Radio Broadcast Monday 11/14/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P25 (11-14-22)

God Uses Our Uniqueness For His Good Purposes

~ “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” ^{Isaiah 1:18}

~ “And you see what, when you get out of the uniqueness of God, Satan doesn’t want uniqueness. He wants conformity, conformity, and always so that all men are conforming to his ways. So he’s looking for a bunch of tin soldiers that can march to his tune, he is not looking for independent thing. He’s, when I say independent thinking, I’m talking about independent from the world dependent thinking upon God, he isn’t looking for that. Because you see, when you come to God, you don’t have independent thinking, you have God’s mind. And you have the ability to think dependently upon what God has to say. Now, that is what makes you independent, not from God, but independent from the world, right. And so we’ve gotten all of these things where everyone’s trying to make everyone exactly alike. Some people are slower than others. I respond much more visually. In other words, you show me a picture, and I’ll remember that better than reading it. I never was a solid reader. But you show me something, or tell me something that I can visualize in my head.”

God wants us to reason together. God wants us to work things out with His Holy Spirit. He wants us to question things and ask Him for answers to what is happening. Don’t trust any man, but ultimately go to the Holy Spirit, who is alive living in you, if you are in Christ Jesus. For we all have the same teacher if indeed we are in Him.

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 0:38
I too was extremely encouraged as we go to the different seminars and I know one of the last ones that we went to which was in Phoenix, it was extremely encouraging to hear the number of people who are following along with us, in the Bible study books as we teach on Friday. And we you can you can sit down and talk about all kinds of things. But these kinds of Bible studies is what builds a foundation in our lives that quite frankly, cannot be crumbled if we get a hold of that, because it’s a very simple reason why. If your premises off, all of your findings are going to be off, everything begins from a premise either a false one or a true one. If you went into a medical doctor, and he examined you, and he said, I believe you have tuberculosis, were indeed you do not have tuberculosis. That’s a false premise. His premise is off, therefore all of his medication is going to be off. In other words, his findings are going to be off. And therefore you’re going to be receiving medication that instead of helping you could very possibly kill you. It’s not because of the of intent, because the person is trying to help you, but they’re helping you from a wrong premise. I do not doubt the sincerity of people who are trying to help people, I probably could doubt some sincerity, especially when there’s great money involved in it. But the fact of the matter is, is if I am approaching you, and trying to help you from the premise of psychology, it doesn’t make a difference, whether I’m as sincere as a heart attack, that is irrelevant, I am going to be helping you from a false premise, and will end up damaging you more than helping you not because of being insincere. Not because of the fact that I don’t have a degree to harm you in my counseling. But it’s because of the fact that I am approaching life from an improper premise. If God is God, and if God is truth, and there’s the big if not, if God is truly who he claims to be, and that is God. And he said that you and I are going to be set apart by his word. In other words, we’re going to be totally different thinkers, than someone without Christ living in them. And, and that natural man cannot understand spiritual things, that sounds foolish to them. So again, it would be foolish for a secular counselor, talking to an unregenerate person to be trying to teach them spiritual things in the first place, he would not know what spiritual things are, and the person he’s talking to, would not know what he was talking about either. So again, that doesn’t make any sense. So you’re gonna have to do with what you’ve got. And if all you have is human wisdom, then that’s all you can pass on to someone else’s human wisdom. But if indeed you are in Christ Jesus, that human wisdom is going to be contrary to the Spirit of God living in you who is raging against what you’re hearing. And yet we make a decision. Well, I guess these guys know what they’re talking about.

