Christmas P5 Radio Broadcast Friday 12/29/2023

Classic Christianity – Christmas P5 (12-29-23)

You Have Been Given a Choice Today ~ Believe in Jesus

~ We have all been given a choice, to obey the word of God or not. And we are told that to obey the word of God is to place faith in Jesus, the actual Word of God. For Jesus is the resurrection and Jesus is the life. Anyone that places faith in Jesus will NEVER die. And once again, we need to understand that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. So Jesus is talking about another type of death, not a physical death. And that death is the absence of Jesus (Life) within the person. You don’t want to be on that side of the equation. Death is the absence of Life. The Life of Jesus is absent from unbelievers. And now that we live on this side of the cross, and if you had your own day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and gave you life (His Life), then that Spirit of God will never leave you nor forsake you no matter what. If you are reading this, and have not made a decision yet, time is short, for these last days are much shorter than most people imagine. So make a decision now. Place faith in Jesus, God in the flesh, who took away all your sins on the cross. And God will make you a new creation in Christ Jesus. And all things will become new. For He will give you His mind inside of you and will start teaching you the Truth about All things. His discipline (teaching) will be upon you as a child of God. He will train you in all things.

~ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”^{John 11:25-27}

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~ “Can a man say I want to be God? Well, I want to tell you folks, if Lucifer said, I want to be God, for sure we can do can we not? And is not the temptation that was given in the Garden of Eden, that you can be what? Like God, you can choose, you don’t need God to teach you right from wrong and good from evil. Choose it yourself. You don’t need God for those things. You determine right from wrong and good from evil. You control what’s going on. And I am absolutely convinced that what indwelling sin is is nothing more or less than that propensity inside of each and every one of us to want to control everything. We want to control Do we not? I want to be in control. After all, if I’m the center of the universe, that I want the universe to flow around me. Isn’t that right? In that the way we are? I’m right, the center? I want everyone to please me. I want everyone to do what I want them to do. I want everyone to treat me the way I deserve to be treated wonderfully. Is that not right or wrong? Folks? We are self centered, egocentric, and we want to control everything. That’s indwelling sin. Now, is that what not Is that not what God does? Does he not control the universe? And we say I could do it better. I love that song that Tony Bennett did years ago if I ruled the world, what a wonderful place it would be. If I just ruled the world, and I look at that, that’s good song just kind of describes me. But that’s the way we are. And so we have to understand that folks that that is a desire that is in your flesh and in my flesh that is there, and it raises his ugly hand. Anytime.” Bob George.

Announcer 0:04
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. As we celebrate the Christmas season together, we are reminded of God’s greatest gift to you in Me, His Son, Jesus Christ, we are told in the scriptures for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. It is our prayer at Bob George Ministries that you would accept God’s gift of eternal life and know how much you were deeply loved by God. Go to BobGeorge.net online to find out how you can grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ. We have many books, CDs, and other teaching materials available for your personal growth as you discover more about God’s unconditional love and forgiveness for you. Let’s now join Bob as he presents practical biblical insights as he helps people experience a life of faith, hope and love in Jesus Christ.

Bob George 0:58
And if anyone thinks there, they’re going to take their kingship away from me, even God, and that’s an essence what he’s saying, if this God of these Hebrews think that that God is gonna remove me from office, he’s got another thing coming. And so he developed a plan. And here was his plan. He said, Herod called the Magi secretly, that’s the way people like that always deal, secretly, and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem. He said, Go and make a careful search for this child. And as soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too, may go and worship him. What a hypocrite. Go find him. So I too, could worship him. You can just see him saying that. Well, after they had heard the king, they went on their way. And then the star, that and then the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them, until it stopped over the place where the child was. Now folk folks, we could sit here all day long, and talk about that being just a normal star in the sky, and you got people talking about the planets were all lined up. And, and that’s what happened. And you got all kinds of studies on that type of thing. I don’t care how you line up the stars, a star doesn’t lead you to a place. And so this star that we’re talking about was something special that God put there. It wasn’t something that could be explained by the study of stars, it was a unique thing in the sky. And that star, the only thing you could call it was a star. But it was something up there of a light that led them to the place of Christ Jesus, and then stopped, stars don’t start and stop. Have you noticed that. So it stopped over the place where the child was. Now, when they saw the star, they were overjoyed. And coming to the house, saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Now that’s why I say folks, Jesus was not born in a house he was born in a manger wasn’t he. And so and then it said that Joseph and Mary returned back to Nazareth, after they had completed all the purification things. So now if for some reason, and their Scripture doesn’t tell why they’re back in Bethlehem, we don’t know. It could be that they moved back there. After being in Nazareth, they moved back because being close to the temple, recognizing the fact that their son was someone somewhat special. And recognizing that Jerusalem is the holy city, it could have very well been say, we need to go live there close to Jerusalem, and educate this boy in Jerusalem. We don’t know those things, and we don’t need to know them. What we do know is they were back in Bethlehem, for some reason or another, living in a house. This is after the birth. This was within a two year period. And so we don’t know when within that two year period, but as we read on as to what Herod did, I would assume it was closer to the one or two year period that we’re going to talk about in a moment.

