Radio Broadcast Monday 02/12/2024

Classic Christianity – Book of Hebrews P65 (02-12-24)

Don’t You Know That You Are God’s Temple?

~ Jesus came to set you free from the bondage of sin and death. He came to set you free from the demands of the law. He came to set you free from religion. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1 Yet even with that being said, people allow themselves to be put back under bondage of legalism. Hardly any pastors teach that Christ is in you. They would much rather you listen to their own teaching rather than the Holy Spirit who lives in you if you are in Christ Jesus. Most pastors and teachers today do NOT preach the good news. They preach a different gospel which is no gospel at all. They preach a false gospel of repenting of all your sins (as though someone can actually repent of all of their sins). This is a key lie of Satan, and there are many. If you are in Christ Jesus, then He is in you, and you are the temple of God. You don’t need to go to any man to get your questions answered. Ask him for understanding and the Holy Spirit will provide the understanding. It may be that you have to start all the way back at the beginning, and understand who Jesus is and what He did for you on the cross. He took away ALL your sins at the cross, and it was NOT based on your asking for it. You see, He did it without anyone asking for it. He forgave ALL your sins, taking them upon himself at the cross, and He became sin for us. So that in Him we could become the righteousness of God.

Now to the lost world this seems crazy. They cannot understand that God would do that for them. They are brainwashed into believing the lie of confession for ongoing forgiveness. Both the Catholic and the Protestant world are no different. Both require Man to initiate forgiveness by God. The Truth is God initiated forgiveness towards Man. Man is a responder when it comes to faith. Religion today is the opposite of true FAITH in the Word of God.

The book of Hebrews is key to everything. It ties everything together, yet most overlook the book, and at best teach it with lots of error and lies to the true meaning of the word of God. Satan promotes the lies extensively through the teaching of religion and the world. However, the Truth requires us to place our faith on Him, God, and allow the Holy Spirit to teach us ALL truth. Don’t trust any man, not even your own understanding of things, but ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom and He will do so abundantly without finding fault. For all of us have been taught not just error, but actual lies, and we need to understand the TRUTH of the Word of God. Jesus.

~ Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? ^{1 Corinthians 3:16}

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~ “Now, we picking up in, in chapter six, verse 13, when God made his promise to Abraham, and here again, would be people saying, well, Abraham, he is the father of this nation. He’s the one we follow. So he said, Well, when God made his promise to Abraham, there was no greater for him to swear by so I swear by himself, God did saying, I will surely bless you and give you many descendants. And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. Now men swear it’s talking about by someone greater than themselves. And the oath confirms What is said and puts an end to the argument. So you swear by someone greater than yourself. You know, you don’t come in I swear to Tiny Tim, it’s, you swear by someone greater than yourself. Now it says, because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it, then with an oath. God did this, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled, and as talking about fleeing all of this religion, and folks, today, as you and I are sitting today, we have got to flee religion. If you want to experience a personal, vital, living relationship with the Living God, you cannot do that practicing religion. And so we too have to do what the Hebrews were instructed to do. And what this book of Hebrews was talking to the Hebrew is as applicable today, as it was back then you have got to flee religion if you’re going to experience a personal relationship with Christ. And the setup that is set up today is set up to practice religion. And that’s what the majority of the Christian world is doing today is practicing religion. And we have made a religion out of a personal vital relationship with a living God. And in order to be Christian, you have to organize the socks off everybody have one committee on top of another committee and then have committees on committees in order to organize the body of Christ, because we do not realize that he is the head and we are the body. And the fingers don’t need to get together to have a meeting to determine what the thumbs ought to be doing on behalf of the head. And we’re sitting around with our little important figures are little important fingers, having meetings to determine what my thumbs ought to be doing. Not realizing that my thumbs listen to the head the same way the fingers listen to the head. And so we organize the Holy Spirit, right out of existence, of the Spirit of God living in us.” ~ Bob George

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Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the book of Hebrews. Available for download the complete series on the Book of Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews is key to understanding the New Covenant.

