Radio Broadcast Monday 05/08/2023

Classic Christianity – The Book of John P40 (05-08-23)

No Amount of Works You do Will Save You. Only Christ Jesus Can Save You!

~ “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” ^{Galatians 2:16}

~ Many many people are thinking that their fleshly works are somehow pleasing to God. But God says our works are as filthy rags. And as a reminder, God does NOT grade on a curve. And these people that think they are doing good works through their flesh, don’t have any idea that they are dead and in need of Life. That Life is only found in the person of Christ Jesus himself.

~ “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ^{Romans 6:23}

~ “Jesus said this, he could have judged on our good works. He could have judged on that how he wanted to but again, how would you come up to a conclusion when you’ve been good enough or when you’ve been bad enough? And so what Jesus did was he reduced us all down to one level. He took the law with its regulations that was against us. And he diminished it to the Hebrew was against a Gentile was never given the law. Only the Hebrew was given the law. And they reduced it. And he said you’re no longer under it. All the law did was to show you you’re dead. There’s only one thing that the law can do. And that is to show you that you’re dead. That’s his wages of sin is death, and all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There’s none righteous no, not one. And you’re all dead. So he reduced the self righteous Hebrew down to nothing. And he just kept the Gentile where we already were nothing. And he said now I’ve leveled the playing field. And now there’s one way and one way only that salvation is going to take place and again guys, we must keep in mind what salvation is, I’ve reduced you all to one place because all of you have already become to that point in your life, and that’s dead spiritually. And there’s only one way to get life. It’s not that Mohammed might not have been a good guy or bad guy, it’s not important, but could he give you life? Is not that the Pope might not be a bad guy or a good guy, but can he bring you life? It’s not that Buddha made a baby fat or slim, it makes no difference. He cannot give you life.

There’s only one person that can give life to the dead. And that is the risen Jesus Christ.” ~ Bob George

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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
Let’s turn to the Gospel of John. As we ended up, the last time, I was here in chapter eight, we came down to a passage of scripture that is very, very important to us. And it’s in verse 23, chapter eight, where Jesus said, You are from below, and I am from above, he identified immediately, his origin. He did not come from here, he came from up there, He came from heaven to earth, and we are born here on this earth with a capacity of going to heaven. I told you that you will die in your sins, if you do not believe that I am the one that I claim to be. And anyone who denies that Jesus is who he claims to be, according to Jesus is going to die in our sins. It is not one of these nicey things or girly guy things, that was talked about. It is a truth that either you’re going to live on this earth with an option to believe a lie, or with the option of believing truth. And Jesus says that I tell you that you’re going to die in your sins. If you do not believe that I am the one that I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins. Now, folks, you can’t get a clearer than that. There is no option. Like I said, in the Christian life, there’s no alleyway between the fences in your backyard, there’s just a fence. And on one side of it is salvation. And the other side of it is damnation. And we have to understand the truth of that. Also, we have to understand that we have all kinds of opinions in this world in regard to salvation, like we even do in regard to creation, we have opinions in regard to whether we were created or whether we evolved. And we have opinions as whether you’re saved by your works, or whether you’re saved by the grace of God.

And I’m convinced, however we perceive justice, is going to determine how you’re going to live your life. As an example, what is fair and just in regard to this thing called salvation? Well, we come down and you have people think, well, what would be fair is that the good people, if you’re good enough, you’ll be saved. And if you’re bad enough, or you’ll be lost, and that’s what would be fair. And then you start thinking about that, and saying, Well, if that would be what fair and just would be that if you’re good enough to be saved bad enough to be lost, then how good would you have to be to be saved? And how bad would you have to be to be lost? And who’s going to draw that line of demarcation between who’s good enough and who’s bad enough? And let’s say someone was bad enough, but not really bad, but he just missed it by a hair would that be fair and just? But that’s what you have to deal with. If you’re going to deal with the fact that salvation is by your good works. And you lose salvation by your bad works. But however, you perceive what is just from God’s standpoint is the way you’re, you’re gonna live your life. And we have to understand the truth of that. We cannot go leaning on our own understanding in these things. Because God has revealed what truth is, we just read it. If you deny who I am, you’re going to die in your sins. Very simple, very cut and dried. We have to understand that how many times people will say, Well, if you go to church or you belong to this particular denomination, then you’ll be saved. That’s leaning on your own understanding because joining a club, whether it’s a Christian club, or the Kiwanis Club is not going to save anybody. You’re not going to be saved through joining yourself to some manmade organization, you’re only going to be saved by joining yourself to a God made organization. And that one happens to be called the ecclesia. Or the Church of Christ Jesus made up not a membership, but made up of a relationship with God Himself. And you have people on the other hand, who think that’s how you’re going to be saved.