And Bob, we see people, I see people who have been steeped in the Word of God for years and years and years, that go and buy this humanistic philosophy. Adapt all of these names that everybody is supposed to have, and absolutely lap it up like a cat after milk, and never stopped to think, does this match up with the truth of the Word of God? And so I was watching something on television the other day, and, and this person was talking about sitting there and said, she is saying, Well, I guess I’m just stupid. And I guess this and this, because she always gets clutched up when you take tests and doesn’t quite understand. And so the person was saying, Well, did it ever occur to you that maybe you have a sickness? Maybe you have this deficit disorder or something or no, that never occurred to me. And so all of a sudden, I’ve got a sickness. I’ve got a syndrome, and that’s the big word. It’s got sin but not a syndrome. And again, it’s like everyone is supposed to have the same concentration. No one has the same fingerprint. No one has the same personality. No one has the same looks. No one has the same anything. But we’re all supposed to have the same attention with everything. We’re just we’re supposed to all of us are supposed to be able to learn at the same speed. Well, we don’t all have the same brain. So if I don’t have the same brain, how am I going to learn at the same speed? I mean, I could sit down next to Einstein and say, I’ve got a real disorder. I mean, just where does that stop? The smartest, most attentive person in the world can be made like a bear look like a fool up next to somebody else. I went to school with with guys, I still remember that had photogenic minds, memories. They could just look at something there it was, well, do I have a syndrome? Because I don’t have that? I don’t think so. He got A’s, I struggled. I got some A’s too. But I had to work at him. He just looked at a page and had it. Now, do I say why? I don’t know. I’m not that way. For sure. I see that. And kids. I mean, I would hate to compare all kids. And this is gonna sound like a grand, proud grandfather. But I would hate to compare all kids to to one of my little grandsons, because he is smart as a whip. And man, he already not only at five knows how to count, he knows all the planets. And he knows how the Earth spins around the sun, all kinds of things that I quite frankly, probably had to ask him to make sure. And he comes up with all kinds of deals. Somebody said the other day this was talking about well has a little baby, you know, and the moms pregnant, everything get fed. He said do the umbilical cord is a five year old, I didn’t even know what that was. I was probably 25. Well, so now anything less than that, are you gonna say Oh, they’ve got some kind of a deficit disorder? No, they don’t have a deficit disorder, everyone’s different. And you see what, when you get out of the uniqueness of God, Satan doesn’t want uniqueness. He wants conformity, conformity, and always so that all men are conforming to his ways. So he’s looking for a bunch of tin soldiers that can march to his tune, he is not looking for independent thing. He’s, when I say independent thinking, I’m talking about independent from the world dependent thinking upon God, he isn’t looking for that. Because you see, when you come to God, you don’t have independent thinking, you have God’s mind. And you have the ability to think dependently upon what God has to say. Now, that is what makes you independent, not from God, but independent from the world, right. And so we’ve gotten all of these things where everyone’s trying to make everyone exactly alike. Some people are slower than others. I respond much more visually. In other words, you show me a picture, and I’ll remember that better than reading it. I never was a solid reader. But you show me something, or tell me something that I can visualize in my head. And I’ll remember that for a long period of time, other people, really, all they have to do is read something and they remember it. Well, what’s unusual about that God made us different. And we’re not all supposed to be alike, and conformed to some standard that some guys set for us out there and say this is where everybody is supposed to be. We’re not all the same way. I used to take tests in college, I dreamed for 10 years after getting out of college of taking tests. I tell you, I had to work because I always thought that guy writing that test was trying to trick me. So instead of looking at the question for what it was, I was, was reading something into it, why? That just the way I was.

We took quite a long time of substantiating why we should be teaching and learning from these type of Bible studies. But nevertheless, that is the reason why we should be learning from these kinds of Bible studies that does establish a proper premise. And therefore a premise becomes a foundation that is built upon Christ and His truth. And that’s what enables you to build your life on something that is solid that will not one day crumble underneath you.

Well, let’s go into chapter six. We’re going to be picking up in just a moment on page 42. But as a matter of review, what this lesson is about is redemption. And Bob, we were talking a little bit earlier, it seems kind of strange to me, but you know, we really don’t talk about redemption that much. We talk a lot about justification by faith. You hear a lot about sanctification and glorification. And all those ations but we’re not hearing a lot about the redemption. And that is a vitally important thing because what it does is identify I, where we were, and what we have been bought out of. So redemption, it really does an understanding of redemption really helps us to see the absolute point of destitution that we were in at one time, and the absolute freedom that we are in today being freed from that wages of sin, which is death freed from the right, the demands of the law, which is again, death. And, and being bought out of that into a newness of life where we have the privilege of walking by faith. And so I guess maybe many times Satan keeps us from, from really understanding redemption, so that we don’t really see where we’ve come from, and therefore really don’t live with much appreciation as to where we are right. If you’ve been living in in poverty, all of you most of your life, and all of a sudden, marry a king. And here you are living in the king’s palace. Why before long, you can kind of forget where you came from. And so therefore, you’re not really appreciative of those things that you have. And so I think those reminders are excellent to go back to remind ourselves as to where we came from, what we’ve been bought out of, and when you stop to think of that, you just be praising God all the time in your heart.

