Radio Broadcast Tuesday 01/23/2024

Classic Christianity – Book of Hebrews P57 (01-23-24)

Jesus is Greater Than Your Traditions!

~ Today we have a generation of man followers, instead of followers of TRUTH. We sit around thinking we know it all, and I am going to believe based on what I was taught. I am going to believe based on what my pastor teaches. I am going to believe based on what my parents taught me. I am going to believe based on my religious traditions. I am going to put faith in the teaching of Man, instead of the teaching of God. We are no different than the Hebrews/Israelites of the old testament. They got so heavily involved in their traditions, and quite frankly became infested with infiltrators from Satan, that they trusted their traditions, and they thought they knew what the Scriptures meant instead of believing in the truth of the word of God. They passed over the details. They stumbled over the stumbling STONE, because their traditions didn’t match up to the Truth of the Word of God. They were so proud of their traditions that they couldn’t see Jesus, God in the flesh walking right in front of their faces. Yet today, the world is no different than those days gone by. Man still trusts his traditions more than trusting in the word of God. And because their traditions don’t line up with the Truth of the Word of God, they ignore the calling of the Holy Spirit and instead lean on their own understanding of things.

A word of warning, we are NOT to lean on our own understanding of things. We are to take everything to the Lord in prayer. If you are in Christ, then He is in you, and you can’t get any closer to the Holy Spirit than the Temple that is your body of Christ Jesus. If you are willing to abide in Him, he will teach you all Truth. He, the Holy Spirit will make known to you the Truth of the Word of God, the Truth of the world we live in, the Truth of what is really going on today. And He, the Holy Spirit will show you the lies of Satan and the world. And the battle is not a physical battle, but is one of another realm, a spiritual realm against the forces of darkness. So start listening to the Holy Spirit teach you ALL truth today. For time is short at hand. Pay attention to details, for details matter in EVERYTHING.

~ “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” ^{Hebrews 5:7-14}

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~ “And so he’s talking about here that here was his Jesus who offered up these petitions said he was heard. And because of his reverence, submission, though he was a Son, he this Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered. And once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated by God to be high priest, the order of Melchizedek. I want you to see, in this seven, verse seven, down through 10, what you’re going to see is the he’s during the days of Jesus life on he offered up prayers, petitions and loud cries, who could save him, and he was heard because of his reverence, submission. Although he was a Son, He learned obedience from what he suffered, and once made perfect, He, Jesus then became the source of eternal salvation, not your sacrifices, not your obedience to the legalistic codes that were given to you, He, Jesus, has superseded everything. He’s greater than your tradition, He’s greater than your heritage, He’s greater than all of those things. There’s a new gift that has been given. He is the gift of Christ Jesus alone, he became the source of eternal salvation, for all who obey Him who believe in him. He’s the source of it, not Hebrewism, not sacrificial system, not days of atonement, not the all of the different traditions that you follow. He Jesus alone, a person is the source total of eternal salvation for all who believed. And it was he Jesus, who was designated by God, to be a high priest, in the order of Melchizedek.
” ~ Bob George

Bible Study Booklets

Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the book of Hebrews. Available for download the complete series on the Book of Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews is key to understanding the New Covenant.

Announcer 0:12
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.

