Radio Broadcast Monday 12/18/2023

Classic Christianity – Book of Hebrews P47 (12-18-23)

For the Word of God is Alive and Active Sharper Than Any Double-Edged Sword

~ The word of God penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all of creation is hidden from God’s sight. God knows our thoughts. God knows everything about us. Nothing is hidden from him. He knows our needs. Many times though we confuse the needs of the flesh with the needs of the spirit and the the needs of the soul. We allow Satan to program us instead of God. We need to allow God to renew our mind so that we are programmed by the Holy Spirit instead of Satan and the world. And we need to be reminded of this time and time again. God needs to renew our mind.

~ “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” ^{Hebrews 4:12-13}

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~ “Well, let’s turn to the book of Hebrews chapter four, beginning in verse 12, the word of God is living and active, is sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and the attitudes of our heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Last week, as we picked up on that, we were mentioning the importance of this passage of Scripture, as it relates to the dividing of the soul and the spirit. And as we explained how when God made man He made man created man with a body that has needs called physical needs. A man has an a soul, a soul, that’s the invisible you the body’s the visible expression of the real you. And in that soul is your mind, your emotion, your will. In other words, you got your thinker and your feeler and your willer. And that’s all a part of human personality, the invisible you. But it’s the real you. A carrot has a body, the vegetable kingdom has a body, it doesn’t have a soul, the animal kingdom, what delineates and differentiates the animal kingdom from the vegetable kingdom is that the animal kingdom has a body and the soul, a dog has a mind, not much, but a mind. And some are less than others. A dog has emotion, and you can see it and it expresses itself through its body. When a dog feels badly, why puts that tail between his legs, you can tell with a dog exactly what’s going on in the inside, by seeing what’s going on the outside. That’s not always true with us. We can be in a pit on the inside, say, Hi, how are you just everything’s wonderful on the outside, but not so with a dog. So a dog has a soul like we do now what delineates then the animal kingdom from the human kingdom. It’s the fact that the human kingdom not only has a body and a soul, but we have a spiritual capacity. And God gave us a spirit, a human spirit that delineates us from the animal kingdom. And there’s things that human beings therefore, can do that the animal kingdom doesn’t. The dog doesn’t sit around and plan his day, and ponder what he’s going to do tomorrow and what his future is going to be. You know, he hadn’t sitting there thinking I believe, tomorrow I’ll go try to eat a car, and, and all that kind of stuff he just see just responds spontaneously more by instinct. And so but a human has the ability to sit around and plan those things. And a human being is there for delineated from the animal kingdom, although we have the animal part of us in regard to a soul and a body. But we have that spiritual capacity that enables us to rise above and to ultimately contemplate such things, as Gods sit around and realize there’s a God and to contemplate Him, and to have a desire to get to know Him.” ~ Bob George

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Announcer 0:12
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Bob George 0:28
Well, let’s turn to the book of Hebrews chapter four, beginning in verse 12, the word of God is living and active, is sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and the attitudes of our heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Last week, as we picked up on that, we were mentioning the importance of this passage of Scripture, as it relates to the dividing of the soul and the spirit. And as we explained how when God made man He made man created man with a body that has needs called physical needs. A man has an a soul, a soul, that’s the invisible you the body’s the visible expression of the real you. And in that soul is your mind, your emotion, your will. In other words, you got your thinker and your feeler and your willer. And that’s all a part of human personality, the invisible you. But it’s the real you. A carrot has a body, the vegetable kingdom has a body, it doesn’t have a soul, the animal kingdom, what delineates and differentiates the animal kingdom from the vegetable kingdom is that the animal kingdom has a body and the soul, a dog has a mind, not much, but a mind. And some are less than others. A dog has emotion, and you can see it and it expresses itself through its body. When a dog feels badly, why puts that tail between his legs, you can tell with a dog exactly what’s going on in the inside, by seeing what’s going on the outside. That’s not always true with us. We can be in a pit on the inside, say, Hi, how are you just everything’s wonderful on the outside, but not so with a dog. So a dog has a soul like we do now what delineates then the animal kingdom from the human kingdom. It’s the fact that the human kingdom not only has a body and a soul, but we have a spiritual capacity. And God gave us a spirit, a human spirit that delineates us from the animal kingdom. And there’s things that human beings therefore, can do that the animal kingdom doesn’t. The dog doesn’t sit around and plan his day, and ponder what he’s going to do tomorrow and what his future is going to be. You know, he hadn’t sitting there thinking I believe, tomorrow I’ll go try to eat a car, and, and all that kind of stuff he just see just responds spontaneously more by instinct. And so but a human has the ability to sit around and plan those things. And a human being is there for delineated from the animal kingdom, although we have the animal part of us in regard to a soul and a body. But we have that spiritual capacity that enables us to rise above and to ultimately contemplate such things, as Gods sit around and realize there’s a God and to contemplate Him, and to have a desire to get to know Him.