Announcer 0:12
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.

Bob George 0:27
Well, let’s turn to the book of Hebrews. We’re going to pick up in the seventh chapter, but we’re going to pick up before that it’ll fill in some of the last verses in the sixth chapter of the book of Hebrews beginning in verse 13. Before we get into this, I’d like to, I’d like to state that, for us. Most of us sitting in this room have grown up from a little child on hearing and knowing about Jesus. And our whole, if you want to call it religious orientation has been in some form or another around him. It may have been steeped in legalism, Christian legalism, it could have been steeped in in Christian sounding cultic activity, it could have been steeped in all kinds of things. But at least the center point was this person of Christ, whoever that might be. And that goes all over the place in regard to so called Christian teaching. It is an amazing thing, that in recent surveys, and that is true that if you open up the Yellow Pages, and underneath the title there of Christian churches, of all the different denominations of Christian churches called Christian churches, a church where there’s a cross on top of it, and out of the seminaries that teach the pastors who are teaching those churches, that there is 78 to 80% of the professor’s teaching in those seminaries of all denominations, deny the deity of Christ, deny the virgin birth, and deny the validity of the Word of God. So you’ve only got a small percentage of people that even begin with a proper premise that Christ is truly God and the Word of God is truly the Word of God. And out of that small percentage, then you’ve got things that go all over the place in regard to whether it is going to capitalize if you want to call it that, or to or to specialize in what is truth, and that’s the grace of God, or whether you want to commingle on Grace together, which much of the Christian world does today. But when you’re talking about the book of Hebrews, and you’re talking about people who were talking to Hebrews, they had never heard of this person called Jesus, unlike us. And so to the Hebrews, they were followers of Abraham, followers of Moses, followers of Hebrew tradition, they had heard, and certainly knew through prophecies in the Old Testament about this Messiah that was to come. But they did not know who that was, until he came, and then they denied that that was him. And so what you’re talking about in the book of Hebrews are many preconceived notions that had to be knocked down by teachers in those days, in other words, that the teachers in those days and the writers of the New Testament had to deal with issues that you and I necessarily, in America have not had to deal with. And so, as the book of Hebrews is unfolding, we’ve talked about the fact that Christ is greater than angels, because there were people that said, angels were greater than this man. There were people that came in and said that he was higher than priests or priests were higher than that. And Moses was higher than that. And, and what you’re seeing as we’re going through the book of Hebrews is the writer taking every one of these things and knocking them down, and to show the supremacy of Jesus Christ in all things.

Now, we picking up in, in chapter six, verse 13, when God made his promise to Abraham, and here again, would be people saying, well, Abraham, he is the father of this nation. He’s the one we follow. So he said, Well, when God made his promise to Abraham, there was no greater for him to swear by so I swear by himself, God did saying, I will surely bless you and give you many descendants. And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. Now men swear it’s talking about by someone greater than themselves. And the oath confirms What is said and puts an end to the argument. So you swear by someone greater than yourself. You know, you don’t come in I swear to Tiny Tim, it’s, you swear by someone greater than yourself. Now it says, because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it, then with an oath. God did this, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled, and as talking about fleeing all of this religion, and folks, today, as you and I are sitting today, we have got to flee religion. If you want to experience a personal, vital, living relationship with the Living God, you cannot do that practicing religion. And so we too have to do what the Hebrews were instructed to do. And what this book of Hebrews was talking to the Hebrew is as applicable today, as it was back then you have got to flee religion if you’re going to experience a personal relationship with Christ. And the setup that is set up today is set up to practice religion. And that’s what the majority of the Christian world is doing today is practicing religion. And we have made a religion out of a personal vital relationship with a living God. And in order to be Christian, you have to organize the socks off everybody have one committee on top of another committee and then have committees on committees in order to organize the body of Christ, because we do not realize that he is the head and we are the body. And the fingers don’t need to get together to have a meeting to determine what the thumbs ought to be doing on behalf of the head. And we’re sitting around with our little important figures are little important fingers, having meetings to determine what my thumbs ought to be doing. Not realizing that my thumbs listen to the head the same way the fingers listen to the head. And so we organize the Holy Spirit, right out of existence, of the Spirit of God living in us.