Bob George 0:28
Let’s turn to the book of Hebrews and we’re going to pick up down in chapter five, beginning in verse seven. And, and just kind of recap what we’ve been studying together over these last number of weeks together. In chapter seven, here it says, during the days of Jesus life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears, to the one who could save him from death. Now, I want to, since we’re looking through here, folks to see something, because I think I’ll try to establish a little bit of a foundation, you’re going to be looking here in this entire book of Hebrews, to the author of Hebrews, basically pointing to the Hebrew to the Hebrew, not unique, necessarily, in the fact of their heritage, or excuse me, in regard to the bloodline, although that is certainly unique. But you’re talking about people who have been practicing Hebrewism, religion. And it was not a religion that they necessarily that they made up as all man has the tendency to do we add to what God gives us. But God called the Hebrew aside, made them unique among the world, and among the people, by the very ordinances that he gave them, the very traditions that he gave them, the laws that he gave them, he gave the laws and the dietary laws and all of those other things. And that made them unique in the world, until they were known as unique by the practices that they did. And their sacrificial system and the blood sacrifices and all that type of thing that they diligently followed made them unique and identifiable to the entire world. And so they had practiced these things, and certainly had practiced obedience to the law to the best of their abilities. And of course, that was a problem is because it was left up to their abilities, as it would be left up to ours. And it’s an exercise in futility ultimately. But diligently practicing these things diligently going back to the ceremonies diligently going back to the holidays, and that made them a unique people. And so through all of these years, in the uniqueness, and we have a tendency there to gain then our acceptance and our self worth, predicated on the following of these traditions, and we hate to break away from them. If you and I, as an example, a Protestant, a person who had practiced and been involved in a Protestant religion, would walk into a Catholic church as an example, and see the people putting their fingers in the holy water and kneeling down and crossing themselves and all of this type of thing, it would seem very strange to us because we haven’t practiced those types of things, to them very comfortable with that. And as a matter of fact, being very uncomfortable coming into a setting like this, because there’s no pews and there’s no statues, and there’s no this and they say this that appear to be church. And so we become familiar, don’t we, with our surroundings and our settings and pretty soon, we begin to think that this is what’s right, because I’m doing it and after all, if I’m doing something that is a criteria for truth, isn’t it? And and that’s the way we think we have the idea and we’ll say that and you know, we’ll we’ll do that even being raised right, you know, I was raised that way as if, how did you turn out? But we think boy, I turned out pretty, pretty good. So it must be okay. And we have that self centered egotistical attitudes that if if if I went through it, well, that makes it okay, because I’m okay. You’re okay. Everyone’s okay. And so we do that same thing with with religion. And so we’ll have this attitude that comes along that says, Because I practice these things that must be right, otherwise I wouldn’t have been practicing them. So it must be right. So anything foreign to that is very hard to grab a hold of.

We had at our conference last week, a Church of Christ, a pastor from Church. of Christ, a dear brother. Well, he had never been to see Church of Christ, they don’t have instruments in their church. So you come in and play an organ on a guitar, oh, my goodness, you know, you kind of look for the lightning to strike. And because that is not done there. And we have a tendency to think, well, because we don’t play instruments, why, instruments must be wrong, but anyone who does is kind of weird because and this must be right, because I’m practicing this. And that makes it right, if I’m practicing, and after all, God forbid, I’d ever be deceived. And, and then we could do the same thing. We have organs and guitars. And if we went into their assembly and say, Whoa, what a bunch of dumb people that don’t have organs have guitars. And we have that tendency to, to get involved in those kind of little nitpicking things and, and the traditions that we that we grab on to. Well, that was not unlike anything, of course with the Hebrew. And with the practice of this religion that literally God had given them, he gave them the law. And so the Hebrew had been practicing these things. And they had their priesthood that God put into existence there. Levitical priesthood was there, it wasn’t something they made up. It was there, it was a part of the 12 tribes of Israel and, and it was there, and they practiced it in dedication, and absolute sheer dedication. Well, what we don’t realize is, we get so bogged down many times in the practice of religion, that we miss what that religion was pointing to. And in all of the case of the 1000s, of years of the practice of Hebrewism, it was pushing and heading toward God’s ultimate gift not only to the Hebrew, but to the world. And that was Jesus. And, and all of a sudden Christ was here. And as I said, he came into his own but his own received Him not, they didn’t receive a why they’re too busy practicing religion. We’re too busy, trying to determine whether it’s good to have an organ in a church or sing acapella, too busy with traditions, too busy with our little dinky stuff that we’ve come up with, that we miss what Christ was pointing toward what God was pointing to all along, I’m going to send you the Messiah. And he’s going to come and be the savior of the world. And so we miss that. And we’re so God forbid that we wouldn’t be able to go back to our sacrificial system back to Jerusalem and kill some blood of bulls and goats. After all, we’ve been doing that for years. And that’s our tradition. That’s our grandfathers tradition, and great grandfather’s tradition. And that’s our tradition. And all of a sudden, there comes one who appeared that said, I did it once and for all, and that’s it. That can’t be. What what do I do with all of this? Tradition? What I do with all these practices? How do I let go? I mean, what do you do with all those things? And you see the dilemma that those people were in. Because folks, we’re in a same dilemma. And quite frankly, even though the book of Hebrews was pointed toward the Hebrew, we get again, this delineation down to the point I’m gonna delineating by rightly divide and get all this stuff to realize we’re doing the same things. And the same truth that applies there applies to us. So let’s quit delineating these things down to think were rightly dividing and getting everything divided up in our little deals, like we could have guessed God, we can’t, God’s bigger than that. And so we’re dealing here with with something of a tradition that they were hanging on to we to have our traditions we hang on to. And we have to understand that the same truth that was applying to them applies to us.

