Radio Broadcast Tuesday 05/21/2024

Classic Christianity – Book of Hebrews P108 (05-21-24)

Jesus Said, “Fear Not, I Have Overcome the World.”

~ Perfect love casts away ALL fear. Jesus is the perfect Love of God. We have nothing to fear about anything. Yet what have we seen in the past number of years. Fear. Fear spreading on TV. Fear when shopping. Fear of being too close to others. Fear of everything. Fear of getting sick. Fear of dying. Fear comes from the evil one. Fear is trumped up by Satan and the fallen angels. Fear also has to do with punishment. People fear God is going to get them for the bad things they have done in life. Fear of thinking that God is going to grade on the curve, and that God is going to be somehow pleased with them if they do more good works than bad works, all the while never knowing for sure if they have done enough good things to outweigh the bad. But God does not grade on the curve. Only perfection will do. And perfection is only found in Christ Jesus. The only thing that will do is faith expressing itself in Love. Jesus is the Faithful One of God, who has taken away ALL your sins at the cross. There is nothing to be fearful of today. NOTHING to be fearful of for the person in Christ Jesus.

Once a person is in Christ and He is them, the Holy Spirit will discipline them with Truth constantly. His Truth will always be upon you. And if you allow the flesh to control you, you will be miserable for life. Instead of listening to Truth, you will constantly be fearful in the flesh when you are being lead by fear instead of by Him. And that’s how you know you are listening to the flesh instead of the Spirit of God. God wants to renew your mind. But the more a person balks at listening to the Holy Spirit, the more painful God’s discipline will be on the person.

So Jesus said, “Fear not, for I have overcome the world.” Rest in His perfect Love today.

~ Hebrews 12:1-12

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons:

“My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord,
and do not lose heart when He rebukes you.

For the Lord disciplines the one He loves,
and He chastises every son He receives.”

Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you do not experience discipline like everyone else, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Furthermore, we have all had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Should we not much more submit to the Father of our spirits and live?

Our fathers disciplined us for a short time as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore strengthen your limp hands and weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. ^{Hebrews 12:1-12}

Pray to God:

“Lord Jesus, teach me the truth of the world today and give me the wisdom to know the truth and identify the lies of the devil. Thank you God.”

~ “Jesus called it fear. And he said, Fear not. Nothing unusual that you have in fear. There’s nothing at all unusual about any of you having fear, there’s anything unusual about me having fear, I’m full of them, aren’t you? And fear will control your life can cause you to do all kinds of things, cause you to run for help in places that aren’t there to help. It’s what runs you fear runs your right into the lure that is built on deception. Not unusual. Don’t need to go to a counselor because I’m fearful. He said you’re going to be fearful. That’s why I said Fear not I’ve overcome the world. That’s why he said don’t be anxious, fearful about anything. Cast all your fears, your cares upon me, because I care about you constantly through the Scripture, fear is discussed not as something unusual, something very usual. Quite frankly, in this world in which we live today. How in the world could you not be experiencing fear when you’re almost afraid to walk out of your house anymore? Now the only counteractant to fear is not to try to get rid of fear. It’s to latch on to perfect love which casts away what? All fear. And the only way in the world that I can ever escape anxiety, fear, worry. Is the discipline upon my mind to say, hear the words of the Lord Jesus. Fear not Bob. Fear not, I have overcome the world. Cast your fears and your cares upon me. I care about you. Look at the flowers out there. Are they toiling? No. Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like them. Why are you worrying? Oh, ye of little faith. The birds? Are they out there toiling? No, no, I feed them. Trust me, oh, ye of little faith. What he’s saying to us is very simply turn back to Me. Turn Back to Me.” ~ Bob George

