Words of Jesus Podcast - Unconventional Wisdom

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

The Scriptures are important to me.  However, my primary focus is on the red-ink (words spoken by Jesus). When the Son of God comes to earth – we should know what he said.  We should ask what did Jesus say, what did Jesus do, and what did Jesus say to do.When a rabbi, a prophet, comes to town, the question on their minds, “Where are we supposed to keep the Feasts?”  Many Christians have unknowingly replaced the Feasts of the LORD with pagan rituals, beginning with the Sabbath.  Jesus came to change things; to get religion out of the way of our relationship to God and man. It is no longer a matter of geography or denomination. Jesus said, "...Worship in Spirit and Truth!" ***Chapter 8 (Part 3)RETURNING to Galilee after a trip to Judea, Jesus came, about noon, to the outskirts of the city of  Sychar in Samaria near Jacob’s well, situated on the parcel of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. To her Jesus said: “Give me to drink.” The woman responded: “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus replied: “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, ‘Give me to drink,’ thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” Not understanding, the woman replied: “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?” Jesus answered: “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”  The woman said:  “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.” Jesus saith unto her, “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” The woman answered saying: “I have no husband.”  Jesus said: “Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” The astonished woman replied: “I perceive that thou art a prophet.  Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus replied: “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”  Marveling at his words, the woman said: “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.” Jesus replied: “I that speak unto thee am he.” The disciples returned and marvelled that Jesus was talking with the woman: yet no man questioned him as to his reason. The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and said to the men: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” The men left the city and approached Jesus as his disciples were asking him to eat.Jesus answered: “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” The disciples asked one another: “Hath any man brought him ought to eat?”But Jesus answered: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye,...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Here we are again with another episode on the Words of Jesus series. Are you enjoying this? I'm just having a ball doing this. This is one of my favorite things to do. And frankly, if we weren't doing this together, I'd probably be doing this by myself. I always enjoy listening to, reading the words of Jesus.

I always find something in there that I never saw before. And it's just an interesting way to go. People say, well, what about them black words? You know, as soon as I finish the red ones, I'm going to get involved in the black ones. I appreciate the

black letters. You have to know that I govern my entire life by the scriptures, Old and New Testament. And they're very important to me. And I know, perhaps I don't give the Bible the same

title most people do. I believe that the title, Word of God, belongs to Jesus Christ and it's descriptive, belongs to Him speaking to us in our own spirits. But as far as the scriptures are concerned, as far as the Bible is concerned, indispensable, absolutely indispensable. We've been talking from the chapter 8 of this book, The Woman at the Well at Samaria.

And the woman who has greeted Jesus and is now talking to him about doctrine asked him a question that's obviously been on her mind most all of her life. And that is, why do the Jews say that we have to keep our feast in Jerusalem and our church fathers say that we're supposed to keep it here? That's a problem because when she reads

the same scriptures that anybody else would read or hear them read, she hears in there that you will keep the feast in the place that i tell you that's the place that you're going to keep the place where my name is and um and so this kind of thing was evidently bothering her it was a source of contention between the samaritans and the jews among other things they always felt felt like the Samaritans were polluted and adulterated by the pagans and therefore a little less in stature than the people of Jerusalem, Judea and Benjamin.

And so she felt this all of her life and she found an opportunity to talk to a Jewish rabbi that she had, it finally occurred to her, he's not just a Jewish rabbi, this guy's a prophet. He actually knows things that nobody else knows. So she ran off and was going to tell all of her friends, well, no, no, that hasn't happened yet. Let's get back to him explaining to her that,

answering her question where she asked, should we keep this feast in Jerusalem or should we continue to keep it here in Mount Gerizim? And he says, woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, Mount Gerizim, nor yet at Jerusalem. Ooh, now there's something she has never heard. There's something that would not come out of a self-respecting Jew's mouth,

but he said it, didn't he? He says, the time is coming, and you might wonder, well, when is it? Do you know what he's going to tell us? He says, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what? We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

Now, let me say here that in the age in which we live, this particular, I say age, actually in the decade in which we live, in this particular time you and I are living in right now, there is a huge movement toward the Messianic form of faith. Now, those of you who know TRI Ministries knows that there are many influences from the Old Testament upon what we do and how we worship God.