Now, as we talked about, on the day that Adam fell, that spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God, living in him, departed from him, leaving him with a human spirit, dead to God, but very much alive to the world. It wasn’t that his human spirit died. But death was when the life of God departed from it. Therefore, the human spirit, realizing its emptiness, very much cognizant of the fact that there is something missing. And what is missing is the life of God. He still has the human capacity, spiritual capacity, but devoid of God. That’s what makes man religious, is there’s a God shaped vacuum, as Pascal said, in the heart of every man that can only be filled by God through his Son, Jesus Christ. And it’s that vacuum that is there realizing there’s something more than us ourselves, something is out there that causes a man to begin to seek things and to seek God in one way or another. So his human spirit is just basically left to its own. Now, as we talked about, before, that the physical then part of us we have not desires fit but we have needs, a need has to be met for us to survive. So in a part of our human need, the same with an animal is the fact we have to have air, water, food, sleep, clothing, shelter, this type of thing, in order to live, you take those things away from a human being physically, and they will ultimately die. So it’s not a desire to have air, we have to have air. In some parts of the country like in weather, you have an advantage like in Los Angeles, you get to see the air you breathe out here we have to breathe by faith. But out there when we lived there, we had an advantage we could see what we were breathing. But we even with that stuff, at least it kept us alive, it was better than nothing. The alternative was, was not too good. So if those needs are not met, we die soulessly, slowly, the same thing we have psychological needs emotional needs below volitional needs all tying into our mind, emotion, and will you take a person, capture them in some of the foreign countries like we’re talking about, put them in isolation over a long period of time. Take them away from human conversation, human touch, their will away from them where they have no will they become like a robot, you just dry up and die psychologically, soulessly. The same thing is true. Therefore, in regard to spiritual, the spiritual part of us have needs. The basic need of the spiritual aspect of man is unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, and to have meaning and purpose to life or reason for getting up and living. To be to experience unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, there’s not a person sitting in this room that in the depths of their soul doesn’t cry out for is there anyone out there that will just accept me for who I am? Is there anyone there that can love me unconditionally? When there’s not conditions on? I love you? Is there anyone out there that can just say I just love you because you’re you not I love you because you do this or if you do this, but I just love you because you’re you. And every single person on the face of this earth has that craving desire for that kind of love. Now, the problem with that is that that kind of love is not available on the level of the Soul where we look for it. We get married, thinking mismatched, we’ll do this. Here’s up, here’s a person who will love me unconditionally. They said they would, I’ll just serve you forever, honey, and you believe that lie. And you get married, you find out no, that doesn’t work quite that way. We have kids and think maybe that will do it. When we’re growing up with our parents with it. We’re looking for them for that unconditional love and acceptance. And it’s not there, you and I do not have the capability of loving another person unconditionally and accepting another person unconditionally. Neither can the world people, places or things bring meaning and purpose to your life. Things can’t jobs can’t places can’t, the world cannot bring meaning and purpose to life period. You can search all of your life to try to find meaning and purpose to life, by your occupation, where you live, it will not do it, it cannot do it. That is a spiritual need that can only be met spiritually by the Spirit of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, there is only one person who will ever be able to love you unconditionally. And who accepts you unconditionally. There is only one person that can bring you meaning and purpose to life. It’s not an a thing. It’s not in an occupation. It’s not in what you do. It’s in a person, and it’s the person of Jesus Christ. So when it says that the Word of God is sharper and active and living, the end sharper than any two edged sword, dividing soul from spirit, you can see how important it is for us to understand that fact that this word of God does divide and delineate your soul from your spirit. Because Satan does everything in his power to try to convince you, there is no difference between your spirit and your soul. And that need that you have for unconditional love and acceptance is merely a soulless need. And therefore it can be met here on this earth, people places and things. And he cons us into believing that. Whereby when you go to the Word of God seeing exactly and precisely what it says is no it divides it delineates the soul from the Spirit. They because they all three have needs. The soul has desires, the spirit has needs and only Christ Jesus can meet them, then we’re in a position of realizing who is going to meet what. And so that’s why it’s so important as we’ve been talking about as the word of God. I’ve seen that the Word of God is alive, it’s living. It’s not dead doctrine that we sit and memorize and say I got this doctrine down. It’s alive. It’s living it Christ alive living in you and me, which is our only hope of glory. So it has nothing to do with just forming doctrines to say we believe in.