Now they saw the child they bowed down and worshiped him and then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. Maybe that’s why they get to three wise men. One wise man had gold and other had incense and other had myrrh, that just like us to come up with that and but at any rate, they all had those things and they laid them at the feet of Christ and having been warned in a dream. Not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. So what you assume took place there as they were in Bethlehem. And instead of going back from Bethlehem through Jerusalem, they took an alternate route, and escaped Jerusalem for fear of their lives.

Now, when they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Now, here’s another dream. And he said, Get up and take this child and his mother and escaped to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search the child to kill him. So he got up and took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled with the Lord had said through the prophet Hosea out of Egypt, I called my Son. When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious. And he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem, and in its vicinity, who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. So here was Herod. And he had learned the time from the Magi, as to the approximate the time of the birth of the Messiah, the time then that they had seen this star leading them to the Messiah. And he knew that he set a rule to kill every boy, under two years of age, it’d be sure to get this one. And so on an attempt to kill one child, he ended up killing every boy under two years of age.

How many of you have a child under two? How, would you like to take that little baby and have someone rip her out of your arms and go cut their heads off? Can you imagine the lament, and the heartache of mothers and fathers, seeing their children dragged from their homes and killed for no reason, just killed? Why? Because of this madman, that was so egocentric, that he said, No one’s going to be king with me. And so he goes out and kills every one of the boys. Every one of you and I who have had boys, or children, can imagine taking a one year old, almost a two year old and having him snatched out of your home, to be murdered by a maniac, that that’s what took place. Folks, you ask yourself the question sometimes? Where was God in all this? Where was God when John the Baptist was beheaded? Or was Jesus says, this is a relative? And we asked ourselves that question, sometimes, you know, where was God and all these? Folks, the answer to that is God was exactly where he’s always been on his throne. When God created man, He created man with a free will, did he not? He could have created us as a robot. And we would just be little robots running around down here. If you were a robot, could you love God? By freewill? No. And if God was going to create a creation, in whom he could love and interact, then he had to create a creation in such a way, who could respond to that love and interact with that love. And in order to do that, in the foreknowledge of God and His creative work, He created man with a will, he also created the angelic beings with a will. And some of those 1/3 chose to follow Satan to this earth, in rebellion to God right out of heaven. Angels were not propagated. They were created individually by the hand of God. And yet, with a will chose to turn their back on God. So you and I were created with a will. And I have to say, thank God for that. Because if I didn’t have a will, how can I be choosing to love God? How could you make choices? The answer is you couldn’t. You’d be a robot, just like these little things that you turn the remote control on. Now was there a gamble with that? Is there a gamble in giving man a free will? And what is the gamble? The Gamble is that even though we are created by the hand of God, we can choose to rebel against God. Is that right or wrong? We have a will today, don’t we? I could choose to live a life that is commensurate with who I am as a child of God. And I can also choose on occasion to live contrary to that. That’s some of the things James was talking about. How can this be out of the same mouth? I can praise God and with his same tongue curse man? And he said, that should not be that’s true, it should not be but is it possible? Sure. Why? Because one day I choose to praise God. And another moment I choose to blast you. Is that true or not? And so Free Will was given to man, God had to do that. Now, if free will is given to man, then can people like Herod choose who needs God?