And so here were this group of people that were, were in this tradition, God given. And so he’s talking now and coming to the point where he’s, as we talked about, he’s very gentle with this. He said, I know that you believed in angels and this type of thing, but there’s someone greater. I know that you are a follower of the teacher of Moses, I understand that I gave you Moses, but there’s someone greater than Moses who is here. There’s someone greater than Joshua, who is here. And that’s what this whole book of Hebrews is pointing toward. Is there something that has happened, folks, there is an event that has happened that will change all of this tradition. That will negate all of it. And it was the gift that God planned before the foundation of the earth to give to the world, and that is Jesus Christ.

And so he’s talking about here that here was his Jesus who offered up these petitions said he was heard. And because of his reverence, submission, though he was a Son, he this Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered. And once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated by God to be high priest, the order of Melchizedek. I want you to see, in this seven, verse seven, down through 10, what you’re going to see is the he’s during the days of Jesus life on he offered up prayers, petitions and loud cries, who could save him, and he was heard because of his reverence, submission. Although he was a Son, He learned obedience from what he suffered, and once made perfect, He, Jesus then became the source of eternal salvation, not your sacrifices, not your obedience to the legalistic codes that were given to you, He, Jesus, has superseded everything. He’s greater than your tradition, He’s greater than your heritage, He’s greater than all of those things. There’s a new gift that has been given. He is the gift of Christ Jesus alone, he became the source of eternal salvation, for all who obey Him who believe in him. He’s the source of it, not Hebrewism, not sacrificial system, not days of atonement, not the all of the different traditions that you follow. He Jesus alone, a person is the source total of eternal salvation for all who believed. And it was he Jesus, who was designated by God, to be a high priest, in the order of Melchizedek.

Now folks, we have to understand that the purpose that we’re sitting around constantly trying to figure out the purpose of God. But the purpose of God from day one was not to save the Hebrew, was not to save the Gentile. The purpose of God was to give to this world, Jesus. And Jesus would save the world. The purpose of God from the very beginning, was to give his Son to become a man and to come to this earth, and to offer eternal salvation to the entire world. That is the purpose of God. And folks, we get hung up on all kinds of things, we get hung up on these things. And the fact of the matter is that the centrality of the Bible from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation is Jesus. It in what he’s going to do with Israel, what he isn’t, although he is going to do something with Israel, that’s not the issue. The reason He came was to give us His Son, in whom all things hold together. And when we concentrate on Him and Him alone, you’re never going to go down some primrose path to Nowhere. You’re never going to divide the body. You can’t divide the body when you got him as your head.

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Announcer
If you’re enjoying the book of Hebrews, check out our website BobGeorge.net. There you will find a whole collection of messages from the book of Hebrews as well as other DVDs, CDs and Bible studies available for purchase. That’s Bob George dot net. Let’s join Bob now as he continues the radio program.