We get people out of times to say, Well, we believe we believe we believe in your join denomination this way we Baptists believe this what we Presbyterians believe is what what’s the matter what you believe the issue is what are you experiencing in your life, and we walk around to that type of thing? Well, we believe we believe that’s not the issue. The faith isn’t the emphasis of the New Testament and on what you believe it’s on who you believe in. It’s the object of your belief, it’s on him. It’s not in what I believe, I believe, where’s the emphasis on me and what I believe that’s not it, it’s on him and his truth. And so our attention shifts from me and what I’m believing on to him and what he’s saying. And belief becomes a natural response. If we understand who he is, he’s God, if he’s God, he has truth. He’s given us His word. The word he said is truth. It says it’s sharper, it’s active, it’s alive and sharper than a two edged sword, it divides these things, and let it divide it, so that you’re not trying to get the world to meet a spiritual need, it cannot. Now we talked about last week, then as to where then in the area of the soul. And when we’re dealing in the soul, you’re dealing with how then is the soul fed, and the soul is fed through our five senses. We have the sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. And it’s through those senses that we feed the soul, the personality. And we talked about last week as to how flimsy those senses are. Because it’s through those that they form desires. It’s through our senses that desires are stimulated, but desires it’s called desires of the what? Of the flesh, you have the truth of the spirit, you’ve got desires of the flesh. In other words, desires come and funnel into the soulesh, and physical part of man. Now we talked about that, how you can have the sense of touch, and taste and smell. And the interesting thing about those inputs those senses into our being is that those three, smell, taste and touch, literally, you have to be present. In order to activate those, you can’t activate them with your mind with imagination. I can’t duplicate an emotion by smelling a rose. I don’t know what a rose smells like. There’s no rose in front of me, I can’t duplicate the smell. In other words, smell doesn’t have a memory. In some instances, thank God for that. And so you hit one of those skunks out there on the on the highway here in Texas. And you’re glad that that smell doesn’t have a memory that as soon as the scent goes away, you can forget about it. So God designed us that way. I can’t tell you what a rose smells like right now you put a nose and rose in front of my nose. I’ll identify it immediately is what it is. But it’s because it’s there. The physical presence is there, creating a scent, I can identify it as a rose and it could literally engender an emotional response. The same thing we talked about with touch like the pet a dog, I couldn’t tell you if my life depended on what a dog feels like right now. Pet one I’ll identify it, but it’s not my hand. I can’t duplicate the feeling. There’s a lot of things you and I like to touch you cannot duplicate it’s feeling right now it’s impossible. Until the presence is there. When the presence is there, I can feel it, identify it and engender an emotional response. The same thing is there with taste you might like a nice T bone juicy steak and the thought of it can make your mouth water but I couldn’t tell you what one tasted like right now. Stick a bite in my mouth, identify it and enjoy it, but I cannot duplicate it.