And so the teaching to the Hebrews is no different from the teaching today. Because we’ve gotten ourselves under the same thing, the bondage of legalism that the Hebrews were under, we’ve done the same thing. It’s just a little different form of bondage. But it’s bondage. As we said before, if you’re like I was, I sat there and literally paid my jailer, to keep me in jail. And I tithed to my jailer, so you can buy better locks, and better bars, in order to keep me locked up in legalism. Instead of allowing me to go free in Jesus Christ. When Paul said, you have been called to freedom my brothers. That’s a fact. And he said, don’t use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Although you’re free to do that. It’s it is permissible, it’s not profitable, but it is permissible. If it wasn’t permissible, it’d be a law. And if it’s a law, then you’re back under the law. And if you’re going to be under the law, then you’re going to have to be under the punishment of a law because it does no good to have a law without punishment. And in God’s economy, the wages of sin is death. So it isn’t the case that you can’t do it. The case is that it’s not profitable for you to do it. But by brothers, you’ve been called to freedom. Now don’t use your freedom to indulge the flesh but use your freedom to what? Serve one another. How? In love. So we have been called to be free to serve one another in love. And that’s when we learn and the only way we ever learned that is more blessed to give than receive. In other words give than it is to receive, it’s more of a blessing to serve, than to be served. The Son of Man said I didn’t come to be served I came to serve. I came to serve you. Now turn around and serve one another. That’s not religion. That’s a relationship with a living God.

So it said that we who have fled to take a hold of this hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where Jesus who went before us has entered on our behalf and he has become a high priest forever on the order of Melchizedek Now I will say where does this Melchizedek come from? And, and, folks, this is, this is why as we go through this, you’ll see once again, that about the only importance of Melchizedek in modern day teaching is it gives people who want to teach that we should be tithing. That that’s the Now granted, you will say they’re in a place in the New Testament about tithing. Well, yes, but in Melchizedek, there’s the principle. And so you want to be tithing because of Melchizedek. Now, we’re gonna go through that today to see how much sense that makes and to and also to expose what tithing was, and is not today. It is not the case that Christians are not to be giving, because we do give we give of ourselves, we give of our resources, and rightfully so, but not under a legalistic tithing. Neither is there the case if you give God’s gonna bless the socks off of you. There is a blessing to those that you give to which creates a blessing in my heart that I have helped to perpetuate the work of the Lord. But as it says, very clearly, in Timothy, that anyone who teaches that godliness is a means to financial gain. Timothy Paul wrote to Timothy saying anyone teaching that godliness is a means to financial gain is a man of a perverted mind. In other words, a spiritual pervert. And you got a bunch of those on TV. And that’s what this teaching is, godliness is a means to financial gain. Now, this Melchizedek that we’re going to talk about that have one earthly thing to do with tithing. It is a story, again, of the sufficiency and the of Christ Jesus. It is a teaching to show that there was a priesthood that was in existence given by God. But Christ is greater than that priesthood. And coming back to say to the people he’s talking about this should not be too hard for you to understand because of this man in the Old Testament called Melchizedek, where the same thing happened. And the whole reason for writing this chapter is to let people see yes, there was a priesthood. Yes, that was Hebrew tradition. Yes, the priests were the ones who were the keepers of the aquarium so to speak. But that is no longer true. Another priest has come on the scene higher than any priest not out of the Levitical priesthood, but on the order of a Melchizedek that had no genealogy. And we’re gonna go back and see how that fits together. So telling you what it’s saying. Now, let’s go the word and see what it says. Now it says this. Melchizedek was the king of Salem, and the priest of the Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him. And Abraham gave him a 10th of everything. First, his name means King of Righteousness, then also king of Salem means king of peace. Now who is the king of peace? Who is the King of Righteousness? Well, Jesus.