I mean, the Sabbath day, the feast days. You know, many of us among the TRI family have chosen to eat clean, biblically clean, not necessarily kosher, but there are certain things that we've decided to do, and there's certain things that the Lord says, this would be good for you to do this, and there's certain things that the Lord says, this is what you will do, and so, I mean, anybody who's familiar with what I'm doing, I'm sure there are Christians out there that would point at me in this ministry and say they're messianic. I happen to know that there's a lot of messianic congregations that won't point at this ministry and say that I am messianic. But nevertheless,

here we are. I'm stuck in the middle with you. And so we're going to enjoy ourselves as we go through the scriptures and find out exactly what the Lord wants us to do, what he suggests that we do, and things that we'd like to do to worship him. All these things will come clear to us as we go. He is telling her that we know what we worship, and you don't know who you worship, but we know who we worship because salvation is of the Jews.

The term or the phrase for salvation is of the Jews is real big among the Messianics. They feel like that salvation is of the Jewish way. That salvation is found in the Old Testament. Look, nobody believes the commandments are as important as I think they are. And the idea that within keeping those commandments and being a good modern day Christian Jew is indeed salvation. I got serious problems with that. Serious problems with that altogether. And among Christians, they teach that, and I'm not setting myself outside the realm of Christianity.

I am, and we are at TRI, thoroughly Christian. church is teaching that you know the bible teaches or or you know it's a fact that there is no salvation in the law whereas and if they quote anything they quote that that we know that by the law no man shall be justified well justified is not saved It's two different things. I know you've thrown them into the same bucket, so to speak, but they're not the same. And I agree. There's no way to be justified by the law. The law offers absolutely no justification for you whatsoever. Now, what it does offer us is a way to answer God's call on our life.

If you decide that you're going to answer his call, I can't think of a better way to do that other than to take it upon yourself to say, I'm not going my way anymore. I'm going to go your way, and I'm going to keep the commandments of God. Well, Jesus says, if you do that, you'll see the commandments of God. Well, Jesus says, if you do that, you'll see the kingdom of God. You'll experience eternal life. Keep the law.

And when the little guy says, well, I've been doing that from my youth, Jesus had an opportunity to back away from that, saying, now, wait a minute. You know, you can keep the law, but the truth is, nobody can keep the law but the truth is nobody can keep the law he didn't add any caveats any warnings he added nothing to that other than this reiteration and endorsement of the law and saying that this do and thou shalt live. Now, the little guy was there for a reason

that he's just now making clear to the Lord Jesus saying, but what lack I get? Jesus says, oh, you want to be perfect? Well, that's a different story. The law can't do that for you. It can't make you perfect. I can, but the law can't. I can't, the law can't justify you. I can, but it can't make you perfect. I can, but the law can't. The law can't justify you.

I can, but it can't. The law can't regenerate you. I can, but it can't. So now Jesus is drawing this dividing line between these two. So what in the world did Jesus mean when he said salvation is of the Jews? What did he mean by that? Well, if you go to the Apostle Paul, you'll find that the Apostle Paul had no problem with that. He had no problem with saying that salvation comes out of the Jewish faith.

Because he says we have to understand that although they might be enemies, they are beloved enemies. The Jewish faith does not allow Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, much less the Savior of the world, much less the Messiah, much less the Anointed One, much less the Son of God. It doesn't allow it. So for those reasons, they may be the enemies of faith in Christ, but you have to understand they're beloved enemies. Why? Because unto them

were given the oracles of God. God spoke to the Jewish people. He did so by prophets. He did so by scriptures. He did so out of the air. He rumbled heaven a couple of times. He said what he needed to say to the people, the Jewish people. And so we have to understand that unto them, unto the Jews, were committed the oracles of God. The first parts of our faith, the earnest of our faith, it all comes from the Jewish nation. Jesus was well aware of this. Paul's aware of that. And that's why when he says that salvation But the hour cometh, the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit. God is a spirit. God is a spirit.