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Bob George 14:32
On the other hand, when you’re talking about bringing into your mind things through your eye gate and irrigate there we have the ability to create sounds and sights in our mind that are as real as reality to us. That’s called fantasy. And that’s how we get into fantasizing and into my mind. I that’s what we have to protect. I don’t have to protect necessarily what I touch, taste and smell. Oh, because I gotta be there to do that. But I have to protect what goes into my mind through my eye gate and ear gate, because that can engender an emotional response as real as the reality. You and I can sit can we not? And we talked about this, how you can sit back and you can think about old things, you know, I got song I saw you last night got that old feelings, that old feeling. And you can sit and think. And like I said last week, that’s one of the benefits of high school reunions is you can go back and see that old feeling and be glad that it isn’t there anymore. And so you but you can do all kinds of things with your mind, you can sit down the way songs are created, the way poetry is written literature is written is by creating sights and sounds in your mind through your eye gate and ear gate and merely putting it down on paper. If Terry and them write a song, it’s got to start in their head, and it starts in her head. And then pretty soon it gets down and pretty soon you can write it down. But it’s it’s all a part of creativity. It’s all a part of the way the mind functions. Now, the danger of that is that you and I therefore have the ability to paint pictures in our minds and sounds in our minds. And our emotions do not know whether it is reality, or whether it is sheer fantasy. When God designed man he designed man in such a way whereby our emotions predictably respond to whatever we’re putting into our minds. Were designed that way. We’re made that way. It isn’t unusual. You are going to feel angry, because you’re thinking angry thoughts. You’re going to feel lustful because you’re thinking lustful thoughts that makes you feel lustful, you’re going to feel jealousy, because you’re thinking jealous thoughts. And you cannot eliminate that if you’re thinking jealous thoughts, you’re going to experience jealousy. If you are thinking anxious, if you’re feeling anxiety, it’s because you are thinking anxious thoughts. What’s going to happen to you anymore? Am I going to get my job? Where am I going to go? I don’t have a job. I don’t have this. Those are anxious thoughts that create the emotion of anxiety. Now folks that is not complicated. Is it? And you and I all know that’s true? Don’t we? If you’re thinking angry thoughts, you’re going to be feeling angry. Is that true or not? Then if that is true, then the same thing is true as an example on things like depression. Have you ever felt depressed? What were you thinking? Depressing thoughts. That’s why you felt depressed. It is not a chemical imbalance. Although you’re thinking can create chemical imbalances. I have a chemical imbalance every time I’m mad, don’t you. And if you took a mental picture of my brain, when I’m mad, you would see a different brain picture than when I’m calm. And that’s what has taken place today is people have taken people who were already depressed out of their socks, took a picture, their brain took a picture of another person who in depressed brain said see there, it’s all physical. Well, of course, there’s chemicals changes. But what is brought about what brought about the change, stinkin thinking, not balancing chemistry. And the idea is if I can stick another chemistry, some chemical in there to balance that brain, I’ll get them undepressed. Not if you start thinking depressing thoughts again. And so when you’re dealing with the body is going to reflect what is going on inside. That’s exactly what James is talking about. When this church feud and fighting and fusing says some of you are sick, you can get all sorts from worry, can’t you? And I’ll guarantee you when you’re worried you’ll have a chemical imbalance well the solution to it in the budget chemists chemicals, that those things come from our minds. And as a man thinks, what? So is he. So is he. Now fokes the entire educational system, the humanistic system of man and the way that we think through our brilliance and intelligence is in total opposition to that. Because we want to make everything physical, which is merely the manifestation of what’s going on in the soul as a result of either the emptiness of the spirit or not listening to the Spirit of God living in you. And so if you’re going to be feeling depressed, it’s because you’re thinking depressing thoughts. And that is exactly why the word of God says to you who are in Christ, so you are in Christ, I emphasize that. I therefore ask you beg you present your bodies now your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable in the sight of God, which is your reasonable worship, and don’t be conformed to the world, but be transformed how? By the renewing of your emotions. So when it says, What’s it say? By the renewing of your mind, As a man thinks so is he.