Can a man say I want to be God? Well, I want to tell you folks, if Lucifer said, I want to be God, for sure we can do can we not? And is not the temptation that was given in the Garden of Eden, that you can be what? Like God, you can choose, you don’t need God to teach you right from wrong and good from evil. Choose it yourself. You don’t need God for those things. You determine right from wrong and good from evil. You control what’s going on. And I am absolutely convinced that what indwelling sin is is nothing more or less than that propensity inside of each and every one of us to want to control everything. We want to control Do we not? I want to be in control. After all, if I’m the center of the universe, that I want the universe to flow around me. Isn’t that right? In that the way we are? I’m right, the center? I want everyone to please me. I want everyone to do what I want them to do. I want everyone to treat me the way I deserve to be treated wonderfully. Is that not right or wrong? Folks? We are self centered, egocentric, and we want to control everything. That’s indwelling sin. Now, is that what not Is that not what God does? Does he not control the universe? And we say I could do it better. I love that song that Tony Bennett did years ago if I ruled the world, what a wonderful place it would be. If I just ruled the world, and I look at that, that’s good song just kind of describes me. But that’s the way we are. And so we have to understand that folks that that is a desire that is in your flesh and in my flesh that is there, and it raises his ugly hand. Anytime.

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Announcer
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Bob George 14:00
Anytime we’re not allowing Christ to control our lives, that propensity to want to control is right there isn’t right. Am I right or wrong, guys? So what you’re dealing here is, are we going to allow Christ’s to control our lives? Or are we going to allow our flesh to control our lives? He gave us a will. Now if God gave a will, how is he going to stop a Herod from killing those babies? What’s he going to have to do? Take away the will of Herod for sure wouldn’t he, or just blast him? Well, if you start just annihilating everyone who chooses to do something contrary to God, what are you going to have left? Apes fish, you know, not people. Where does he Where do you stop that you see? Where do you stop it? You say Where was God? When Hitler was annihilating the Jew? Same place has always been And he gave Hitler a free will. And Hitler had a choice. All of his life, he had a choice. I could walk with God. Or I could feed my own evil nature. Guess what he chose? The feed his own nature, what to do with the result of that? Well, you start out killing one and you kill two. And after a while, it’s easy. And you kill millions. Where was God? Same place he’s always been. How can he stop that? Kill Hitler? What Lord? Why can’t you figure that out, kill Hitler, if he killed Hitler, there’d be another one right behind me. And you’d end up having to kill all of us. And so what you have to understand, folks is as long as God chose to give man a will, you’re going to find evil in the world. And you’re also going to find righteousness. And all of it’s a choice. And we’re in the we’re in the driver’s seat, so to speak, in regard to making a choice, am I going to be controlled by God? Or am I going to be controlled by Satan? Stop it, how you gonna stop it? If I gave you a will. The only way that you would see total non will on this earth is if God just jerked the freewill away from every man on the earth, every man who was ever born and make robots out of us, then you wouldn’t see an evil at all. But as long as we have a free will, you’re gonna see good, you’re gonna see bad. Is that true in your own family? Well, then, if it’s true in your own family, why would it be true in the world?

So people will come in and say, We want peace in the world? How are you going to peace and have peace in the world until you have peace in a country? How are you going to have peace in the country until you have peace in your own state? How are you going to have peace in your own state? If you can’t have peace in your own county? How are you going to have peace in your county? If you don’t have peace in your city? How are you going to have peace in your city? If you can’t have peace in your home? And how are you going to have peace in your home? If you can’t get along with each other? That’s where Christ is relevant to international peace. And so we’re right down folks to the to the thing that when God gave man of freewill, then we have we have an opportunity to choose and that answers questions like this. Where was God? When those little babies are being killed? He’s right where he always was on his throne, giving man of freewill to choose crying out to them with everything that he can do. Come to me come to me and man, with the same tenacity turning and say, do it my way.

A voice is heard and Ramah weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more, children gone. Now, After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared at a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and he said, Get up and take this child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who are trying to take the child’s life are dead. And I would also assume that after that had taken place, he figured he had gotten the Messiah. And so he had no more worry, this king has been annihilated. So he got up and he took the child, then his mother, and they went to the land of Israel. 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. And he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, he will be called a Nazarene.