You have another group of people that think that you’re saved because God just decided he’s going to do that. I’m gonna save Richard, but I’m not gonna save loss. I don’t care if they’re married or not, he’s going to heaven she had. And it just that simple. Richard just agreed. So that’s the way it is Honey. And you have people who believe that, that it’s just a choice of God, you have nothing to do with it, you’re doomed. If you’re born, I haven’t chosen here, you’re doomed, you’re gonna go to hell. Now, Jesus said, that you’re going to die in your sins if you don’t believe in me. But they say you’re gonna die in your sins, because he chose you to. And so you have all kinds of so called intellectual belief systems in regard to what is just and what is right. And, folks, if we don’t go to God to determine right from wrong and good from evil, then we are doing exactly what took place in the Garden of Eden that is standing at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and saying, God, I do not need you to determine right from wrong and good from evil. I will determine that on my own.

When you have a thing called marriage, you have a marriage, that I said, God did not make Adam and Steve, he made Adam and Eve. Marriage was never to be considered and how we in this country have digressed to the point of even considering a marriage of being the meaning of anything between except a man and woman. I do not know I don’t know how we have digressed to that point of even considering something like that. Next it’ll be marry your dog. But it just gets down to the point of how has this country digressed. And the world digress to the point of even considering something like that. And yet we have it at the forefront of even political thought today. How that happens, it just like you eat an elephant, a bite at a time. That evil begins to start and it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and worse. This country today politically is divided 50 50. It’s not divided 50 50 between Democrats and Republicans, it’s divided between evil and good. It’s divided between people who want to believe in the sanctity of marriage, people who want to believe in the sanctity of God, and people that want to lean on their own understanding, instead of acknowledging him and allowing him to direct our paths. It’s not a complicated issue at all. If it continues at the rate, it’s going, it’ll no longer be in a very short period of time, a 50 50 split will be a 60 40 and then a 70 30, then an 80 20. And that’s how a country gets destroyed. Whenever you start compromising on truth, you will compromise even more on truth. Sin does not get less, sin gets worse if you don’t stop it. And so we have to understand that how whatever our opinion is in regard to justice. And what is right and what is wrong is going to determine the way in which you live your life.

Jesus said this, he could have judged on our good works. He could have judged on that how he wanted to but again, how would you come up to a conclusion when you’ve been good enough or when you’ve been bad enough? And so what Jesus did was he reduced us all down to one level. He took the law with its regulations that was against us. And he diminished it to the Hebrew was against a Gentile was never given the law. Only the Hebrew was given the law. And they reduced it. And he said you’re no longer under it. All the law did was to show you you’re dead. There’s only one thing that the law can do. And that is to show you that you’re dead. That’s his wages of sin is death, and all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There’s none righteous no, not one. And you’re all dead. So he reduced the self righteous Hebrew down to nothing. And he just kept the Gentile where we already were nothing. And he said now I’ve leveled the playing field. And now there’s one way and one way only that salvation is going to take place and again guys, we must keep in mind what salvation is, I’ve reduced you all to one place because all of you have already become to that point in your life, and that’s dead spiritually. And there’s only one way to get life. It’s not that Mohammed might not have been a good guy or bad guy, it’s not important, but could he give you life? Is not that the Pope might not be a bad guy or a good guy, but can he bring you life? It’s not that Buddha made a baby fat or slim, it makes no difference. He cannot give you life.