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Bob George 14:15
Now, he said this, Melchizedek had no father and mother. In other words, he just shows up in Scripture, and we’ll show you that nobody knows where it came from, or where he who he was or where he was going. He just showed up. So from our understanding, we don’t know where he came from. He didn’t have a father and mother he was without genealogy. He was without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

Now let’s turn back to the book of Genesis. In chapter 14, we’re not going to go through all of this. I’ll try to bring it together for you. You’re going to see in there that there was a battle that took place between kings. You had one set of kings over here and another set of kings over here that got together. And they had a a battle. In this battle, down in verse 12 of 14, you’re going to see they also carried off Abram’s nephew Lot, and his possession since he was living in Sodam. So at this particular time, these kings were involved in this battle. And they came in to Sodam, and they took a Lot which was Abraham’s nephew. Now, it says, one who had escaped, came and reported this Abraham, who was a Hebrew, in other words, Abraham was involved in this stuff. But they said they came in and took your nephew and his possessions. So Abraham, a Hebrew, said, no one’s gonna get away with that. Sounds familiar? I gotta get away with that. They’re not gonna take my nephew, and they’re not gonna take his possessions. So it says that now, Abram was living near the great trees of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshkol and Aner, all of whom were allied with Abram. Now, when Abram heard that his relatives have been taken captive, he called out of the 318 trained men born in his household, and they went into pursuit as far as what’s it called Dan. During the night, Abraham, Abram divided his men to attack them, and he rounded them pursuing them. As far as Hoba, north of Damascus, he recovered all the goods, man, he got it all back. And he brought back his relative Lot, and all of his possessions, together with the women and the other people. So he went in and got it all back, plus some, brought back the women too, smart Hebrew. Now after that, Abram returned from, from defeating, and this was the name of a king Kedorlaomer, and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet them in the valley, in the Kings Valley. Now, all of a sudden here, cuz then Melchizedek, king of Salem brought out bread and wine. So it said, Where’d he come from? Nobody knows. What he said, didn’t have any ancestry. Just all of a sudden, there he was, king Melchizedek. And he was a priest of God Most High. And he blessed Abraham. And he said, bless it be Abraham, by God, Most High creator of heaven and earth. Folks, this was merely an appearance of Christ, before his coming. The blessings and Blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand. And then Abraham gave him a 10th of everything. Now, folks, this was not a tither. This wasn’t a church service. This was a battle that had taken place, and was custom always for the victor, that he always gave a 10th of his plunder back to the king. The only difference was is where this king came from, it wasn’t unusual to give a 10th of your plunder back to the king. But it was where this would come from? Again, it’s not a church service. This isn’t the first Baptist Church or First Methodist church or someplace like that. A battle had been fought. And they had gone back and taken back what had been stolen from them, and brought it back and then did what was the custom of that day, and was to give a 10th of the plunder back to the state, so to speak. It was like a taxation only it was a voluntary taxation had nothing to do with religion. It didn’t have anything to do with church, there wasn’t any, didn’t even have anything to do with the Levitical priesthood, there wasn’t any. It just had to do with custom of the day, a battle had been fought, and the victor collected all of the goods, services and everything from whoever they conquered, and took a 10th of that and gave it to the king. It’d be like today, come out and make some money. 10% goes to the government, pay the government. Wish it was only 10 Then king of Sodom and said Abraham, give me the people and keep the good yourself. This king said, Look, just give me the people. But Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I’ve raised my hand is the Lord God Most High, creator of heaven and earth and I have taken an oath that I will accept nothing belonging to you not even a thread nor a throng of a sandal so that you will never be able to say that I made Abram rich, I will accept nothing, but what my man have eaten, and the share that belongs to the men who went with me. That’s it, let them have their share.

