Radio Broadcast Monday 04/17/2023

Classic Christianity – The Book of John P31 (04-17-23)

Only by Faith Does a Person Become a Child of God

~ “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,” ^{Galatians 3:26}

“You have people today in the denomination that believe that the way that you have Jesus into your heart is to put a wafer in your mouth. And so you have people that come forward, and the priests puts wafers in your mouth and that wafer is transformed into the body of Jesus. And now Jesus lives in you. If you drink wine, well, then that is transformed into the blood of Jesus and Jesus lives in you. Well, I’ve told people, if that’s true, that isn’t gonna stay there long, and as much as we have a digestive tract. And so we’re how a person or how people can believe this, I do not know. Because I do know what I put in my mouth ain’t gonna stay there. Maybe that’s why you have to keep coming back, to get Jesus over and over again. But there are people who believe that, or people who are taught that until they learn otherwise. That is not the way that you receive Jesus. You receive Jesus, not by taking a wafer or not by drinking something physically, but by understanding the truth that Jesus was raised from the dead, so that that life that raised Him from the dead, can raise you from the dead spiritually. And you enter into that by faith. And when you do, there’s something called being born again. Do I understand that miracle? I don’t understand that miracle at all. I don’t know how God did that. But I know he did it. And how do I know He did it, because I know he did it to me. And you know it because of what he did to you. It’s a miracle of new birth in Christ Jesus.”

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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 0:29
Now, that is a spiritual birth, and Jesus told us that there’s two births, you have a physical birth, and you have a spiritual birth. You have physical bread, and you have spiritual bread. Now, today, you have people who instead of taking these passages of Jesus, and seeing them for what they are of teaching a spiritual truth using a physical illustration, why you have people today in the denomination that believe that the way that you have Jesus into your heart is to put a wafer in your mouth. And so you have people that come forward, and the priests puts wafers in your mouth and that wafer is transformed into the body of Jesus. And now Jesus lives in you. If you drink wine, well, then that is transformed into the blood of Jesus and Jesus lives in you. Well, I’ve told people, if that’s true, that isn’t gonna stay there long, and as much as we have a digestive tract. And so we’re how a person or how people can believe this, I do not know. Because I do know what I put in my mouth ain’t gonna stay there. Maybe that’s why you have to keep coming back, to get Jesus over and over again. But there are people who believe that, or people who are taught that until they learn otherwise. That is not the way that you receive Jesus. You receive Jesus, not by taking a wafer or not by drinking something physically, but by understanding the truth that Jesus was raised from the dead, so that that life that raised Him from the dead, can raise you from the dead spiritually. And you enter into that by faith. And when you do, there’s something called being born again. Do I understand that miracle? I don’t understand that miracle at all. I don’t know how God did that. But I know he did it. And how do I know He did it, because I know he did it to me. And you know it because of what he did to you. It’s, it’s a miracle of new birth in Christ Jesus.

Now, he said to us that whenever you participate and enter into that agreement between God and man, by faith, you are born again. And you will live forever. So there’s no temporary life down here at all for us who are in Christ Jesus, when we are absent from the body, we’re eternally present, with the Lord forever. Now, he said, he said, he said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Now On hearing this, many of His disciples said, this is hard teaching. Well, of course, it’s hard to teach. And he’s talking about bread, and yet he’s talking about spiritual bread. He’s talking about wine, and yet he’s talking about spiritual wine. He’s trying to make an illustration here to us. And whenever we hear a spiritual illustration, for some reason, our minds are always thinking on the physical realm. Because why? That’s where we live, isn’t it? We live on a physical plane, we live on being able to see things and touch things and hear things. But he says, this is different. There’s a spiritual realm to this life that you know nothing of that he said, I’m going to teach you. And so it said, this is a hard teaching who can accept this? If I had a person say, I want to believe this, but there’s something in my head that just doesn’t comprehend it. Now aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, does this teaching in essence offend you? Is this offensive to you? Well, he didn’t give them a chance to answer he probably knew what their answer was, well, I don’t know where it’s offensive we’re not Lord. But it’s hard to comprehend. It’s hard to accept. He says, Well, what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? Now you just got through saying that he not that I came from heaven, I came down from heaven said what do you what would you think if you saw this man all of a sudden go back to where I came from? Did that happen? With Jesus following his resurrection? Absolutely. And until that happened, I did not believe there was a true belief system. I don’t think there was that gut rendering deal where a person says into the nth of their being, this is absolute truth. When they saw Jesus ascend back to where he came from. He said, The Spirit gives life. I’m talking about a life different than this physical life that you have. The Spirit gives life and then he says, Guys, the flesh counts for nothing.