There’s only one person that can give life to the dead. And that is the risen Jesus Christ. Precisely why he said in this passage, that if you do not believe me for who I am, I’m the Savior of the world. I’m the one who came to this world to give life to the dead. And that you refuse to believe this, you’re gonna die in your sins, if you refuse to believe. Now, folks, we’re not talking about an intellectual assent. We’re not talking about the fact that I believe this like I believe that a Blake had died in the Ford theater, or the George Washington chopped down a cherry tree. You’re talking about a belief system, you’re talking about putting faith to what you say I believe in. I believe that chair will hold me I exercise faith this morning when I sat in it, that what I believe is true, because I sat in it, I exercise faith. So it’s not an intellectual assent, it isn’t something we can sit back and say, Oh, I believe that that is going to do anybody any good. And I don’t care whether you’re six years old, or whether you’re 86 years old, you’re gonna die in your sins, if we do not believe who Jesus is, that He came to save the world. And he came to save us from the consequence of sin, which is death, through the gift of God, which is life. It is not a narrow minded thing. It’s a practical issue, that in the practicality of life, that you’re dead, if you believe this, and Christ said I came that you might have what? Life. And what we need is life. It isn’t how good you have been, or how bad you have been, iit’ss how dead you are. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a good stinking corpse, or a bad stinking corpse, you’re a corpse, and you’re dead. And the only thing that a dead person needs is life. And yet you have man in our arrogance, who stand and shake their fist in the face of God, who would rather sit down and read the Davinci Code than they would to read the Bible, who would rather listen to the commentators going back to Israel to try to find Jesus, lot’s of luck. To try to listen to all of the different philosophies today that’s being perpetuated about who Jesus is and who he isn’t. Instead of going to the source, where it tells you who Jesus is. He’s God. He’s the Savior of the world. He’s the Promised Messiah. He’s the Alpha, he’s the Omega, he’s the Beginning and the End. He’s our life. When we come to understand the truth of that, our life will never be the same.

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Bob George 13:39
So Christ Jesus did not come to die for good people. He only came to die for dead people. And when we have the idea that we are better than someone else, you’re going to hear the words of Jesus that Who are you to be trying to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye when you got a log in your own. There’s not a person in this room or a person within the sound of my voice that could walk into the presence of God today and your own righteousness. If you think you can, you’re deceived out of your socks. Because God’s righteousness is not predicated on how well you’re doing up next to another man. It’s how well are you doing up next to Jesus the Man. That’s the key. How are you doing up next to Jesus? Not how are you doing up next to me or somebody else. You can always do better than that. But how are you doing next to Jesus? And when we start to understand the truth of that we find out what the Bible is true that all have sinned all have fallen short of the glory of God, there is none righteous, no, not one. And that many times we stand in our righteousness and we think in our righteousness that I’m okay but you’re not okay. And what we have to do is to come to grips with that, my friends, because as I said, what our opinion is of justice is going to determine how we live our life and it could determine where you’re going to spend eternity as your life. Because you cannot talk out of both sides of our mouth, we cannot talk out of one side of our mouth about the grace of God and live as if Grace does not occur. And many people do that. The commingling of law and grace that Paul talked about, in the book of Galatians, that you foolish Galatians, who has hypnotized you and cast an evil spell upon you? You used to see the meaning of Christ’s death as clearly as I’d played, raved a place card in front of you. He said, have you gone crazy? Let me ask you a question. Did you receive the Spirit of God, by your works or by believing what you heard? And after beginning by believing what you heard, why are you now trying to perfect yourself by human effort. If we live a life as a born again, believer, if we live a life of dependency in Christ Jesus, and you feel that you are living a life, in dependence upon Christ Jesus, thank God for that. But don’t look at others as if they’re not. Or try to gauge who is and who isn’t. We have to understand folks that you cannot live your life in that way and call yourself a born again believer. If you don’t have mercy in your heart, don’t call yourself a born again believer because you’re saved by the God of mercy. If we cannot forgive others, as Christ Jesus forgave us, do not call yourself a born again believer. Because you’re indwelt by the one who have hung on a cross and said, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.

