Radio Broadcast Monday 12/12/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P36 (12-12-22)

When You Are Living Under Law, You Are Living Under a Curse

~ Now in Galatians 3:1 to 5 As Paul tried to explain that and That was what was happening in the church of Galatia. And that’s why they call this commingling of law & Grace Galatianism. In other words, your theologians refer to it in that fashion. Now, I want you to see how, Bob how stringent Paul felt this heresy is because that’s what it is. Now, we don’t look at that as heresy. We look at that as it’s okay, this just good old Christianity. You get a little law, you get a little grace. That’s okay. After all, we need them both. I had someone say that one time, we had some people had been sitting under our teaching for a long time. And then he went back under this other teacher that I mean, is really legalistic, not a little, a lot. And someone said to them, golly, how in the world after being under Bob’s teaching on Grace, could you go back to that? And he said, Well, we we need a little of both. We need a little grace and a little awesome curse there. Yeah, we need that. Now, Paul didn’t think we did need it. As a matter of fact, he saw the destructive power of it. Because folks, what it does, it keeps you from walking in the life that God intended you to walk in. And that’s a walk of faith. That’s the only way you can live under grace is by faith. And without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And so this is what keeps you from walking by faith, you don’t walk by faith into the law, you walk by obedience to the law, you don’t walk by faith, you walk in personal fleshly, obedience to an outward law written on stone. And you can do that, to the best of your ability, whether you’re lost or whether you’re saved, you don’t have to be saved. In fact, people who still live under those rules and regulations in the millions of people are some of the meanest people on the face of this earth. And they’re not saved at all. They don’t even believe in Jesus, not even as maybe a prophet, but that’s about the most. But boy, they’re stringent and they live out of fear. And brother if they steal it, get their hands cut off. So that would have a tendency to keep you from stealing. Absolutely.”

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
He is through dealing with you on the basis of sin, because if he was dealing with you on the basis of sin, he has to deal with you on the basis of sin and death. You cannot separate one from the other. It’d be like the government saying I’m gonna deal with you on the basis of the law. Is there any punishment for violation of the law? No. Well, then we’ll woopy. It reminds me how rebellious we are as people, someone told kind of the joke that this this this duck, came in to the grocery store and sat there at the went up to the up to the grocery store clerk and said, Do you have a strawberries? And clerk said, No, we don’t have any strawberries. And the duck walked out. Duck came in next day said you have a strawberry said no, don’t have a strawberries duck walked out, came in the next day said again? Do you have a strawberries? Clerk said I’ve told you now two times we don’t have any strawberries here. And I’m gonna tell you something. If you come in asking for strawberries one more time, I’m gonna nail your feet to the ground. So the duck walks out. Next day the duck comes in he says Do you have a nails? the clerk says we don’t carry nails here. And he said good you have any strawberries?

It kind of explains our kind of explains a little bit our rebellious power of sin is in the law. Now in Galatians 2 said it was through the law that I died, do the laws that I might live to God. In other words, the power of sin is going to be in that law. It says we have died to the law, we have died to sin. And God is not dealing with us on the basis of nailing our feet to the floor anymore. And so there really isn’t a need to go in and bug somebody for strawberries anymore. It just that’s just the way it is I now can live in the newness of life and go enjoy something go enjoy duck food.

Now it’s through the law that I died to the law. We talked about that very briefly, Bob. And the fact is, as that compared to marriage, that you and I are, in essence married to the law. But when you die, you’re free from that law of marriage, and you leave the marriage certificate in the grave, and then are raised in the newness of life. And when you’re raised the newness of life, what you were married to remains, and you’re free to marry another. And that’s exactly what you and I did. When we came to Christ, we died to the law so that I can now live to be married to another and that is Christ Jesus, the one who loved us and gave himself for me.