And so folks, what we have tried to do here is to see how that this Lord Jesus Christ, how he was born, being led again by God, in all ways. And then we back up into Luke, go back to Luke two again. We lost those first few years of Christ. There’s no record of that. But what was interesting to me was when we were in Israel, we there’s a city that is outside of Nazareth, and I believe about a mistaken it was called Sepphoris. I think that’s the pronunciation. But it was there in this city, which is just a few miles from where Jesus was in Nazareth. And there was a huge building project that took place in that city. That very easily Jesus and his family could have been working there as carpentry in their carpentry work. But even more important than that is Jesus grandfather. or was the head of, of the synagogue there. And, and that’s where they trained rabbis in that city. And when you realize that Jesus was called a rabbi, and that he could not be a rabbi if he hadn’t been schooled in the rabbinical training. And it as much as his grandfather, Elie, was the head of this Jewish seminary, to train for rabbinical work. It makes sense that that’s where Jesus was, in this period of time, was being trained in rabbinical schools. His knowledge of the scripture was unbelievable, which you could attribute to Him being God. But it also make sense that he was being trained in rabbinical school in his grandfather’s rabbinical training place. Otherwise, how would they call him Rabbi. And so there’s a lot of things that are being discovered today through archaeological findings that are shedding some light on these early years of Jesus. And when I go to Israel, in April, our guide that we had, the last time is going to be our guide again. And he is the one who showed us this information and some of the archaeological findings around it. And also had showed me a book that had been written in regard to this object. And I’m going to try to pick that up when I’m there and bring it back and share with you because it’s fascinating to learn that that is certainly a very viable possibility, that that’s exactly what Jesus was doing in those years I was studying in school.

Now we pick up again, in verse 41. In chapter two, every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. So again, we know that every year they went in for the feast, which could explain why they were there, when when when the wise men were there, the three of them. Now, when he was 12 years old, they went up to the feast according to the custom. And after the feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in there accompany they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends, because they would go on great caravans and kids being kids. And you know, Mom, Dad, I want to go back with my cousins and this and that. So everybody was safe. They were with family. So they just assumed that’s where he was. But when they didn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. And after three days, they found Him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us like this? That sounds like a mother. Why are you doing this to me? Well, I’ve been worried sick. Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you. Do you think she might have been a little angered? Guys, that’s what we’ve talked about before. It may not be 100% True, but it sure is a lot true, whereby anger is a secondary response to fear. And this is a typical example that your first response is I’m fearful that my kid’s gone, then after you find a, you’d like to cut their head off. So you’ll normally find that many times the root of your anger is fear. And you’ll see that anger is just a secondary response to that fear. So instead of trying to deal with anger, deal with the fear.

Okay, everyone who saw him was amazed, his mom said, we have been searching for you. Why were you searching for me he said, Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house. But they did not understand what he was saying to them. And that something here is Mary and Joseph revealed this whole thing by an angel, a dream from God, a virgin birth, that’ll be enough to make you think at least. And yet, it says they did not yet understand what was going on here. And you know, guys, I don’t have a problem at all understanding. You know, that’s why people go in seeking signs and miracles and signs and miracles and signs and miracles as you would think one would do. But no, after one, I need another one. Because if your faith is built upon signs and miracles, you’re going to always need one. And that’s why Jesus said had blesser, you don’t see that believe. And he said to people, you’re an adulterous generation always looking for a sign and a miracle. I’ll show you a miracle. And he said, Watch me raised from the dead.

So guys, in a final analysis, I believe Jesus was saying to us the final miracle, that ought to be enough, through all of the rest of this, that if you cannot believe me, when I’ve been raised from the dead, that it’s no fault of mine. I’ve given you every sign you need. You see, folks, even though we know that the virgin birth was a virgin birth, man could still say not so sure about that. And it could be debated. But when someone’s raised from the dead, that’s a hard one to debate. So the final miracle of God that He said, I’m going to give to you, if you cannot believe me, in regard to who I am with that miracle, then you’re not gonna believe anything. And I’m not going to show you any other miracle. And I see people today seeking miracles and signs and wonders, and excitement. And you say, marvelous what to do for you? If it increased your faith, something’s wrong with your faith. Because if your faith isn’t big enough to believe Jesus, because of the resurrection, something’s wrong with your faith. And if I need keep needing an assurance, something’s wrong. And it’s like people who are constantly saying, I need I need I need, or I thirst, I thirst, I thirst. And Jesus said, When you drink of regular water, you’re going to thirst again, but when you drink my water, you’ll never thirst again. So folks, all of these things were set into motion. Not so that we become sign seekers and miracle seekers, but that we can put our faith squarely and securely in revealed truth as it relates to the person of Jesus Christ.

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