And so we must understand these things, folks, that these are all attitudes of the heart, that God wants to change in us. Because there’s not a one of us, I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what how good of a life you’ve lived. If you have praise Jesus for that, guys. I say many I know many, many people who have grown up, and they grew up in a Christian home, and they grew up with Christian foundation, grew up with Christian principles and Christ is their life, who were saved, have all kinds of things in their life because of that truth. And you thank God for that people who grew up even legalistically and were saved. And you praise God for the legalism, because it scared the daylights out of you from doing anything wrong. But if it did it accomplish the purpose, until such time that you can understand that, wait a minute, this is all God’s grace. And if God has saved you, from all of these things that you can have into the world, promiscuity, drunkenness, drug usage, pornography, all of the different things that we can think of, or just being mean spirited, or being critical. Or being non forgiving. All of these things, you can’t say one is worse than another. If those things have not been a part of your life, praise God for that truth. Thank Him for it, and thank Him for His mercy that has kept you some way. Because that’s not the case with most people. On the other hand, if you’ve lived a life that wasn’t that way, and you’ve lived a life, that you were not really, you wouldn’t sit down and want to write a newspaper article about it. Praise God, He saved you. Praise God, he isn’t through with you yet. In other words, guys, start praising God. start praising him for whatever condition you’re in. If you’ve been saved from things, praise him for that. It’s His Grace that brought that about. If you haven’t paid any attention to him and periods of your life, and yet to recognize that God has forgiven you, and He loves you, praise him for everything we do is worthy of praise is it not in this world.

Now we pick up in verse 27, they did not understand what he was telling them about the Father. And Jesus said to them, when you have lifted up the Son of Man, that you will know that I am the one I claim to be. And that I do nothing on my own, but speak just what the Father has taught me. Guys, how many of you have difficulty with a critical spirit? Can I see your hands? Now let me see. Now how many, okay, now, how many of you are liars? Yeah, there we go. Do we not have a tendency to be extremely critical of others? And you know, when you get right back to it, the root of that self righteousness, I’m better than they are. But we still do it. Well, what are you gonna do with that type of thing? Well, he says that he talking about the fact that what we’re doing is not speaking what God has said through us, but we’re speaking again leaning on our own understanding. Do we have a tendency to lean on our own understanding? Absolutely. But Jesus, who was God said, I don’t say anything unless the Father tells me to say it. I don’t do anything unless the Father tells me to do it. I live in total dependency upon my Father, to do and to say exactly and precisely what he wants me to say. Now, how many times do we do that? I had to laugh this morning. Amy told me that about 630 in the morning, and next door to us, why the neighbors have a couple of hound dogs that evidently we’re chasing. Or we’re chasing some foxes or something next door, just howling at the top of their voice 6:30 In the morning, just howling from one end to the other. Now, how many of you think gee, Amy woke up and said, Praise Jesus? Don’t you thank God for your animal life. Thank you for those sweet voices go ruff, ruff, ruff at 6:30 in the morning. I don’t think she said that. She didn’t tell me what she said, thank goodness. But I don’t think she said that. It just shows us folks, that when we’re counting on our own righteousness, you may as well forget it. We don’t have any. We only are a closed in his in that good to know that we are indwelt by His righteousness, it is because of him God, that we are in Christ Jesus who has become for us, our righteousness, our holiness. He is our everything. And so Jesus is saying, I don’t speak anything unless the Father tells me to do it, don’t you wish we could do that only speak, but the Father tells us to speak. The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone for I always do what pleases him would not be a nice thing to be able to say that all my life I’ve done nothing except what please God. But even as he spoke, many put their faith even as he spoke, many put their faith in Him.