Now, in conclusion, we see again that the real problem with the law is you and me. The law demands us to perform and to live up to its standards. But because sin dwells in our flesh were totally incapable of doing so we cannot free ourselves from the power of sin. And as a result, no matter how hard we try, or how strong or desire to do good is we will always be finding herself saying what I want to do, I don’t do and what I hate I do. Now the only solution to our struggle is to die to the law, and to come alive to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Law and Grace is more than an issue of how we live the Christian life. At the root of this issue is the source of the Christian life. Under the law, it’s you and I that are doing the living, under grace it is Christ who lives with us during the living there is no way to be free from the power of sin. Therefore, for us to be free, we must die to what keeps us under the power of the law. The Christian life is all of Jesus and none of us. And that’s why it is so important for us to die to the law. Because as long as the law is active in our lives, it is trying to live the Christian life and we missed the experience of Christ, living his life through us. He’s the only one that can free us from the power of sin. And it is the grace of God that focuses our attention on him.

Well, Bob, let’s go now to chapter 10. And we will see in chapter 10, that you cannot mix long grace. Obviously, if you’ve died to something, you don’t have a thing to mix anymore, if you’ve just, in essence crossed out chocolate and said no more for me why you don’t have to worry about chocolate milk anymore. But in as much as the Christian world has insisted, nothing new, it’s been going on since the right after Christ died and was raised from the dead, insisting upon the commingling of these two, why, again, we must take time to deal with the fact that you cannot mix law and grace. So if you’ll turn to page 66, Chapter 10, we’ll begin in this lesson on you cannot mix long grace. Now we’ve just got through hopefully discussing in great detail that you and I are no longer under the law. The Scripture is very clear on this. Roman 6:14 says you’re not under law, but under grace. As Christians, we came to Christ through grace. And as a Christian, we live under the grace of God, the same grace that gave us Jesus to begin with. The same grace that saved us is what sustains us in our daily lives. Now, the problem is that most Christians try to mingle the two, we recognize we recognize that, Oh, indeed, we’re saved by grace, but and we think we have to live under the law. We would we would call many times a person a heretic who said otherwise, we think that people are heretical, who say that we’re no longer under the law. But is that very unusual? Because that’s exactly what they said about Jesus. And, of course, that’s why they tried on numerous occasions, to beat Paul half to death and to ultimately kill all of the apostles. It was because of their teaching. Have you ever heard this statement that God gives a god’s grace gives us the ability to live up to God’s law? This commingling of Law and Grace is the most prevalent error error that is plaguing Christians today. As I said, it’s not a new problem, Paul addressed it throughout his letters, and primarily in the book of Galatians. Now, as a matter of fact, the mixing of long grace is commonly referred to as what is called Galatianism, because in that book of Galatians, Paul really dealt with this issue, Jesus addressed the issue and showed the damage it causes and his illustration of pouring new wine into old wineskin. So when, when God said, I’m going to give you a new covenant, I found fault with the people in the old one, I found fault with the coventant because of the people, he didn’t say, I’m going to give you a new covenant so that you can commingle the old and the new. He said, I’m giving you an old covenant so that you can get rid of the old and put on the new again, if you if you’re dressed in old raggy clothes, and somebody came up and said, I’m gonna give you a new set of clothes. You don’t put those new clothes over the rags. You take the rags off, and you put on the new nor after you put on the new do you take the old rags and put them over the old either one you don’t have under the new or over the new you get rid of them. It’s not applicable anymore. You got a new suit, and wear it and enjoy it. Now Jesus was trying to explain, as he always did, he taught in advance of something occurring so that when it did occur, you could see the significance of it. It didn’t take you by shock, in other words.

He said in Matthew 9:17, Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins. And both are preserved. In other words, the wine and the skins. Now what is that as a picture of? well, if you poured wine into wine skins and the wine ferments, and when that occurs, the expansion takes place why the wine skins expand to its ultimate capacity, and you preserve the wine. Now in as much as those skins have already expanded to its ultimate capacity. You put new wine into that and the wine ferments and the expansion takes place, and there’s no place for those skins to expand. And so the only outcome of that is they burst. And when that occurs, you’ve lost the skins and the purpose of the skins and you’ve lost the wine and the purpose of the wine. Now that’s what happens when you try to pour the New Covenant into the Old Covenant, the Old Covenant had already been expanded to its ultimate conclusion. It didn’t need any more evidence of the fact that man cannot do it. My goodness, we had 1000s of years to prove that man cannot live under the law. And here were the Hebrews who were sincerely trying in comparison to us just give lip service to it. But I mean, man, they were really working at it. But we’re so egotistical as Gentiles we think, Oh, well, the Hebrews couldn’t do it, but we can sure he said nobody can you’ve had enough experience to see that you can’t do it. And so why don’t you quit trying and get under the New Covenant.

