you're doing we need people out there that

Starting point is 00:14:51 read the scriptures and can see a correlation between the prophecies of scripture and the world in which we live in today we need these people and we need not you know chase them around and throw rocks we just can't do that and you know what if you do have a preacher in your life somewhere that tells you the truth regardless of how much money you give or how faithful you are or what a what a prize token your pretty little car in their parking lot is or whatever other silly little idea we have to evaluate one another if you have a preacher that can that can look past all that and tell you the truth you ought to thank god that you have one like that you ought to aspire to be that guy if you don't have one but it's going to take somebody that is willing to doubt, willing to fear, and willing to take risk.

Starting point is 00:15:47 But you can't forget that he started this whole thing off by saying, look, your death is precious in the sight of my father. They might persecute you. They might try to kill you. But look, aren't two sparrows sold for a farthing? You know how much more you're worth than a couple of sparrows? One of those little sparrows can't fall out of the tree and hit the ground without your father. Do you think you're really any different? Is that the problem? Friend, it takes a man that's confident. Well, when you're confident in this world, everybody thinks you're arrogant.

Starting point is 00:16:27 They don't know the difference. They don't know the difference between arrogance and confidence. So they're going to misunderstand, so be confident. False humility, it's a waste of time. Putting a question mark on every sentence to ask somebody's opinion about what you're saying, to get a little nod when you talk very common today because nobody's allowed to have an opinion no no don't have an opinion

Starting point is 00:16:54 you should always be concerned about what other people feel and what they think look you got a preacher that doesn't talk like that you got something of value. That's what you have. You have access to a man that is a man. You have an access that most people, frankly, don't have. Most of our encounters with the preachers and prophets and such, they're nowhere near these kinds of men. Nowhere near them.

Starting point is 00:17:21 If you receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, oh, you don't know what that means? Have you heard that scripture before? Yeah? How long? For 35 years and you never thought about it? You know, to receive a prophet in the name of a prophet is to receive a prophet with an obvious commission on his life,

Starting point is 00:17:42 a commission that you understand and that you respect. You see, to do something, to receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, is to respect him, is to absolutely respect him. That's how you receive, in that name.

Starting point is 00:18:05 You can't receive a prophet as if he's just a prattling nobody, as if he's just a money-grubbing snake oil salesman, unless he happens to be. But if you receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, you're listening to what he says because he's a prophet, because you understand what a prophet is. I'm surprised when I talk to people about these things and say, do you know what a prophet is?

Starting point is 00:18:35 Oh, yeah, that's somebody who sees the future. That's a prognosticator. I mean, with that definition, you know, the horoscope can be prophetic. And we even use the word prophetic. But, you know, a prophecy is a man speaking for God. These disciples were sent out with the power to do signs and wonders. Why? Because they wanted them, because Jesus wanted what these prophets do and say and teach he wanted that

Starting point is 00:19:07 related to his ministry which is directly connected to god and was shown to be connected to god by ignoring the you know the physical realm the i mean by by super navigating over everything that has always been insurmountable problems for us, but they're no problem for him. Man walks on water. He talks to the ocean and it calms down. What manner of man is this? You remember this? This is why these miracles were done, to show that, you know, I'm not the last guy that came through here hollering that he was the Messiah. I'm not Simon Bar-Koppa. I'm Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And he proved it, proved it, and proved it, and proved it.

Starting point is 00:19:50 So he gave that power to his disciples to say, those guys, they're with me. Undeniable. Absolutely undeniable. Now why was he doing that? To boost their egos? To make them feel better about themselves? No.

Starting point is 00:20:04 Because they had a very difficult word to preach to the world and you need to hear what they have to say in other words you need to receive these prophets in the name of in the nature of a prophet these are not just people that are trying to prophesy. What they're saying is God's word to your ear. And friend, that's what a prophet is. You can forget all the hokum and the voodoo and all the parlor tricks and the smoke and mirrors and all the stuff that goes along with what we consider prophecy today. Today we use the word prophecy as foretelling the future. And it's just absolutely incorrect. Prophecy is a man who can hear the voice of God,

Starting point is 00:20:52 has the understanding and the knowledge to take the voice of God. He can attribute it to the scriptures. He can attribute it to God's voice in his ear. Whatever he does however he receives this thing and translate it into the lives of people who need to hear this word look it's the word of god not the bible the word of god that changes men that makes them different that changes them from the inside, that regenerates their soul.

