Classic Christianity – Bob George – Christmas P5 (12-28-18)
Welcome to Classic Christianity radio with Bob George. This Christmas season, we are reminded of God’s greatest gift to you and me, His son Jesus Christ. We are told in the scriptures that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Our prayer for you is that you would accept Jesus Christ into your life and know how you are deeply loved by God. Check out BobGeorge.net for various resources to help you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us now join Bob as he presents practical biblical insights to help people experience faith, hope and love in Jesus Christ.
Bob shares again about the wickedness of King Herod, God’s choose in creation of mankind with free will, the risk of that, and how in this world we have evil. Yet God chose to reveal himself to man so as to redeem man and restore him to a right relationship to God. So God is sovereign in control. Bob continues in about the 14th minute in the video in Matthew 2 and closes in Luke 2. Bob emphasized the choice we have as believers to choose to live according to the Spirit or to the flesh. Then Bob addresses the faith that people should have based on more than enough evidence, and the final evidence that should be enough is the resurrection. Our faith should not require another sign or miracle, otherwise there is something wrong with our faith.
Are we going to allow Christ to control our lives or our flesh? If God gave a will, how is God going to stop Herod? Could he not just annihilate Herod? How much destroying will God end up doing? Could he just not kill Hitler? If he did, another one right behind him. Ultimately he would have to kill us all. So in this world there will be evil. Only way not not to see evil is if God jerks free will out of us and turn us into robots. As long as God has chosen there is a free will in this world, and there is, then you will see good and bad. Is that true in your own family, good and bad? People want peace in the world. How can you have peace in the world if you do not have peace in a country? How can you have peace in the country if you do not have peace in your own state? How can you have peace in yur own state if you do not have peace in a county? How can you have peace in the county if you do not have peace in a city? How can you have peace in the city if you do not have peace in the home? How can you have peace in the home if you can’t get along with each other?
So again the question is asked, “Where was God?” Right where he has always been, giving people a free will to choose.
Matthew 2:17-18
17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled (Jeremiah 31:15):
18
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
Again we see God’s sovereignty where prophesy is fulfilled.
Matthew 2:19-21
19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”
21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene (Psalms 22:6-7, Isaiah 53:3, Isaiah 11:1).
So we read in the account in Matthew, how Jesus Christ was born and led by God, where prophecies were fulfilled. Going back to Luke, there is no record of the early years of Jesus.
Luke 2:41-51
41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”[f] 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
Bob mentions a trip to Israel where he visited a town named Sepphoris, a few miles south of Nazareth. While there, he learned that Jesus grandfather was named Heli, the rabbi that led a rabbinical school. Bob believes that Jesus was taught in this school. Jesus had unbelievable knowledge of scripture, having the attributes of God, that astounded many. Scripture records those who marveled at how he could know so much without having studied.
Luke 2:47
47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.
Bob asked this question, “Why would they call Jesus rabbi if he had not been to rabbinical school?”
Luke 2:48b
His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
Why are you treating us like this? Does that not just sound like a mother! Father and I are anxious. Do you think Mary was a little angry? Bob stated that anger is a secondary response to fear. After fear is gone then after Mary finds Jesus, she wants to scold him. So Bob says, “Instead of dealing with anger, deal with fear, the cause of the anger.”
Luke 2:49-50
49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”[f] 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Bob paused on the phrase “They did not understand”. How could they not understand? They had dreams, a visiting angel, and a virgin birth yet they did not yet understand what is going on? Is that not like us at times. Think also about all the Christmas carols we sing yet we never understood the meaning of what we sang until later in life when we came to believe. Why do people continue to seek signs and miracles? And then they keep looking for another. If faith is built on signs and wonders and miracles, then you will always need another one.
Consider also the unbelief of the Pharisees, and how much miracles they saw, yet refused to believe.
Matthew 12:38-39
38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Consider also Jesus reply to the Pharisees in regards to the final miracle that ought to be enough, being raised from the dead.
Luke 16:31
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Jesus already gave us every sign we need to believe. Yet, the final miracle that ought to be enough is when Jesus was raised from the dead. If you cannot believe that one then Jesus will not show you another one. The virgin birth, people can debate or cast doubt. But if someone raised from dead, that is a hard one to debate.
If you cannot believe Jesus in regard to who He is with that final miracle then you will never believe (Luke 16:31). If your faith is not big enough to believe Jesus because of the resurrection, then something is wrong with your faith. You see people today seeking signs, wonders, miracles, and excitement, so as to increase their faith. Marvelous as such things are or appear to be, but the real question that needs to be asked is, “What did it do for you?” If it increased your faith, then there is something wrong with your faith. If your faith is not big enough to believe Jesus because of the resurrection then there is something wrong with your faith. If you constantly need assurance then there is something wrong. You may hear people say “I need! I need! I thirst. I thirst. I thirst”. And people even sing songs “I need more of you in my life”. Not every song we sing is in accordance with truth revealed in scripture. What did Jesus say to the Samaritan woman at the well in comparing physical water to the spiritual water of eternal life.
John 4:9-1
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Bob emphasize the words Jesus spoke to her concerning the water He gives: “You will never thirst”.
So all these events recorded in the scriptures, dreams, visits by angels, the miracles and fulfilled prophecies were set in motion not to be for sign and miracle seeking, but so that you may put your faith securely in the revealed truth as related to the person of Jesus Christ.
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