Now in Galatians 3:1 to 5 As Paul tried to explain that and That was what was happening in the church of Galatia. And that’s why they call this commingling of law & Grace Galatianism. In other words, your theologians refer to it in that fashion. Now, I want you to see how, Bob how stringent Paul felt this heresy is because that’s what it is. Now, we don’t look at that as heresy. We look at that as it’s okay, this just good old Christianity. You get a little law, you get a little grace. That’s okay. After all, we need them both. I had someone say that one time, we had some people had been sitting under our teaching for a long time. And then he went back under this other teacher that I mean, is really legalistic, not a little, a lot. And someone said to them, golly, how in the world after being under Bob’s teaching on Grace, could you go back to that? And he said, Well, we we need a little of both. We need a little grace and a little awesome curse there. Yeah, we need that. Now, Paul didn’t think we did need it. As a matter of fact, he saw the destructive power of it. Because folks, what it does, it keeps you from walking in the life that God intended you to walk in. And that’s a walk of faith. That’s the only way you can live under grace is by faith. And without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And so this is what keeps you from walking by faith, you don’t walk by faith into the law, you walk by obedience to the law, you don’t walk by faith, you walk in personal fleshly, obedience to an outward law written on stone. And you can do that, to the best of your ability, whether you’re lost or whether you’re saved, you don’t have to be saved. In fact, people who still live under those rules and regulations in the millions of people are some of the meanest people on the face of this earth. And they’re not saved at all. They don’t even believe in Jesus, not even as maybe a prophet, but that’s about the most. But boy, they’re stringent and they live out of fear. And brother if they steal it, get their hands cut off. So that would have a tendency to keep you from stealing. Absolutely.

Now Paul is saying to people commingling these two, he says, You foolish, idiotic, Galatians subtle as a meat cleaver. He said, Who has bewitched, you know, when you get the Witched, that means you have been deceived. Somebody’s bewitched you. Now he has to be talking again to people who are in Christ, but back under the law, just like so many of us have been. He said, I’m he’s going to explain something he said before your very eyes, Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. The Living Bible put it this way that you used to see the meaning of Christ’s death as clearly as though I’d waved a place card in front of you. In other words, I painted a picture of it. And they said, I’d like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law? Now Bob again, the Spirit of God comes to live within us at the moment of spiritual birth. And his Roman says, if we don’t have the spirit, we don’t belong to Him. And that comes by faith and faith alone. Faith in Jesus Christ who died for you faith in Jesus Christ, who was raised for you faith in Jesus Christ, who came to give his life to you. And we we enter into that by faith. So he’s asking, Did you receive the Spirit by faith in essence, or by observing the law? Or by believing what you heard? How did you come to Christ folks?