And we’re told that just as a matter of review in Galatians, three, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, the curse of the law is death. The wages of sin is death. That’s the curse. So you and I were redeemed from the wages of sin, which is death by becoming a curse by becoming our substitutionary death for us. For it is written cursed is everyone who hung on a tree. Now he redeemed us, he bought us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. How come? so that by faith, in essence, we too, might receive the promised Spirit. Now, no man could do that. In Psalms 49, seven and eight, no man can redeem the life of another, or give to God to ransom for him. The ransom for life is costly, no payment is ever enough. No human being could have bought another human being out of the wages of sin, which is death. Only God could do that God coming in our humanity, only his blood was precious enough to do that, was valuable enough to do that. Now, we talked about last week that you know that it was not with perishable things, such as silver and gold that you were redeemed. In other words, you weren’t redeemed with money. And what were you deemed from? It says that empty way of life that was handed down to you from your forefathers. In other words, our spiritual death was handed down to us from our forefathers, which resulted in the empty way of life that you live when you are dead. I received if I had not been born in the loins of Adam, I would not have been born dead spiritually. Adam’s spiritual death was passed on to every single person on the face of this earth except the only one who was not born from Adam. And that was Jesus called the last Adam.

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Bob George 14:07
So Adam was created, totally complete, totally perfect in Christ, totally alive and all things. And when he sinned, he died spiritually, the Spirit of God departing from him, leaving him in a condition that is totally contrary to what man was to be. But man is a spiritual being. He was created in the image of God spiritually alive. And that spiritually alive human being was contained in a body of human flesh. And that there’s the miracle God living in a man not making man God, but God living in a man does not make me God. I am any more than applesauce in a jar makes the jar applesauce. It’s a jar of applesauce, but the jar is a jar and will never be anything but a jar, you don’t sit down and eat a jar and say good applesauce. If you try to eat the jar, it’s gonna kill you if it’s glass. So a jar is a jar. So you and I are a human being indwelt by God. God designed it that way. That’s a marvelous thing to think about. And when Adam was created, he was created complete that way. When he died, the Spirit of God departed from Adam, leaving him spiritually dead. He was his human spirit was not dead, dead, in other words, dead to the world is very much alive to the only thing that he had now, and that was the world, but it was dead to what vacated him, and that was God. And all of us are born in Adam, identically as he became dead. And so we had to be rescued. So you and I, we’re not bought with anything except the blood of the Lamb. And that’s what it says we, we were, we were redeemed from that empty way of life that was handed down to us, we inherited that death. But we were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish, or defect. Now, again, it says that in that condition, and I want us to visualize for a moment, a cross that is right in the center of a timeline. And if you go back, if you’re looking at that cross, as it’s written on paper, you go back to the left, and bring that timeline, or bring a circle down to that timeline. And that’s to Adam. And then you go to the right and bring that circle over to eternity. And that is all of us born this side of the cross. Now Christ redeemed us, and redeemed them in identically the same way through the precious blood of Christ Jesus. It the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin. So that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now, before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.

Now, I want us to now go over to Hebrews nine, and I want to look at that passage for a minute with you. He did not enter Christ did not enter heaven after completing his work, it says, by means of the blood of goats and calves. But he entered the Most Holy Place once and for all, by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. And that’s for us. For this reason, Christ is a mediator of a New Covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised look at this folks eternal inheritance. Now that he has died as a ransom, to set them free from sins committed under the first covenant. Now you have two words here, folks that we’re dealing with, we’re dealing with a ransom. And that ransom is a payment in order to redeem people out of their present condition out of their captivity. Now, let me give you a couple of examples. If you were kidnapped, held against your will, or stolen from the hospital. So in other words, born into the arms of somebody that you did not belong to. And the people the parents went out and looked for you and looked for you and look for you, and finally found you. And there was a blackmail scheme that said, if you send me $100,000, I’ll give you your child. And the people pay $100,000 And the people leave the child and you get the child back what has happened? You paid a ransom for something that was already yours. Right. He paid a ransom for it. It was already yours. Somebody took it from you, and you paid a ransom to get them back. You freed that person from their captivity, so that they could live where they belong. And that’s to you. All men, in essence, when God created man, his intention was that all of his creation belongs to him. But there is a sense in which they were stolen from him by the schemes of Satan himself. When he caused Adam to fall and thinking, Man, I know that the wages of sin is death. Satan knew that because he had already experienced it when he fell. I know what that is. And I’m gonna mess up all of God’s creation. If he thinks he’s going to punish me this way. You wait to see what I do the rest of his creation. And man, the very moment that Adam fell in the wages of sin is death. And he also knew that people would be propagated through birth. He had us. He absolutely rain, he did what he was after brother, he has messed up God’s kingdom, he thought. So in essence, he had God’s possession. And we were held captives. That’s what it says, All of us were held a prisoner of sin, we were captives. Now that who was captives? All of those before the cross, all of us after the cross until we accept a redemption. And so in essence, when the Old Testament saints died, those who had a gone with the promise of Abraham by faith in the coming Messiah, they were saved by faith not spiritually regenerated as we are today. And I’ll get into that for a moment that they were saved by faith, and they were in a holding pattern, a waiting for that final payment to be made. It’s kind of like being saved on a credit card, you get the furniture, you can enjoy it. But the payments gonna have to be made at a later date.