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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 0:27
I say why don’t all of the adulterers get together and say I demand some rights? I mean there’s a bunch of them out there. Why don’t all him get together and demand the rights? How come? Why just had like to have you know done the come I was born that way. But don’t blame me. You may be able to get by with that with the media, I’ll guarantee you’re not gonna get by with your wife. But you see what we’ve done, folks, the grace of God, this freedom that we say we have in this nation isn’t any different than then we have in individual’s, there is no freedom without discipline. You can’t have Grace, God shed his grace on me on he did. But we’ve stopped discipline. And I’m not talking about gutting it out from God I’m talking about we’ve stopped the discipline of hanging on to truth as to what God said was true. And we bought the lie, whatever you have, the harebrained idea comes down the line is truth. And we have let the psychological profession come in and convince everybody that there’s medical names to everything. And instead of having been a fearful person, you’re now an agoraphobic. And if I can put a name on it like that, then with a name like and it’s got to be bad. And so I can put any name that I want on it, and therefore treat it any way I want to. Jesus called it fear. And he said, Fear not. Nothing unusual that you have in fear. There’s nothing at all unusual about any of you having fear, there’s anything unusual about me having fear, I’m full of them, aren’t you? And fear will control your life can cause you to do all kinds of things, cause you to run for help in places that aren’t there to help. It’s what runs you fear runs your right into the lure that is built on deception. Not unusual. Don’t need to go to a counselor because I’m fearful. He said you’re going to be fearful. That’s why I said Fear not I’ve overcome the world. That’s why he said don’t be anxious, fearful about anything. Cast all your fears, your cares upon me, because I care about you constantly through the Scripture, fear is discussed not as something unusual, something very usual. Quite frankly, in this world in which we live today. How in the world could you not be experiencing fear when you’re almost afraid to walk out of your house anymore? Now the only counteractant to fear is not to try to get rid of fear. It’s to latch on to perfect love which casts away what? All fear. And the only way in the world that I can ever escape anxiety, fear, worry. Is the discipline upon my mind to say, hear the words of the Lord Jesus. Fear not Bob. Fear not, I have overcome the world. Cast your fears and your cares upon me. I care about you. Look at the flowers out there. Are they toiling? No. Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like them. Why are you worrying? Oh, ye of little faith. The birds? Are they out there toiling? No, no, I feed them. Trust me, oh, ye of little faith. What he’s saying to us is very simply turn back to Me. Turn Back to Me.

Quit buying the lie of the world. Now, folks, is it easy for you and me to be duped into the lies of the world? It is so easy because many times folks, we spend so much more time listening to the world than we do to God. And in this day and age of the boob tube and radio and everything else. I tell you, we’re being bombarded from one end to the other with worldly philosophy, aren’t we? And constantly it’s the world it creating fear. I mean, how I mean, what would you feel like if you turned on the 10 O’Clock News and said, Good evening. We want to tell you some wonderful stories about this couple over here whose marriage was restored, they’re getting along great. And little Johnny Brown over there, out there and over there in Irving, Texas, just got straight A’s when a kid you know what, everybody turn that off and nobody’s sponsor it. That’s not exciting. So everything you hear is out there to create fear, the bad things that are happening, the fearful things that are happening, and it’s fanning fear all over the place, all over the place. And God says My love is the only counteract into that fear. And that’s what this discipline is about. It says our father disciplines for a while as they thought best but God is disciplining you and me for our good so that we may share in His holiness meaning in his set apartness, to share in the fact that I can think different thoughts than the world to be able to understand the truth of the fact that though the world world may be sitting out there thinking one way, I don’t have to think that way. And that’s where grace plus discipline is what equals true freedom. Grace is not just as it says, don’t use your freedom to indulge the flesh, the flesh never changes. The flesh always wants its own way. Is that true or not? Your flesh is always being corrupted, we are taught, you’re taught in Ephesians, you were taught in regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. Romans seven, I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what’s good, I can’t carry it out. James talks about it. If you harbor bitter envy, selfish ambition in your hearts don’t boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but it’s earthly. It’s unspiritual, it’s of the devil. For where you have envy, selfish ambition, there you find disorder, and every evil practice. Now folks, the world encourages selfish ambition. It encourages disorder. It encourages all of those type of things, because selfish ambition will bring about evil practices in our lives. That ambition that I’m going to get ahead, we practice the old Golden Rule Do unto others before others do unto you. And if I look out, after all a show number one here who’s going to so I got to take care of myself, which is the very opposite of what God said that you belong to one another. And therefore don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought, but look out over others interests over and above that of your own. In marriage, it’s the same type of a thing is looking out after the interest of one another over and above that of your own. And you can’t do that when you’re sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves, and acting like we’re abused. It’s the type of thing in our lives where there’s an attitude of servitude and you can’t have a servant’s spirit where after you do something for someone, you resent doing it. That’s not a servant spirit. That’s gutting it out for God or functioning out of fear that if I don’t do something, there’s going to be retaliation. Or if I don’t do something, I’m not going to get this but a true heart of a servant is you do something, and you forget it. Forget it. Because you’ve helped someone else. Flesh always wants its own way. It says what causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? Folks, how many of you have desires and battle within you? See your hands? How many of you all I guess you know, liars in here? Do we all have desires that battle within us? Anybody that misses that? Do you ever find yourself sometimes saying Man, how yucky can I get? I mean, Lord did you see what I just thought? I’m sure it did. Here I am wanting my own way selfish, selfish ambitions. What my own way feeling sorry for myself, Woe is me. I’m so mistreated. Little slave had to pick up my husband’s underwear once again. I had to go out and work and earn a living once again. What would anyone do without me? Desires constantly battling within us, aren’t they? All kinds of things battling within us. Who keeps that going? Who’s the originator of all those thoughts? Is it God? I mean, folks, if if we’re going to say that, that God wants to renew my mind that thoughts gonna have to come from without mature in within me. I mean, anything within me creating godly thoughts.