Starting point is 00:21:26 Where are you going to get that? Where are you going to get it? I'm afraid you're not going to get it in some of the commonest places that we look. We're going to get it from the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to get it from the mouth of our Father. He's going to speak to us. And I say again again keep the commandments

Starting point is 00:21:47 never disobey your conscience and take time every day to hear the word of god because he wants to speak to us he wants to fix these problems he wants to put you on the right track and sometimes he does it with prophets because you can't hear beautiful story about david david got himself in a mess you know the bathsheba thing everybody seems to know the bathsheba thing and uh he got himself into a mess he could not hear the voice of god so what did god do sorry about that david teeth and dge to the end, pal. Sorry. Sorry, bud. I was hoping it would have worked out,

Starting point is 00:22:32 but obviously it's not working out. No, no, no, he didn't do that. He didn't give up on him. He went to a man that could hear his word, Nathan the prophet. Nathan the prophet walked in to David's chamber, told him a story, told him a parable. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:22:50 I don't even believe that it was true, that it truly happened. But he went in and told him a story. David heard within his own spirit that he knew what the justifiable outcome of this situation was to be and told Nathanathan this is this is the way we're going to handle this this man i'm going to put him to death and nathan had to look at david who was deaf to the the word of god death to the voice of god because he was deaf nathan was sent as a prophet and what did i say a prophet? Did he come in to do magic tricks? To pull rabbits out of hats? To make people's right leg grow as long as their left leg or some other thing like that? No. He didn't come in to have a circus act.

Starting point is 00:23:36 He didn't come in to tell him the future. What did he do? He took the words from God's mouth and treated them in such a way to get them into the heart and the spirit of David. And he capped it all off by saying, David, David, David, before you get too judgmental, friend, think about this, because here's the word of the Lord to you. Thou art the man. This man you want to condemn? That's you. Well well as soon as this happened

Starting point is 00:24:08 as soon as the door was cracked open the word of god flushed through david's heart he became extremely repentant and just loathed himself before god how did that happen the prophet the prophet that was empowered by god here's 12 of them jesus sent them out and he gave them this commission hey guys you're going to have troubles you're going to have serious troubles they're going to try to kill you uh you're going to worry about what you're going to eat don't worry about it i'll take care of it you're going to worry about where you're going to sleep don't worry about it i'll take care of it you're going to worry about where you're going to sleep don't worry about it i'll take care of it why was jesus so convinced that these men were going to suffer all these horrible things because he knew what he sent him out to preach it's not a pleasant thing people don't people when was the last time somebody called

Starting point is 00:25:02 you and said hey i just called you so you could tell me what was wrong with me? Doesn't happen. People want to know what's right with them. They want to know how you and I, you know, how we're the same. And we want to talk about, you know, what's good about us and what makes us happy. Jesus knows this. The Bible says he not only knew men, he knew what was in man. And he knew that if he put his words in those 12 disciples' mouths,

Starting point is 00:25:29 they were not going to make friends. And they're going to be concerned. Well, who's going to send us a bag of sandwiches out here in the desert to make sure that we're okay? Who's going to do that? Everybody's mad at us. We told them their religion was worthless. They're not happy about this.

Starting point is 00:25:49 We're going to starve to death, Jesus says. These are going to be concerns, but they need not be. I'm going to take care of you. But here's what I want you to do. I want you to tell the truth, and I want you to be my prophet, and I want you to make sure all these things happen just as I have told you. Listen, the office of a prophet is not fun. And I want you to make sure all these things happen just as I have told you listen

Starting point is 00:26:06 The office of a prophet is not fun It's not just a a party Okay, you back off and take a look at the preacher you're thinking about now and say well his life's a party Well, it's a party for a reason Jesus said beware when all men speak well of you for so they did the who? the false prophets which were before you Now, look, these words are hard. They're hard. But it just seems like the Lord specializes in hard words. And unfortunately for me,

Starting point is 00:26:44 most of his hard words are in red words. And unfortunately for me, most of his hard words are in red ink. So, you know, I have to tell you the truth. I know I've made some enemies, you know, from this series. I've made enemies from the last series

Starting point is 00:26:56 and the one before that and the one before that. But you know what? You find somebody who gets their sight back after having been blind all their life, it's all worthwhile. And it will be for you too.

Starting point is 00:27:11 If you're thinking about the ministry, I want you to think about what we're talking about here. If you're in it, if you're a part of it, and if that's where you're getting your answers for life, I want you to reconsider. I want you to think about the pressure there. It's time for me to go now. But I appreciate you being a part of the broadcast today. I want you to email me if you can, will, may, and you can do so at don at thinkready.com. All right. Until next time, think ready, my friend. Bye-bye. ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you

Words of Jesus Podcast - The Words of Jesus Correct

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