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Bob George 13:44
Did you come to Christ by believing the truth of the gospel that you can’t, but he did? Or did you supposedly come to Christ by saying, Lord, I commit my life to you and I commit to do the things that you want me to do? And I commit this, and I commit that? Do you know that God loves you too much to allow you to be saved that way, because if you were saved that way, you’re gonna have to remain being saved that way. If I came to Christ, by works, and I had to earn my salvation, to get my salvation, then I would have to work to keep my salvation. If I had to work to get it, I gotta work to keep it. It’s the same thing in anything. It’s in life. If I am going out in business, and I am striving to make money in other words, that’s my goal is to make money and I strive to make it and I make it. I will have to strive to keep it, I will spend all of my life striving. If on the other hand, I enter into business endeavors with an idea of serving people in love. I’m going to serve my customers. Because folks, when you do, the byproduct will come automatically in time whenever you serve, there’s going to be reward for that. But my goal is to serve. I’m not striving to serve, I’m just serving out of a heart of love. And therefore I didn’t, I didn’t strive to earn money, I don’t have to strive to keep money. I just serve people in love. I serve them before they bought, and I serve them after they bought. But I’m not serving them to keep their business and I’m not serving them to get their business, I’m serving my customers, because I want to serve my customers, the money will follow. On the other hand, if your goal is to make money, and you make it, like I say, you’ve had to strive to make it, then I’m going to have to strive to keep it. Now it’s the same thing with your relationship with the Lord. If you had to strive to get it, then you’re gonna have to strive to keep it. Now that’s what they were doing. They were striving to keep their relationship with God. And he saying, Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit? In other words, after beginning by faith? Are you now trying to attain your goal? By human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing? If it really was for nothing. Does God gave you his Spirit and worked miracles among you, because you observe the law? Or because you believe what you heard? Now every one of those things are all contained in, in self effort. And, and God doesn’t honor self effort. In other words, it would be like saying to a branch who’s out there, just grunting and groaning just walk into the end of the field and into the vineyard. And boy, you hear all this grunting and groaning going on, you look up, and it’s bunch of branches in there. Just come on out fruit, just this out there. grunting and groaning to produce fruit. And you’d go up and say, Wait a minute. Did you get attached to that vine by trying? Or did or by abiding? In other words, that this thing called a branch just kind of grow out of out of this vine? Or did you strive for this? Well, if you didn’t strive to be a branch, why are you now striving to produce fruit of the branch? Because a branch cannot produce fruit. A branch can only bear fruit. That’s why people are getting down and you get so many people who are working for rewards. And you see an awful lot of that Bob of people working for rewards. And I know people who are very, so called high up in Christian circles that boy, that’s their big deal gotten worked for the Lord rewards why? Well, I’m going to be a somebody somebody up in heaven. And I feel sorry for people like that. Because if you’re working for rewards there, again, you’ve got your motives totally off. Why would you want to work for rewards? In the first place, if I’m thinking I’ll bet I’m gonna get rewarded for that one, I guarantee you’re not, you’ll get a reward all right, you’ll see an ash pile beside that one. Because if you’re thinking about rewards itself effort, in other words, I’m doing something in the energy in my own flesh, where when God does things through us Bob, half the time we don’t even know he’s doing it. It’s something that God is at work in us to will to do of His good pleasure. And it’s not for us to be sitting around wondering whether or not I’m going to get rewarded for something or not. Like I’ve said so many times that, quite frankly, the only reward that I ever intend to ever get, and hope to get would be here and the Lord say, Bob, well done good and faithful servant, you completed the race, I gave you the complete, you didn’t give up you, you hung in there and completed what I gave you to do. Whether that’ll be set or not, I don’t know. I’m not working for that. I don’t want to work for even that. It’s just the fact that what we want to do is to get up every day and be available to the living Christ. As a branch, what do you want to do? I want to be available to the living Christ.

