Radio Broadcast Monday 10/10/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P10 (10-10-22)

Jesus Wants You to Enter Into The Promised Land

~ Just as the Israelites of the days they came out of Egypt and crossed over the Red Sea, by the power of God, they still refused to go into the promised land, we are much like them today. They refused to trust God and refused to cross over from the desert, into a land flowing with milk and honey. So too with us. We get saved and are set free from being a slave in Egypt, but still live as a slave in the desert. We fail to trust God and cross over into the promised land. We can be busy and barren in the desert or we can live in the promised land that Jesus provided for us and be rich and alive in Christ Jesus, where you rest from your works and live in Him. The choice is yours. You will not be happy in the desert though and you will never be able to go back to Egypt either. You will hate it in the desert. You will only have manna to eat and will grow tired of it real fast. Hopefully it will not take you 40 years of desert wandering to figure it out. Jesus will be with you in the desert though, but you will not be living as Christ Jesus wants you to be living, set free from the power of sin. Set free from the law. Only in the promised land will you be free. Begin experiencing that freedom in Christ today. Allow the Holy Spirit to renew your mind and show you the amazing life which is yours in Christ Jesus!

“No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Joshua 1:5

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Law & Grace, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store.

Jesus asked how does God love and accept us? And how does he expect us to live the Christian life? To answer those questions, this insightful study explores a vital issue at the heart of the Christian experience, the biblical relationship between law and grace, understanding their role in our relationship to God will bring joy, freedom and spontaneity to your Christian life. Now, let’s take A Closer Look at Law & Grace.

Bob George 0:39

Producing sinful passions that are aroused by this law that is at work in our bodies. Does Satan want to keep you under the law folks? Absolutely. How come? it produces sin, it arouses sinful passions that are aroused by the law, not aroused by porno aroused by the law. Now, I hope you understand what I’m talking about there. That none of that type of thing is from God. Porno certainly is not from God. But porno could do nothing. Unless there was something inside of you that responded to it. Circumstances don’t cause your spirit it just reveals it. So the law living in you is what it says, is what arouses the sinful passions are in you. They’re in your flesh, and they are aroused by the law where they are at work in our bodies, and they bear the fruit of death. But, now, this is something new by dying to what once bound us. What bound you folks? the law. By dying to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in a new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. Do you understand that? You are going to have to die to what binds you the law. It’s what we were talking about earlier, release Lazarus. Take the bondage and loosing In other words, get the the binding wire off of him, you’re bound up in grave clothes. Take them off folks. You who are saved, are in the desert if you’re under the law. You know, you can do some pretty neat things in a desert, you build beautiful casinos. And you’ve got all of these places Las Vegas man, full of them. glitzy casinos, man glitzy stuff, beautiful looking things, nice looking fountains. All kinds of things you can do in the desert, you can irrigate the desert. But folks, it’s still the desert. That’s what religion is doing. Instead of us leaving the desert and entering into this Sabbath rest. Why we’re building our own church, we call them cathedrals, there just casinos in the desert. We’re just building flesh stuff in the desert. Instead of teaching and glorying in our buildings, and glorying in our denominations. And glorying In how many people belong to this casino in the desert. Why we have more people coming to our casino than you do. And they gamble more to spend more money. What’s the difference? We’re bragging on our casinos. We’re bragging on our organizations. We’re bragging on our denominations. We’re bragging on what I am doing for God. And all that is desert stuff. And he’s saying, Man, leave the desert, leave the law, it’s binding you. You’ve been released from that law. And there’s a place where you can serve in a new way of the Spirit, not in the old way of the written code of the law. Where is that folks? It’s Canaan. It’s realizing where you are, you realize you’re not in Egypt anymore, don’t you? If you’re saved, you realize that, but where are you? Are you over here in this Sabbath rest, where you’ve left the law behind because there isn’t any law in Canaan, you’re going to have to leave that you’re going to have to die to what once bound you. That’s the bondage of the law before you’re saved and the bondage of the law after you’re saved if you’re still under it. And Bob, I know no one that is saved by leaving Egypt and going into Canaan. We all go in the desert.