Guys, think about this for a minute. When you get to be older, and all of us are aging. Some of us are just a little bit more ahead than others. But if you tarry, you’re going to be where I am someday. We’re growing older. And I want to tell you something, guys, and any of us sitting in this room who have any age on us at all, know how quickly this life goes by, don’t wait. It’s like this. I’m at the tail end of life. And I look back, and it seems like it’s gone like this, just in a flash. But guys, this life down here that we have in light of eternity is nothing but a split second. But we play such unbelievable importance on it. Look what we do. I mean, these bodies of ours are just unbelievably important. Guys, I don’t care. When you’re 60, and 70, you just ain’t gonna look like a 20 year old. I don’t care how many operations you have, it just isn’t gonna work. You can get the face all stretch, but your arms are bagging. And unless you want to get somebody just zippia from the head, it ain’t gonna work. But we’re so interested in his body and so preoccupied with his body, that you’ve got all kinds of diseases that take place or what people call disease, they got anorexia bulimia, starving yourself to death, so you look good. And I don’t care how long you do that. One of these days, you’re not gonna look good. Maybe look a little better than others, but you’re not gonna be what you were when you’re 20. You don’t see 60 year old bottles in bikinis on television. Thank God. It’s temporary. This life is temporary. We all get a turn to look good. We all get to go through the 20s and stuff and look good, that’s nice but isn’t gonna stay there. If you’re an athlete, you’re not gonna play pro athletes, athletics for all your life. Are you guys? Play for the Cowboys for a while, but after a while the body doesn’t do what it used to be able to do. You think it will until you get hit one day too hard. You say that’s all that’s enough of this. It just doesn’t work. All of this is temporary. That’s why Jesus said the flesh counts for nothing. The Spirit is what counts. We put all of our emphasis is on this flesh that’s gonna die. And no emphasis on the spirit that’s gonna live forever. That’s why it says Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. I’ll add these things to you. But these things I had to you are temporary. Anything we do down here in this flesh is temporary. Our successes are temporary, your failures are temporary. It isn’t gonna last forever. And that’s what he’s saying to us is it’s what it’s what we do spiritually that counts. This is what is going to affect you eternally. What you do down here will only affect you for a few years. Period. And yet, our emphasis is constantly on this life, with no thought at all for what’s going to happen in the afterlife. The words I’ve spoken to you, Jesus said they’re spiritual things. They’re not physical thing. I’m not talking about bread to eat, I’m talking about spiritual food. These words, I’ve spoken to you our spirit and their life, they’re words that will give you eternal life. So that you can die in peace, so to speak, because we’re all gonna die. This isn’t a message of gloom, it’s a message of reality. We’re not gonna live forever. And so he says, If you want to live forever, you’re not going to do so physically. But you can do so spiritually. And these words of mine are life. And yet, there’s some of you who don’t believe. And one of the reasons you don’t believe is we’re thinking too much on this level down here of the flesh, instead of what’s going to happen in the Spirit.