Now, folks, in Galatians, five, nine, it says a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. All you need is a speck of yeast and you’re going to ruin the batch of dough. All you need is a little legalism in your life. And it’ll ultimately ruin the grace of God that has been given to you in Christ Jesus. I can’t stress enough folks to you the importance of dying to what killed you. And that’s the law. That’s what Paul said, it’s through the law that I died now to the law. We talked many times about coming to the cross and dying to self and dying to self that folks, how in the world are you going to die to self when the law continues to demand self to behave? Yourself cannot die to performance when you got something demanding it to perform. And so dying to self is not something you can bring about. It’s the byproduct of dying to what keeps self active, and that’s the law. And so when you die to the law, you die to the demands of the law on your flesh, to behave in the energy of its own flesh. There is nothing to demand the flesh to behave. God isn’t demanding your flesh to behave. It never thought it could. And it never said it would. As far as the flesh is concerned, he never anticipated your ever being anything except a total failure. He never did expect you to be successful just a failure. People say, Well, I’m a failure, what do you think God expected you do in the energy of the flesh, he never expected you to do anything else, but to fail in the energy of your flesh. And so we have to come to realize that this flesh of ours is never going to go to heaven. You can clean it up, scrub it up, get it all holy in church, but it didn’t go into heaven. And so you’re gonna have to come to grips with that, that the law is what is demanding the flesh to behave. And the only way that you’re ever going to get free from that demand on your flesh is to die, to what it’s demanding, to who to the thing that is demanding to behave. And that’s the law. And that little bit of yeast, it says, works through the whole batch of dough. And I believe that from the very moment that you come to Christ, if you start understanding the purity of the grace of God, it’s like, squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, it just starts the process starts and, and ultimately, God keeps squeezing the law out and squeezing the law out until there’s nothing left. And when that occurs, that’s when you’re going to begin to enjoy the true freedom that comes from allowing Christ now to live his life in and through you being led internally by His Spirit instead of externally, by obedience to the law.

Now, folks, any teaching of the law to a Christian, is a perverted teaching. That’s why I’ve said before, I wouldn’t give a dime to a legalistic teacher, I would not give a dime to a legalistic teacher any more than if I was in a jail that I would be saying, I want to use some of my money to buy better bars, to buy more locks, to get better guards. That would be ludicrous. Nobody is going to do that. I would not support a dime legalistic teaching. Why? Well, because it’s going to spoil what Christ came to do. And that is to give grace abundantly, so that you and I can walk in the newness of life, and incidentally, to walk in love, which is the fulfillment of everything.

Now Paul told us in Galatians, he said, I’m astonished that you are so quickly deserting, the one who called you see not deserting a doctrine, but the one who called you by the grace of Christ. How were you called? by the grace of Christ. Now he said, Now, you’re deserting that one who called you and you’re turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. It isn’t a gospel. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion, and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel, other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned. Does that sound like someone who is saying, Oh, well, a little bit of law isn’t gonna hurt? He is saying anyone who is preaching a combined bag of tricks, is preaching a perverted gospel. Now, let me give you another one of those in first Timothy six. It says in there that anyone who teaches false doctrines six, three, and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching. He has conceded, and he understands nothing. He may have 16 degrees, but it says you don’t understand anything. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies they love to get in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, and strife and malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth, and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. Now, folks, once again, I didn’t say this. This is in the Scripture, that anyone who teaches that godliness is a means to financial gain. And you don’t have to flip to many television channels to hear that. It says of that man, that there is a man who has conceded who has no understanding at all as to what the scripture is about, even though he may be teaching out of what he says is the Bible and it is. But teaching things out of context, just as Satan did. He understands nothing. He may know what something says doesn’t have a clue what it means. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels as a result involved in strife and envy and malicious talk and evil suspicions, constant friction, and who have been robbed of the truth. Now, folks, when you are perverting the gospel, then it means you’re a pervert of the gospel. That’s all you can say about that. And so we have a lot of religious perverts in this world today, people who are perverting the truth of the gospel, teaching people that godliness is a means to financial gain. And that the reason that you’re not blessed financially is because your faith isn’t big enough or you haven’t tithed enough. Now that ought to be a red flag for you in regard to legalistic teaching, right there on teaching of tithing because tithing is a legalistic form of giving. It has nothing to do with New Testament giving at all. It’s drugged over from the Old Covenant, from the old will, which was the way of supporting the Levitical priesthood. You’re not under the Levitical priesthood. I believe that the Bible says that death has prevented them from continuing in office, which it will normally do. You’re under a totally different law altogether. It’s the law of love and the law of grace. You are to give generously and freely, but not under compulsion, all of those type of things are red flags, as to legalistic teaching. Now in Romans 11:6, it talks about the grace of God and it says, if by grace, then it is no longer by works. If it were, Grace would no longer be grace. The same grace that saves us is what sustains us in our Christian life. And as I said, it only takes a little bit of that law to ruin God’s purpose of grace, you can’t mix the two.

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.