And folks, as we will conclude the rest of this broadcast, which is this Romans seven, experience, I do not believe that anyone will ever come to understand the fullness of God’s grace. No one will ever enter into Canaan until they’ve gone through a Roman seven experience. And so don’t look at this as an adverse experience. Although while you’re going through it, it certainly is not a pleasant one. But look at it is what is necessary for God to bring you to the end of yourself so that you will die to what binds you and that’s the law so that you may serve in a new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

The apostle Paul in Romans seven beginning in verse seven now is going to answer these questions that certainly people who are under the law, not understanding the fullness of what Paul is talking about when he says to die to the law so that you can serve in the newness of life. We’ll see that as a criticism of the law. And you will see that today very evident when you go out and try to communicate the grace of God to people who are bound up in legalism. They do not see that walking in the newness of life is good news, because they don’t have a clue what that is. They don’t even know there’s a Canaan out there. And so therefore, they see it as a criticism of the law. And so nothing is new under the sun. And that’s exactly what would have taken place with those to whom Paul was communicating this message to so he just answers a question before they get a chance to ask it. And so he says, What shall we say then is the law sin? In other words, if the law is what keeps us in bondage, and it’s something we have to die to. Is the law there for sin? then is that evil? which says, certainly not. But he’s going to explain what the purpose of the law is. We talked about that the law has a purpose. Certainly there’s nothing wrong with the law. It’s not evil. But I would not have known what sin was except through the law. In other words, what was the purpose of the law? To point out what sin is, to point out the fact that here’s what God’s righteous requirements are, and man, you can’t live up to them. Now, he said, I wouldn’t have known as an example. And he uses one of the 10 commandments coveting. It’s incidentally one that no one ever pays any attention to, because you really, nobody knows you’re doing it except you. It can certainly have some results. But deep down when we’re coveting, we normally don’t let people know that because it makes would make somebody think that you’re not a real nice person, if I’m coveting what someone else has. So we keep that, but we really do. That’s, that’s one rumor we keep to ourselves, is our own coveting. I wouldn’t have known he said what coveting was, if the law had not said, do not cover it. But sin seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment. And remember what we talked about a little bit earlier in the fact that that is in that is stirred up in our own bodies, that type of thing is stirred up in us. And, and that is what we have to come to grips with is the fact that sin is living in our mortal bodies. And we therefore, the law, points itself to that indwelling sin that lives in us and stirs up every kind of covetousness desire. So the law activates our sin, this the indwelling sin that lives within us, it activates it. So he’s saying to us that sin now seizing the opportunity that was afforded by this commandment, this law, produced in me every kind of covetous desire, for apart from the law, sin is dead. Now listen to what Paul says once I was alive apart from the law. But when the Commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. And you say in a wait a minute, you are alive apart from the law. When was you when were you, Paul ever? Apart from the law? You certainly weren’t apart from the law when you were lost. You were the biggest proponent of the law.

Well, were you alive apart from the law prior to getting so legalistic? No, you were born legalistic. He was born in Hebrewism. He was born under the law. He had it written on his head. It was written every place he was under. So what do you mean you are alive apart from the law? Well, I can only be in salvation. That I came to Christ and realize that I did not come to Christ through obedience to the law. My righteousness was not gained through obedience to the law. All of all of Paul’s teaching is teaching that that no man will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God, through obedience to the law, all of sin. all have fallen short of the glory of God. There’s no none righteous, no, not one. So he was alive apart from the law, but here’s, here’s what happened to him as a saved person. Incidentally, folks in the desert, this was before Paul ever entered in to this promised land that he’s going to be talking about. This is a saved Paul in the desert. A saved Bob George in the desert a saved Bob Davis in the desert, a saved whoever’s listening to this in the desert. You are alive apart from the law, you weren’t saved by obedience to the law where you know Oh no, I’d say grace, no grace alone. Was Was obedience a part of the law have anything do with your salvation? Noo no, I was saved totally apart from the law I was made alive in Christ totally apart from the law. But as this person living in the desert when this commandment came, and I said, I took a fresh look at this commandment Don’t covet, sin sprang to life. And I died, as he talking about that he lost his salvation? Well, look what it says, I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. And I want to ask your question, Did God ever intend for a commandment to bring life? No. Well, then what’s he talking about? That I found the very end commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death, who thought that it was intended to bring life? Well, Paul did. In other words, Paul was alive apart from the law. But those commandments that he thought were going to bring life literally brought death to him, for sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So he’s talking about the fact that even though I was alive from God’s vantage point, apart from the law, when I got back under the law, in my own experience, it brought the same death relationship that I had before I was saved. In other words, in my own experience, I was as dead in the desert as it was over there in Egypt. And folks, that’s why the Hebrews talked about going back to Egypt. They discussed that we want to go back. This man is driving me crazy. And folks, in our own experience, that’s what happens to us. We come to Christ by faith by grace, and we get back onto the law, we say, I am more miserable under the law as a Christian than I was as a non Christian. I’m dead to God.