Because they said that Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, this is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him. Now guys, again, it is God’s will, that none should perish, and all should come to repentance. Is that true or not? That’s a quote right out of the Scripture. It’s God’s will we know what his will is. That none should perish and all should come to repentance. Are all going to come to repentance? Why? Even though it’s God’s will that you come to repentance. He also gave you a will. It’s God’s will and you have a will. That’s one of the things that makes you human. He gave you a choice. God didn’t make a robot. People say, How does God allow these things to happen? Because he gave man a will. That’s why things happen. Why are these wars taking place because he gave man a will. And a man chooses to go into worship Allah make up his own God instead of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Believe that you’re gonna go to heaven and get your 70 virgins by killing somebody who’s not a believer like you. Instead of believing in Jesus, who came not to give death to people, but to give life to people. And so we realize this truth that not all people, because we have choices are going to come to Him. Now God gives grace to the humble. And he rejects the proud and the reason that people reject this message of salvation through Jesus alone, is because of pride. I don’t want that I there’s many ways to God I want to be liberal, I want to I want to be, I want to, I want to be a broad thinker. I want to I want to just be one of those guys that just believe everything’s okay. It’s like a church marquee. I said, one time come in to our church, you’ll feel comfortable. We don’t believe in anything. I want to be tolerant, tolerant people don’t want to call sin, sin, call it something else. It’s pride. And God will not touch your heart when it’s prideful. So when he’s saying, This is what I will do that no one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him. How does God enable you to come to you? When you’ve had your heart softened. When you’ve gotten to the end of your self sufficiency, the end of yourself pride, the end of your own righteousness, there’s only two kinds of righteousness, God’s righteousness and self righteousness, and self righteousness is an abomination to God.

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Bob George 13:52
It’s when we come down to the point where we’re not going to say now, God, I know you’re going to accept me because I’ve, I’ve given money and I’ve, you know, put stained glass windows and I bought those and I’ve done all these nice things, and he’s gonna appreciate you doing those things. But that isn’t the way you’re gonna get to heaven. You’re gonna get to heaven, not because of what you do, but you’re gonna get to heaven because of only what Jesus has done. It’s only what Christ came to do that is going, that was of such a value, that I as God can look down on the act of Jesus and say propitiation has taken place. In other words, I’m satisfied with that offering. And so nobody can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him. Now, from this time, many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed him. You see, guys, we can follow Jesus to get healed. We can follow Jesus to get fed. We can follow Jesus because he can do something for me. He can do something for my family. We can follow think we’re following Jesus. And because I go to church, and I’m doing the right thing. But Jesus says, they turned their back and no longer followed him. Now, guys, when you’re following somebody, they’re going someplace. I will follow You, Jesus, anywhere except to the cross. You see, that’s where we follow Jesus to where he was going. He was going to across. These people were following him to get fed, following him to get healed. But I’m not going to follow you to the cross. And to watch you suffer and die for my sins, I’ll take care of myself. You don’t understand my ability, God to keep short accounts with God. You don’t understand my ability to be diligent to go the confession booth. You don’t understand my diligence to go back to the Day of Atonement and get my sins forgiven over and over, you just don’t understand how faithful and diligent I am in keeping myself clean. So I’m not going to follow you to the cross. You need to follow me to where I’m going to get myself and keep myself forgiven. And for sure, Lord, I don’t need to follow you to your resurrection because I’m okay. I’m not dead. I’m alive. I’m okay. Said to somebody one day, we’ve got a book, I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re gonna write a book called I’m not okay. You’re not okay. But that’s okay. Because Jesus is okay.