Now, that might not set right with some people who like to make the Holy Spirit out to be, you know, some individual person. Jesus said that God the Father is a spirit. You might have to change your Trinitarian doctrine to Jesus the Spirit and the Spirit. I don't know how you're going to do that but I wish you well. But the fact is Jesus is saying about his Father Jehovah

that he is a spirit. And people have to worship him. People who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. To worship something in spirit, it makes sense to us because for most of us, worship is an emotional thing. And we have no trouble at all tying the spiritual things

to emotional things. But he didn't really say that the Father is an emotion and those who worship him must do so in emotion and in truth. It says spirit. So we have to be able to divide what's the difference here. This is where the word of God, Jesus Christ, his voice within us to lead us and guide us into what?

All truth, must worship him in spirit and in truth. For he's a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. He divides between soul and spirit. You see, all of a sudden, the ministry of Jesus Christ, as iterated by this scripture, that the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword,

all of a sudden he becomes absolutely indispensable in this. Absolutely indispensable. And this is what he's trying to get across to this Samaritan woman, that if you knew who I was, you would ask me and I would give you living water. I got a feeling he's giving her a sip right now. Marveling at his words, the woman said, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ.

When he has come, he will tell us all things. You'll be surprised. I don't know how shocked you might be, but if you should ever visit with or visit a synagogue or a group of Jewish believers, a group of Jewish people, a group of Jewish people who want to honor God, familiar with the scriptures,

I mean, necessarily good people, and you ask them any question whatsoever that's the least bit troublesome, argumentative, a matter of opinion, or perhaps something they've been arguing about for centuries in their own synagogues, if you ask them the question, they may try to answer it. They may take consensus on it they might all you know talk about it and agree on okay you know well it's you know it's five to two that you know this is what these five people believe this means and this is these two believe it means something else or whatever but if it comes head to head

and it comes to you know this is it this is not going to be solved anytime soon, or we're never going to get these two people to agree, or whatever. This is the fallback of all these arguments and doctrinal discussions, partial readings, and, you know, the mid-roshing with, you know, talking about certain scriptures, what this means and what that means, and all this stuff all piled up here. Here's the fallback when nobody wants to touch this subject anymore. Exactly what that woman said. I know that when Messiah comes, he's going to straighten everything out. Now, when I was in Israel,

I knew enough Hebrew to pretty much know what was being said from time to time. I don't make myself out to be fluent in Hebrew at all. I'm just saying that there was a time when a certain rabbi was taking us on a tour of a certain building or monument there. And he was invited to or he invited someone to pray. And he made it clear that when he got done praying, all the people in that room, which were all Christians, so to speak, were all Christians. I don't know if there's any Jew in the room other than him and perhaps his helper.

But he made it clear that when I get done praying then you can say Chamein or Amen Amen and I remember listening to him pray and no I didn't get it all, but I did hear him talk about the coming of the Messiah. And I thought to myself, did just this whole room in here of people just say amen, that we're all waiting for the Messiah to come? I thought of the Apostle Paul when he was talking about speaking in tongues. He says, you know, when you're speaking in tongues, how's a person supposed to say amen at the end of your blessing or the end of your prayer?

How's he supposed to say amen if he didn't understand a word you said? Oh, we're willing to do that. Our Christianity doesn't mean anything to us. We'll amen anything. Amen? Amen? Amen?

We're just pitiful creatures. Boy, we just need to start thinking for ourself. So as the tour went on, I heard some Gabby woman talking to some other poor soul that was a Jew. And she was trying to explain to him that she was Messianic. And he says, well, and she is asking him, are you Messianic? And he says, oh, yes, certainly. Oh, that's wonderful.

And she was just all twitterpated because here she had found a Jew who was Messianic. So they're under the impression that this Jew has accepted Christ as Messiah. And so she's a person having accepted Christ as a Messianic. And they're both Messianic. He's a Messianic Jew, and I'm a Messianic Christian. Therefore, you know, we have this in common. And I was kind of listening, you know, with a jaundiced kind of an attitude. You wouldn't expect that, would you? But yeah, I was just shocked.

I was just listening and thinking, where is this going from here? So I talked to a Jewish friend there, and I said, what's that all about? He leans over and says, all Jews are Messianic. I said, pardon me? He said, well, of course, we're waiting for Messiah to get here. And then it occurred to me, oh my goodness,

the difference in a Messianic Christian and a Messianic Jew is not just the fact that they have different names or titles. The Messianic Christian believes that Messiah has indeed come. is not just the fact that they have different names or titles. The Messianic Christian believes that Messiah has indeed come and restored all things. And now they're accepting the Jewish faith, or in some cases doctrine, and in a lot of cases practices, into their Christianity, which I admire, by the way.