Click to Donate to Bob George Ministries

Classic Christianity Radio thanks you for your support of our online and radio ministry. Bob, George Ministries offers nine in-depth Bible study guides, please visit shop.BobGeorge.net to find the Bible study books, along with many helpful materials to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ. Let’s continue now, with our Classic Christianity Radio program.

Bob George 13:50
And, folks, when you’re in the desert, under the law, I want to tell you something, your prayers are still bouncing off the ceiling. You’re still miserable inside because you’re under constant guilt and condemnation. Are you not? If you’re under the law, how could you not be under condemnation, that’s what the law does is condemn you. And it brings in your own experience, a total feeling of death, it puts you to death, I am dead, to this freedom that I’ve been called to. I’m dead to freedom. I’m alive back to the law. When I was lost, I was dead in sin, not alive to God. I was saved, I became alive to God, dead to my relationship to Adam. Now I got back onto the law and now I’m dead once again to who I am and back alive to the law again. Sound familiar? That’s a position of a man in the desert under the law. Well, he goes ahead and say well, then is the law holy, then the laws holy, the commandment is holy. It’s righteous and good. Nothing wrong with the law, but did that which is good then become death? To me, become death to me? No said by no means in other words, it didn’t become death to me. It just felt like I was dead. In other words, in my experience, I became dead to what I was alive to, and alive to what I was dead to.

It reminds me of the story that that Major Thomas tells of the of the man who, who went to his doctor, and he said, Doctor, I’m dead. And the doctor said, Oh, sir, you’re not dead. Why? Why a why, of course, you’re not dead. You think you did not? I said, I’m dead. Well, he said, I better give this guy something. So it gave me a little pillar. Some said, Come back next week came back next week said nothing happened. I’m dead. So he thought, what am I gonna do to this guy? So I looked at him. He said, Well, let me ask you a question. Do you think a dead man can bleed? And the guy thought about for a moment? He said, No, no, I don’t think so. Well, the guy the doctor immediately grabbed his hand and took a needle and just pricked his finger and this bead of blood just came out this beautiful red blood came out on finger. Man stood there and studied that for a few minutes looking at it, he said, I would have never thought it in a million years, a dead man really can bleed.

Well, you see, that’s exactly what that’s exactly what he is talking about here. He’s talking about the fact that I have died. And I’ve been made alive. But now I’m dead when I’m alive too, and alive when I’m dead, too. So the so there’s nothing wrong with the law. He says there’s absolutely nothing at all wrong with the law. But it didn’t become death to me. But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good. So it’s the commandment that through the commandment, sin might become utterly sinful. So in other words, this thing produced in me is sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me, I did it didn’t become death. For me, it produced death in me, so that I became dead to what I was alive to. So the through the commandment, this sin might become utterly sinful, in other words, that I can see myself as what I truly am, lost apart from Christ as a lost man. And as a saved man, I’m still dead, until I become not dead, literally. But in my experience, as a saved man, I am dead to my salvation until I enter into the promised land. That’s what’s called Dead works, folks, who produces dead works, not dead people, saved people, people who are alive, producing dead works, instead of serving, as we talked about in the New Way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

But I don’t think that any man sees the depth of his depravity, or can see the depth of his depravity until he is saved because again, we’re just not exposed to the truth of the depth of that depravity. We look externally on the outside as what I’m doing. But we do not see the depravity of the inside. And that’s why you will see constantly people saying, well, basically, I’m a good person. And I just killed three people and have raped 19 women, but I’m a really a good, deep down, I am a good person. Well, what’s wrong with with that person? Well, they don’t have the Spirit of God to point out their own depravity. So you’re saying, Yeah, I’ve done some things wrong. But basically, I’m a good person, I do a lot of things, right. So until we’re saved, we’ll never be able to see the depravity of our own sinfulness. Now, the law helps us to become acquainted with that. And that’s what Paul is saying is through the commandment that I became conscious of my sin, I became aware of the fact that even the law was convicting me. And that is what literally frees us to allow the Spirit of God to show us our need for our salvation in Christ Jesus and to experience the fullness of that not in the desert, but in the Promised Land whereby as I said, we can serve now in a new way, not in the old way.