And so he’s saying that people, just like those disciples. Now guys, these were people looking into the face of God. They were looking into a man of perfect love. Never had anyone ever seen this kind of a man walking in perfect love. And yet turned their back on him, and no longer followed him because he said, how to be saved spiritually. Say, give me this physical stuff to do. Give me something I can do in the church, give me something I can do. Give me something like where I can go get you tell me what to do down here. He said, No, no, I’m telling you what I’m doing. And I’m not interested in that. So they left him. And he asked a question to his basic 12, Do you want to leave too, do you? Do you want to go as well? You’ve been following me for all these years? Do you want to go too? Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? Where are we going to go? You have the words of eternal life. For some reason, Peter caught it. You’re not talking about bread, manna. You’re talking about life. You’re talking about eternal life. Where would we go to hear about eternal life? Who can tell us about eternal life except the one who initiated eternal life. Eternal life has to come from God who can tell us about God except the one who’s been with God. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. Where shall we go Lord? Where are we gonna go to find about Jesus? You know, it’s interesting, these newspeople, going over to Israel to find about Jesus. Let you save some money and read the Bible. How you gonna find Jesus over Israel? Maybe read the Davinci Code. Look, you don’t tell other people down in me and I vacation down in Florida and people sitting around that pool. It looks like a DaVinci con conference going on. Everybody’s reading the Davinci Code. You sit down tell him about Jesus and they think you’re nuts. They look at you like you’re from another planet. But sit there read the Davinci Code and just gobble it up. Where are you going to go for answers? Where are we gonna go? Reader’s Digest? Where we’re gonna go to find about eternal life, where are we going to go? And who are we going to go to? To find out about heaven, if you’ve never been there? Maybe send some snapshots, some pictures, but who’s gonna tell you about some place if they haven’t been there? And that’s what he’s saying. Where are we gonna go to find out about heaven? No one’s been there, except you. And you came down from heaven to tell us about heaven. Where are we gonna go? And Jesus replied, have I not chosen you the 12 I chose you. That was my choice. It was God’s will that none should perish and all should come to repentance. It was God’s will, that I chose you. And yet one of you is a devil. And he meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the 12 was later to be trained. So even though it was God’s will, when he picked Judas, he loved Judas the same way that he loved the rest of the disciples. But Judas had a will, did he not? Judas had a choice, did he not? And he chose the way of the flesh instead of the way of the Spirit. Because he was looking for a Jesus who would take over and free the Israelites from Rome. To get rid of the slave condition that they were living in, he was looking for a physical ruler, a political ruler. And I believe that Judas was thinking if I can just get him with some trouble, maybe a drive him to a sense, to his senses. So he’ll do what He came what I want him to do, and that’s take over as president, so to speak. And Judas betrayed him, because Judas was thinking on a physical plane instead of a spiritual plane. And yet it was God’s will, that he come to Him.

And so folks, it’s the same thing that we run into today. We’re in the midst of in our country of political campaigns. I don’t know about you, but I get so tired of hearing political speeches, I could just die. People blasting people for what happened 35 years ago, whether it’s on one side or the other is irrelevant. Who cares? What were you doing 35 years ago? How would you like to be judged for your behavior at the fraternity in college? Aren’t you glad people weren’t there that you know? Our hope is not in who gets elected president. Our hope is in the King of kings, and the Lord of lords who is Jesus Christ. That does not mean that maybe one person would do a better job than another. But the issue is my hope is not and who gets elected President, my hope is in God to sustain this country and to sustain the people in it. And so again, whatever we do down here, is temporary. I’ve lived through a lot of presidents, most of them are dead. It’s temporary. Everything down here is temporary. As Solomon said, Vanity, vanity, it’s all temporary. It’s in vain. The only thing that matters is our relationship with Christ Jesus. So whether you’re a little child or whether you’re an adult, the issue is are you in Christ? Because if you are, then you know, something that the world doesn’t know. And that is that when the day comes, when this heart of mine stops beating, I am gonna go into the presence of Christ to live how long not for a few 70, 80 years, eternally, eternally in the presence of the living God. That’s a deal isn’t it. I’ve said before that coming out of the business world, I know what the deal is. The deal is, I’m going to exchange something that I perceive as value for something that you perceive as having more value. Paul’s in the car business. I say, Paul, I got $10,000. And I think your car’s worth more than my $10,000. And then Paul laughs and says, got him this time. And Paul says, Well, I think your $10,000 is worth more than my car. So we got to deal. He’s good for him good for me. He thinks that my $10,000 is worth more than his car. And I think his car’s worth more than my $10,000. So we exchange it got a deal. Well, God has said to us, I got a deal for you. I want you to live on this earth, for what however long that I want you to live here. And in my case, it’s been up to 70 years. In exchange for that, Bob, one of these days, I’m going to take you home, and you’re going to live with me eternally never to see sickness again ever to see death and ever to have back aches and all that stuff we have. But to live eternally in my presence, for eternity, all I ask of you, is for 70 years of allowing me to live my life in and through you, and I look at that and say that’s a deal. That’s a good deal. Given up 70 years for eternity, that’s like $10,000 for a Rolls Royce. And that’s what he said. He said, Bob, Mary, Jane, Bill, whoever it might be. What I want is for you to make your body available to me, so that I can live my life in and through you. For however long you have here on this earth. Whether it’s in good shape or bad shape is not the issue any old bush will do. I just want you to be available to me. And in exchange for that one of these days, I’m going to take you home and to live with me eternally. And I say thank you, Lord, it’s a good deal.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity, with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord, find more information online at shop.BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.