I think it's silly to deny the Jewishness of Christ or the country that he came from or the customs he grew up under and not care about Old Testament stuff. Oh, that's that Old Testament stuff. I always thought, you know, that's kind of silly because, you know, what kind of silly because you know what's what in the world is the difference and the messianic jew is just like they've been for centuries they believe that the messiah is coming these people have they don't have two things in common they don't even have messiah in common You're talking to a person that believes that Messiah is coming.

So doesn't that exclude any possibility that they might believe that Jesus Christ, the one who was born in Bethlehem and crucified in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, was indeed the Messiah? Well, any self-respecting Orthodox Jew is going to say, what? No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying at all. You see? So,

there's a lot of misunderstanding here under the guise of trying to all get along. But, the fact of the matter is, we haven't given this 15 minutes thought. That's the problem. We give a cake recipe more of our attention

than we do the scriptures, reading the scriptures and seeing what Jesus had to say about it. When she says, now I know this is a tough subject about keeping the feast of the Lord should we do it in Mount Gerizim or should we do it in Jerusalem like you people say

but I know that when Messiah comes he'll explain all things. Well, you know, when I read this, probably for the 150th time, it occurred to me, and I was sitting there staring at it with my mouth hanging open, and all of a sudden I said, he has come. He's right in front of you, sister. He's right there. He just explained this to you. And so what's she doing? She's waiting for Messiah to come to explain it all. Look, friend,

I don't know how we got in this mess. I don't know how we got into this shape. We feel like, yes, Jesus is alive, sitting at the right hand of the Father on the throne. We believe that he's there. He's there making intercession for us. He's there being our intermediary. He's there, you know, doing his ministry.

Oh, yeah? And if you need to speak to him, how do you do it? Well, I pray and the Bible answers. I ask questions and the Bible answers. You heard this, right? I mean, there's men like Hank Hanegraaff that spend a whole lot of time telling people that every answer you need

is contained in the scriptures. It's hogwash. It's ridiculous. I mean, can you tell me where this book says that insider trading is wrong? Do you see in here that it talks about talks about you know making crack for a living you say well you know maybe it doesn't say it specifically but you know it makes it oh wait a minute what makes it clear you read these scriptures and you hear that within you telling you

no these things are wrong no these things are not right this is why within you telling you, no, these things are wrong. No, these things are not right. This is why I'm telling you, you should always obey your conscience. This is why I tell you, you should always listen for the voice of God. He'll tell you what to do, right or wrong. When you hear that, that's the word of God. That is the word of God.

But more to my point is that you believe that Jesus is real. You believe that he rose from the dead. you believe that Jesus is real. You believe that he rose from the dead. You believe that he has a mouth, that he's capable of speaking. Yet he doesn't. And he won't. And the only way that he has of speaking to us is by getting up in the morning and thumbing through his Bible and saying,

Well, I guess I'll send him this scripture today. Really? Do you think that he's that incapable of speaking to us? Do you really believe that he's alive? Do you really believe that he's at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us? Do you really think that he's a real being? Well, yeah, but you can't go around telling people that you hear God speaking to you. He didn't tell you to do that. I told you to listen for His voice and let Him lead you and guide you into all truth. He's got a way of doing this where you don't have to look like a nut. He's got a way of doing this where you know that you know that you know,

yet you may not be able to prove it to anybody. He's got a way of doing this. This is the promise that Jesus gave us. Keep my commandments. Me and my dad will move into you, and we will lead you and guide you into all truth from the inside. It's his promise. It's his promise. It's his promise. It's the core of Christianity.

All right, it's time for us to go already. I hope you've enjoyed the show, and we're going to see you again next time as we continue the Words of Jesus series. I remind you again, I want to hear from you. If you're watching this show, I'd love you to send me an email hear from you. If you're watching this show, I'd love you to send me an email and let me know that you're watching.

Send an email to don at thinkredinc.com or you can write to Think Red Inc. Ministries at PO Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico, 87827. All right, we'll see you next time. Till then, 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