Bob George 14:00
We’ve sit around trying to figure out God, thank God got him all figured out. You can’t be more deceived than that. There’s no way to be any more to see than you and your finite mind and me and my finite mind thinking I got God figured out. That you see on television people in there, they got the book of Revelation all figured out, baloney. How do you figure out that kind of stuff. You’ll figure it out when it gets revealed. And not a moment before. You don’t have that anymore figured out then the Hebrews had it figured out what God was going to do through Jesus. That’s why they can’t figure it out even when he came. And it says that holy men wrote things they didn’t even know. They didn’t know what they were prophesying. They were just prophesied but they didn’t know what it was gonna be. And when he came, they didn’t recognize it. Because they had pre formed in their minds what it was going to be and when it didn’t agree with what they’re pre formed in our minds was they nailed Him to the cross, we can do the same things. We get so smart and intelligent, we think we got everything figured out. We don’t have anything figured out. The fact of the matter is, it’s all him. It’s all Jesus, and nothing else. It’s Christ Jesus, alive living in you and me. That is our only hope of ever being what God intended us to be. And this is what this whole book is about pointing us back to him, folks. To him. It was he, because of his submission, he learned, he became the eternal source of salvation.

Now, the writer is going to have say, we have so much more to say about this. Say about what? About the total sufficiency of Christ. That’s so much more to say about this. But it’s hard to explain because you’re slow to learn. Why are we slow to learn? Because we go off chasing rabbits all the time. That’s why we’re slow to learn. Man, we’re out in left field all the time, we ought to be running around the bases. We’re out in the field, chasing rabbits out there. And it makes us slow to learn. We think we’re smart chasing rabbits, we’re not. Because we have our concentration on the wrong thing. There’s only one thing to be preoccupied with my friends, and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the beginning. He’s the end, he’s the Alpha, he’s the Omega. He’s your life. When he who is your life appears you’ll appear with him. It’s all him. Nothing else, just him. So he said, there’s more but your hard, you’re slow to learn. In fact, by this time, you ought to be teachers, you ought to be teachers, God, you’ve studied so much. But you don’t even know what you’re teaching. You need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. What was the elementary truths of God’s word? What it was from the beginning, from the book of Genesis on, I’m going to send somebody who’s going to bruise the heel. It’s going to be your savior Jesus, from the book of Genesis on was a book pointing to Jesus. You need milk, not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk still being an infant is not acquainted with the teachings about righteousness. But solid foods for the mature, who by constant usage. You see this folks by constant usage? It doesn’t say by constant learning. It says by constant usage. How many times do we have to see this in our lives? Folks, how many times do we have to see this, that in our lives, that it does not mean a hill of beans to anybody? To have your head full of knowledge, and your heart full of bitterness? What good does it do to have your head full of information? When your heart is still hard as a brick? Doesn’t make any sense does it? You see you can sit around and be theologically right on and be dispositionally be off as you could possibly get. Our pride, our ego is something that is always raising its ugly head. And knowledge does what? Puffs up. And we sit around thinking we’re getting spiritual by sitting around nothing wrong with studying the Word of God. But we get we think we get spiritually sitting around hours upon hours upon hours, studying the Word of God and never put it into practice. We live isolated lives sometimes. We don’t want to get involved with people because we don’t particularly ever want them to really find out what we’re like. And as a result of this, we never put these things into practice. And what he’s saying is you cannot mature that way we think maturity is the gaining of knowledge. Maturity is putting what little you have and believing it acting upon it. What good would it do for God to teach you and me more if we haven’t applied what we already know? I mean, why are already known as 10 times more and I’m able to put into practice. Why would he by spirit want to teach me more when I’m not even putting into practice what I already know? And so he says as for solid foods for the mature who by constant usage have trained them selves to distinguish good from evil, through usage. And that is putting it into practice. And you know, when you put the Word of God into practice, you’ll suddenly find out what’s right and wrong, don’t you, because the consequences are there.