Now to the Hebrews who had believed him. Jesus said to them, these are these were the Hebrews now that he came into his own. And he proclaimed his message of grace. And I want to tell you, folks, for a Hebrew to believe what Jesus was teaching, you talk about a miracle, that is a miracle. Those people were steeped in self reliance and in religion, were they not? They were steeped in it. They had all of these rules and laws and regulations that they never, they tried never to violate a one of them. They did, but they tried not to. And here’s this message of pure grace, entering into the population of that self righteousness, a message of grace. And some of them their hearts were open to Jesus. And they immediately responded to this good news. And they believed in his name. And so he said to them, if you hold on to my teaching, you are really my disciples. In other words, I don’t want you to grab a hold of this. And we’ll study this in one of our other lectures about the different soils. And I want you just to grab a hold of this thing, and then let go of it. You remember we talked about in the book of Hebrews, where it talks about the fact that, that, that you have this idea of forgiveness where Jesus came and took away the sins of the world, and yet the Hebrews were going back to the Day of Atonement. They grabbed a hold of this teaching that Jesus died for the sins of the world. But then they grabbed hold, and grant went back to their tradition and going back to the Day of Atonement. And that’s what he is saying is if you have heard the truth, because you’re sinning against the knowledge of the truth, that there’s no repentance, because you’ve never really changed your mind. You’ve only given lip service to it. So Jesus is saying, Hold on to this teaching, Don’t be swayed to get back under the law. Once you have come to a knowledge of the grace of God. Don’t be swayed that you got to get back under the law. And he said, if you hold on to my teaching, you really are my disciples, you have people who are called my disciples, but you really are my disciples why you’re not you’re holding on tenaciously you’re holding on to the grace of God that has been given to us in Christ Jesus, because my friends, there’s all kinds of opposition to this teaching. Is there not?

There’s all kinds of opposition to it. People don’t want to hear about grace. Why? Well, because I can’t make myself look good. How many of you think you can make yourself look good under grace? Think about it for a minute. You say Because grace doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s got everything to do with him. How many of you think you look good under the law? Oh, I look good under the law. You’re just telling me what to do. I’ll go do it. And I’ll get the praise, and I will look good under the law. You can’t look good under grace. That’s why people don’t lie. I could. Grace is a period of humility. It’s an attitude of humility of saying, it’s all Jesus, it’s none of me. If it wasn’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t be saved. If it wasn’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t be here. If it wasn’t for Jesus, I would have no life. If it wasn’t for Jesus, I would have no forgiveness. It’s all him and none of us, but under the law you to make yourself look good to others, to others, but not to God. So he says, Hold on to this teaching. And when you hold on to this teaching, and don’t get swayed, you’re going to know the truth. And the truth will do what? Set you free. Set you free. What do you need to be set free from a lot of times, resentments? I mean, have you ever been resentful toward a body? Do you want to get set free from it? Or do we want to hang on to it? Because if you hang on to it, what’s it gonna do? Destroy you. Am I right or wrong? It ain’t gonna destroy the person. You’re resentful toward nine times out of 10 they don’t even know you are. But it’s gonna destroy you, will it not? If you’re hanging on to resentment toward people. You have people that hang on to. And you run into a lot of this they resentment for their church, because and you hear people say, Why I was church all my life, why didn’t they teach me this? And I say, did you have a Bible? If you had a Bible, you could have learned it. If you had sense enough to study it. I said that, Lord, how come you had to wait 36 years to save me? You know, how come that dumb church has it didn’t teach me right? It was like he said, Bob, did you have a Bible? But yeah, I did, but never opened it. And so we get resentful over these types of things. We build resentment into our hearts. And that all that resentment is going to destroy you and me if we allow it to continue to fester. You can’t live with resentment toward people, unless you want to destroy yourself. That’s suicide guys, that is literally committing suicide. I’m gonna destroy myself, so that I can hang on to this resentment.

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.