As we were talking about that, those that were, in essence saved prior to the cross. After they died, they were in a holding pattern because the final price had not been paid. The blood of bulls and goats, as an example, as we’ve talked about, called atonement, had covered their sins, as a result of their violation under the law had covered them, but they could not take them away. So when something is covered, it’s only covered somebody can still jerk the cover off of them. So in essence, those that forgiveness was not complete. And that’s what it says that the a sacrificial system that had number one had to keep going on and on and on being done over and over and over again, could never make perfect or complete those who draw near to worship. Because it’s never finished. And also, it’s only covered, it’s not taken away. There’s a world of difference between covering your garbage and having it taken away. It’s a world of difference to those two. And so these people were in a holding pattern. It was called Paradise. Paradise, it changed three different times, first of all, is in the Garden of Eden, then it was a place called some place in the lower regions of the earth. And then Jesus led captive captive after he went into Paradise, and announced that it has finished and he led them captive captive, it says He led them into the presence of God. Why? Well, it’s all finished now. So in other In other words, Jesus sins took away the sins of the entire world back to Adam, as well as forward to eternity. That’s a pretty good, that’s a pretty good slice of people. Yeah. And so we have to realize that that that was, that was an act that was done by God, it couldn’t be done by another man. A man can’t pay a ransom for a man, only God can pay ransom. So God became a man and that his blood was the only thing precious enough to go back to the very beginning of mankind, take away all of their sins, take away all of the sins forward to eternity, so that he could buy us up out of our bondage out of our spiritual death, and bring us in to the kingdom of the Son in whom he loves, in whom we have what? redemption, that forgiveness of sins. So he died, it says as a ransom to set them free from sins committed under the first covenant.

Let me give you another little example of that. If my understanding is correct as to what a pawn shop is all about, let’s say as an example, that your parents had given you, an invaluable gift, let’s say a living watch. A marvelous thing, and it was a gift from your parents. And you came down to a point where someone said, Listen, if you could just have $100 You’d be just like your parents, man. You’d be like God, if you just have $100 and say, I don’t know how to get $100 said I got an idea. Turn your watch in the pawnshop. And so I in essence, sell my birthright for a pot of soup. And I go to the pawn shop and I take my wristwatch off, and I hand it to the pawn shop owner and he gives me $100. Now according to the rules, as I understand it, of a pawn shop that there are under obligation to hold that watch in their possession for a specific period of time before they can offer it to the public for sale. Otherwise, you have an opportunity to go back into that pawn shop, let’s say the limits 30 days, within 30 days and do what? Redeem your watch, buy it back, right. And so you come back and you say, and all of a sudden, you start thinking about this, because all of a sudden, you got this $100 in your hand, and your watch is gone. And it was a phenomenal gift from your parents, it was worth a lot more than that. $100 and, and here, you’re sitting there with the emptiness of this $100 in your hand, and you say, man, I’ve got to, I gotta get that watch back. And so you go back into the pawn shop, you’ve already spent your $100 But you went out and worked to make some more and you went back in, in your own effort to redeem now that watch and you go and say I want to get my watch back guy says fine, that’d be $5,000. He said, I got 100 You gave me 100 for it. I want to redeem it back for what I paid for it. Oh, no. He said you can’t get it back for what you paid for. It’s too expensive. It’s worth 5000. Because you see, the pawnshop owner is looking at the value of the watch. And the watch is worth 5000 He only gave him 100. But it’s worth something more. And the guy says, I can’t get it back. I can’t get it back. And all of a sudden the parents come along the one who had gave it to him to begin with and said, Son, where’s your watch? I said, Dad, I turned it in. I sold it. I just poof did away. I sold it for a lousy $100 What’s it going to take to get it back? It’s gonna take 5000 and the folks go in and pay the pawnshop $5,000 In order to redeem back a gift that they had given to their son. That’s what Jesus did for you and me.

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.