Now there’s two inputs into this mind of ours, you’re either going to have the input from the world, or you’re going to have the input from God. years ago, before FM came into existence, all we had was AM, that’s all, we had no radio. And if you had a radio, it was an am radio, someone came up with an FM, frequency. And then you used to have to have two radios, you’d have an am radio and then you’d have a FM radio. And so you could tune into either one of those if you wanted to. And not much programming on FM. But what was there was good and clear, then that began to develop and to broaden. And pretty soon why there are a lot of people wanting to listen to FM as well as AM. So somebody said, let’s put it all in the same box. And in the same box, you’ll be able to pull in AM, and you’ll be able to pull in FM. That is exactly what happened to us when we were born again. Before we were born again, all we had was an AM, we were an AM station, there was only one form of programming that you could understand. AM it was all from the world, people, places and things stimulated by the lies the deceit of the world. And the one who is the prince of this world, Satan. When you’re born again, it was like an FM station on FM receptor. Now the difference was they didn’t have two radios, they put it all in one deal. So when you and I are born again, we now have an FM living in us. And we don’t change or originate the programming in either one of those two. All we can do is listen to it. We don’t originate it, we don’t design it. I don’t tell Satan what to put out there and what to tell people and what to tell me and I don’t tell God what to tell me. Those are outside influences coming in to me, you and I are human beings. And as a human being, we were created by God to be receivers, He is God, the initiator. And so realizing that I now as a born again Christian, have the Spirit of God living in me. And as it says, Now natural man can understand cannot understand spiritual things. Am station cannot pick up a FM, excuse me, FM programming. That’s all there is to it. FM program, excuse me, you cannot do that. An AM radio dial cannot pick up. FM programming finally got it. Impossible. Now, once you have been born again, and the FM is there, now you can understand FM programming. Now you’re going to understand the things of God. And it says that we as Christians literally have the mind of Christ living in us. And that natural man cannot understand spiritual things. It sounds foolish to him but we who are in Christ spiritual, have the mind of Christ and we understand and discern all things. So now because Christ lives in me I have the ability to go to the Word of God that is truth and to discern that word. And to know truth that will then set me free but do I also have the option to continue to believe the lie and to be programmed by the lie do I? Well of course I’ve got my radio I got FM and AM both of them able to broadcast anytime they want to now as I said, my role is not to mess with the dial. My role as a Christian is determined whether I’m going to turn that little knob over to the am programming programming that I know full well that every station on it is from the world and it’s a lie or am I going to turn that little knob over to FM that is God station and listen to what God has to say there is your and my option not to change the programming but the dial. Am I going to listen to truth that will set me free or turn it over to a program that I know full well is a lie. That’s gonna put me in bondage. Now on this am dial over there, you can get new aid stations, you can get religious station, you can get prosperity gospel stations, if they’re not, they are not limited to just secular stuff. There is a bunch of good religious lies going on out there. And so you can pick up any station you want out there. There’s hundreds of broadcasting in on that am dial. And the subtlety of it is that a lot of it is religious stuff. So you can bury yourself by lies, clothed in religion, or you can bury yourself by lies clothed in New Age, or you can bury yourself in lies clothed by the world. Get this, get that and you’ll be happy. Or you can realize those are all lies and go over to truth. And listen to the truth of the Word of God. That is sharper than a two edged sword dividing, asunder the soul from the spirit and teaching you truth that will set you free.

Now turn back with me for a moment to James to the book of James again, chapter one. Folks we talked about last week when you’re talking about these senses, you could just, it doesn’t take just a real little bit out of one of those senses to destroy an illusion. That’s all it takes. And I gave the illustration last week you can see this, this good looking girl. And you can hear her voice and voice nice voice sweet little thing. And you can touch her voice she feels good. And you could even reach over and kiss her on the cheek or wherever it might be. And boy that tasted good. And then she turns to you and says something. And brother she’s got yak breath. And all of that illusion just goes right out the door. I mean all here’s all this just these Gucci Gucci feeling gone. You can walk out in the kitchen say Oh, I tell you I just think about my wife. And I just just love her and let her see her. And boy, she’s so so nice. Smells good, too. He’s got good perfume on getting ready to fix some breakfast that can activate the taste to go over and touch her feels real good. And then she looks at you and said did you take out the garbage? What happens to you same step right down the tube just all as Gucci, Gucci stuff just gone. That’s how fleeting desires of the flesh are. That’s just how fleeting they are. They can come and go in a minute. And yet Satan convinces us to spend all of our life in fulfillment of our desires, instead of letting God meet your needs.

Announcer 27:11
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