Now, Paul continues in verse 14, we know that the law is spiritual, but I’m unspiritual sold as a slave to sin. Verse 15, I do not understand what I do. Folks, why would you go to a counselor? Why would you go to a psychiatrist or a psychologist? Well, because you don’t understand what you do. Well, I want to ask you a question. Is that real unusual that you don’t understand what you do? I mean, is that something out of the realm of human experience? Is that something that would immediately want to put a label on you as a schizophrenic or a manic depressive? Or, or or somebody who’s got the obviously you need some kind of a title for that. But isn’t strange if Paul didn’t say that was unusual at all. He didn’t say that. I don’t understand what I do because I, the way I was raised, I don’t understand what I do because I I was potty trained to earlier because I had a mother, or I don’t understand what I do. Because I’ve got some kind of a syndrome. He just stated, I don’t understand what I do. And folks, you don’t either. And neither do I, I do not understand what I do for what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate. I do. Now, here’s his solution through God. Now, if I do what I don’t want to do, I agree the laws good. In other words, I’m not gonna sit back and say, Well, maybe maybe that law shouldn’t be there. No, it says law is good. When it says don’t commit adultery. That’s what it means. So I’ve got to agree the laws good. But still, he said, it’s like, but I still have a desire to go commit adultery. In other words, what I hate I do. And if I do what I don’t want to do, I agree the laws good. But as it is, it’s no longer I myself who do it, but it’s sin living in me. So folks, if we want to blame someone else, why here’s your here’s, here’s your excuse. It’s not me, it’s not I myself who do it, it’s sin living in me. In other words, it’s not the new me. But it’s this indwelling sin that lives in me, I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. And what I do is not the good, I want to do, no the evil that I do not want to do this I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I don’t want to do, as this new creature in Christ, as a Christian, sound familiar? It’s no longer I who do it, but it’s sin living in me that does it. Now what is sin stirred up by folks? the law. If you die to the law, what’s going to happen to the sin living in you? it doesn’t have a thing to stir it up. The law is what stirs up sin. That’s why dying to self is such a nebulous thought and teaching, unless you realize that dying to self is dying to self effort under the law. And the only way you can die to self is is to die to what demands self to behave. And that’s the law. You want to die to self you’re gonna die to the law. As he says, Now, if I do what I don’t want to do, it’s no longer I but it’s sin, living me the desert. So he says, I find this law at work. When I want to do good evil is right there with me for in my inner being. In other words, the new you I delight in God’s law, nothing wrong with it. But I see another law work and the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. There is the law of sin that is at work folks within the members of your body. Now, what does he say about that? Well, he comes to grips about himself What a wretched man I am. This is a wretched condition to be in. And I see myself in a situation where the only thing I can say is, is there a way of being rescued from this body of death, the sin that is living within my body, even though you’re born again, your new you is housed in a body that contains in dwelling sin. And he’s saying gives her a when it can rescue me from his body of death? You know what his answer to that is? Figure it out, sit back and analyze yourself. Try to figure out no, he said, Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, my Lord, period.

I myself, in my mind, I’m a slave to God’s law. But in the sinful nature in the flesh, I’m a saved, I’m a slave to the law of sin. There is only one freedom from that. And that’s chapter eight that we studied at the beginning of the session. Therefore, there’s now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because through Christ Jesus, the law, the Spirit of life, set you free from the law of sin and death. You are a new creature in Christ freed from the law, released from the law, so that you can serve in the new way of the Spirit, not in the old way of the written code.

Now, folks, when you’re looking at this situation, and what I’d like for you to do is to take your Bible and I’d like for you to start in verse 14, and I want you to circle the Is and the Mes and the Mys and I’m gonna go over this again. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do. I do not do but what I hate. I do. Now if I do what I do not want to do I agree that the Law is good, but it’s no longer I myself who do it, but it’s sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, but as it but it’s in my sinful nature my flesh for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out for what I do is not the good, I want to do no the evil that I do not want to do this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work. When I want to do good evil is right there with me for in my innerbeing I delight in God’s law. But I see another law at work and the members of my body waging war against a law, my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death. Answer, Thanks be to God, how many Is and Mes and myselfs do you have in there? Do you see the problem folks, the I’s and the me’s and the Mys. It is self centeredness. That comes from being under the law. The law points you and demands you, me my me i to behave. There’s only one solution to that, folks. That’s the condition of a man saved, living in the desert, under the demands of the law finding out that he cannot obey the law as a saved person anymore, that he can obey it as a lost person. What do you have to come to realize in that condition? I can’t do it. I can’t do it. There’s something called indwelling sin that keeps being activated by this thing called the law. I can’t do it. Well he says why don’t you stop trying and die to that thing that demand your flesh to behave called the Law, therefore dying to self and enter into the Promised Land Canaan, whereby you serve now in a new way, not under the old way of the written code of the law. But being led now by the Spirit of God who loves you, and gave himself for you.

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.