Remember the days and maybe we’re still there. Remember the days when I thought I knew so much about the word and I was so studious, and I could tell everybody about very authoritative what I all of it meant, all of it. All of it. It didn’t make an ounce of difference to me that in my explanation that ran people off, made people mad, irritated them. My explanation for that is they’re just not as spiritual as I am. They obviously don’t understand as much as I do. Never entered your mind that our unloving spirit was not of God. And come to the conclusion all this stuff I’m learning and obviously doing me a hill of beans, a word good. What good does it do if your head’s full of knowledge? Again, and your heart is full of pride? And so he’s dealing with us here. And he’s talking about the fact that through usage, realizing it’s all Jesus, folks, do you realize that reduces us to nothingness? Do you realize that the reason that people want to hang on to religion, why we want to hang on from what he’s talking about here and the sacrificial system and what we want to hang on today? With our first John one nine type mentality, or what I’m out doing for God mentality? Do you realize what that is doing? It is keeping me in the action. It is prohibiting me from seeing what Jesus was trying to teach us all along. And that’s it’s all me, Bob, and none of you. Apart from me, you can do nothing. I’m the vine, you’re nothing but a Branch. Now, branch is in my plan, I plan on putting fruit hanging on that thing. I could have it hanging out on the vine if I wanted to, I chose to do it with a branch, and you’re a branch, but you’re a fruit hanger. And don’t think that you could ever produce fruit you can’t. Don’t think that you will, you won’t. I will produce it. If you will abide in me Who alone is your life, I will produce it in and through you, you will bear it it will look to others like you’re producing it which you will be bearing that fruit. But apart from that you can’t do anything. And man rebels against that, folks, our pride and our hearts. We rebel against that. And we say I want something to do with that. I want a part of this action. I want somebody to say I did some of this. And that’s why we rebel and recoil so much against total forgiveness. I cannot tell you folks, you’re maybe have learned some of you have been through it. The number of people just heard again of a guy back in Louisville, Bob was telling me about nice, sincere brother who goes back to his church and starts teaching the totality of forgiveness. That Christ meant that when he said it’s finished, kicked out of the church. Church out in Modesto, California big church out there in there. We went on a new radio station rode out and said take us off, you know, we’re not gonna be on they’re not same station, Bob George is on. How come? We teach that total forgiveness. What’s wrong with total forgiveness? I thought that’s what Jesus came to do. Didn’t you?

You know what it boils down to folks is the fact. But I’m coming to the conclusion is we really don’t believe it. And I wonder how many people are sitting in a situation of never truly exercising, saving faith. If we’ve just given lip service to something, if we’ve never progressed very far beyond the season that we’re going into, and that’s a babe in a manger, and get all loosey goosey over a little baby in a manger. But never have a clue as to what that little baby came to do. That baby was born to die. And he died so that we could live. He had no other reason to die except that we could live. He didn’t die because he wanted to he died so that we who are dead could live. And he didn’t do that by a 99.9% cross. He did it by 100% Cross and if it wasn’t 100% it wasn’t any. Your 99.9% pure I’m sorry you’re not pure. You’re ivory soap, but you’re not pure. You either are 100% forgiven, or you’re nothing forgiven. The reason if we want to hang on to that is because of this pride in man that keeps saying, I want a piece of this action. I feel I’m a part of this, you know, watch me. And the attention that gets back on me and what I’m doing instead of him and what he’s doing. Now under the Old Covenant, and under the sacrificial systems, and under the practice of Hebrewism, it was a practice of here’s what you do you do this, I God will respond. That’s true. It was there. They weren’t making that up, it was there. But it was all changed at the cross. Because man couldn’t do it. In his heart. He could do it with his body, but he couldn’t do with his heart. He couldn’t come sincerely and do anything with his heart, just with his outward body. And so therefore, all of the attention is on me and what I’m doing or me and what I’m not doing. I heard a guy on the radio today on the thing of we have a new see this practice holiness, if I am practicing holiness, and I get holy, guess who’s gonna get the credit? Why me? Man, I made it I got myself holy, how am I practicing it? I just took care that. The attention comes on you and what you’re doing instead of him, and what he’s doing. And we have to understand folks that Christianity is Christ. In all, it’s all him. It’s none of us. Our only thing that God called us to do is to walk by faith in Him, the just, that’s you and me the ones who have been justified, shall walk by faith, in the one who justified.

Announcer 27:11
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 BobGeorge.net. There you will 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.