Now following this is where God made the covenant with Abram, regarding the fact that he was going to have children that would populate would be greater than the stars in the sand on the sea. Now, let’s go back then to Chapter Seven of Hebrews. So that’s what happened there. Without father and mother. Now, that’s the only account of this whole deal folks in the Bible, this this Melchizedek, it was mentioned in one verse and one deal, and you don’t hear about him anymore. Now, it comes back to the fact that Abraham, and Abraham who was the father of the, of the Hebrew nation, and quite often the father of the Arabs, he was the father of everybody. that Abraham was the person that was worshipped and followed in Hebrewism. Moses gave the law but Abraham, he was the father Abraham was the father of at all. And what the writer is saying, there’s someone here greater than Abraham, Abraham, even bowed his knee to this Melchizedek. So there was someone greater than Abraham there. That’s bounced back to people saying, Man, Abraham was the ultimate. And you’re saying there’s someone greater than him? Yeah, there was a king Melchizedek. Remember that? He came back and gave a 10th of the plunder to him. That shows there was someone greater than Abraham, otherwise Melchizedek would have given to him. And when someone tried to give to him, he said no, I’ve already given to someone greater than myself. Now, just think how great he was. It goes ahead, even the patriarch Abraham gave him a 10th of the plunder. Now, the law requires that the descendants of Levi, who become priests to collect a 10th from the people that is their brothers, and even though their brothers are descended from Abraham, so under the priesthood of the Levitical priesthood, the Levi’s were to collect they were priests. And they were collect a 10th, from the people that was a taxation and there’s a reason for that. That is their brothers, even though their brothers were descended from Abraham. So even though we all came from Abraham, he was saying, even though the Levites came from Abraham, they still were paying the Levites a 10th, even though they’re brothers. Now let’s go back to the book of Numbers, for a minute. It seems chapter. Now again, I don’t have time to go through and read all of this. But it’s talking an 18 chapter about the duties of priests and Levites. You had in Israel, the 12 tribes of Israel, and the Levites, were then designated by God to be the priests over those tribes. Now in verse seven, only you is talking now, he’s talking now to to the Father. He says, only you, Aaron. And your sons may serve as priests in connection with everything at the altar, and inside of the curtain, turned over to verse 20.

Now, here’s some of the stipulations of being a priest. In other words, you are to serve over all of the house of Israel in regard to the matters of God, a priest is a representative of the people to God. And Levites, you’re the one to do that. You’re the one named appointed by God to do that. But there’s some criteria here, first of all, the Lord said to Aaron, you will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them. I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites. In other words, you will inherit nothing I give to the Levites all tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for the work that they’re doing while serving in the tent meeting. Down in verse 23, you’ll see again, it is the Levites who are to do the work at the tent meeting and bear the responsibility for the offenses against it. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, they will receive no inheritance among the Israelites. They will have no inheritance among the Israelites talked about again So to a Levite, a priest, he could have no inheritance. He could own nothing. He could possess nothing. He had no rights to do anything except be a priest. Now in order if you can’t go work and earn money, and you can’t own your own house, you can’t own your own air conditioned dog house. You can’t own any of those things. No Mercedes Benz wouldn’t have any of those things. No Rolls Royces. No million dollar homes, none of that you couldn’t own anything. If you’re going to be a Levitical. Priest, you own nothing. Then you say, well, then how am I going to live? Well, I’ll tell you how you’re going to live. There’s 12 tribes of Israel. And I’m going to take every one of those tribes, and I will instruct them to give 10% of their foodstuffs and their resources. And every one of them will bring that foodstuff into the storehouse, that was not a church building. It was a barn. It was a silo that you will bring to the storehouse, that’s not a church building. And you will bring that foodstuff. And if you’ve got 12 tribes, and one of them’s a Levite, that leaves 11 tribes, and each one of them given 10% gives the fact that you then as a Levite, can will live off of the 10% of the 10 tribes and of the 11 tribes that will be an overflow that you feed the poor with. So the way that the Levites lived was through the tithe of the other 11 tribes of Israel. So I say to people today, if you’re going to teach people that you are demanded by God to give like an Israelite, why don’t you live like a Levite. And unless you’re willing to live like I Levite, I don’t tell people to be giving like an Israelite.

Announcer 27:11
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