And by the same token, we’re going to have to realize there’s another source out there called satanic force, and satanic influence that, quite frankly, has dominated the world so that everything we get whether it’s TVs, billboards, school, whatever it might be, is influenced by that influence. And that’s constantly pumping into our heads. And that’s the discipline that it’s talking about in the Word of God that I’m either going to buy that stuff and be influenced by it or I’m gonna buy truth and be influenced by that. So it says these things battle within us you want something and you don’t get it. You ever done that? You kill, you covet, but you can’t get what you want. So your quarrel and your fight. How can we get in fights and quarrels? We don’t get what we want. And many times in marriage, have you ever noticed how subtle those things are? Have you ever gone back and tried to remember what you argued about last week? I mean, in it to me, it’s just it’s, it would be a great comedy routine. Because number one, you have to really think about it. And number two, when you do it’s pretty hilarious, dumb, idiotic little stuff. What it what it come from? I want my way. I want them away and didn’t get it. I want you to love me the way I want you to love me.

I can remember a number of years ago when Amy and I were having to be disciplined by the Lord. And as everyone does in marriage and here, we’re sitting there thinking, while neither one of us loved each other. And so Amy, she’s a doer. When she when she loves you then she wants to do something for you. And so she would do things sometimes shine my shoes. Some sometimes do this, cook a good meal or whatever it might be that was how she showed me that she loved me. Well to me, I’m more of a hugger. So if if I love somebody well I want to hug you. So here was a hugger and a doer together. And so she was saying you don’t love me all you want to do is hug me. I said well you will love me all you want to do shine my shoes, man I’m good I get a shoeshine boy do that. He doesn’t don’t even have cold feet. And so so. So here we are arguing with each other over the way we love each other. Have you ever done that? Well, what is that all about? Well, it’s somebody that is saying I want you to love me the way I want you to love me.

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Bob George 13:08
And so I want you to be a doer. And I’m saying I want you to be a hugger. Well, you see if I bought Amy’s deal, and we were just all doers we’d never have time be huggers. And if we were just huggers, we’d probably never get anything done. So so probably it’s a good thing God put a hugger and a doer together. But you see in our lives, we say that’s not good enough, I will be loved the way I want to be loved. Well, what are we doing there? Well, we’re battling we want what we want. So we quarrel and fight. And we don’t because we don’t ask God when you ask you don’t receive because you ask her the wrong motives or reason I’m gonna go to God so I can spend money to get all my pleasure. In other words, get what I want. Which, quite frankly, is what most of our prayer life is trying to get God to give me something that somebody else won’t, so I’ll be happy.

Now folks, we have to understand that people it says who live according to the flesh, because we realize that we’ve got flesh, we got this new nature, a child of the living God. That’s who I am. But I’m housed in this body of flesh, and people who live according to that flesh with no regard at all for what God does. It says have their mind set on what that nature desires. And those who live according to the Spirit have their minds on what that spirit desires, and the mind of a sinful man is death and the mind controlled the the Spirit is life and peace. Now, very fortunately, that before, unfortunately, before we came to Christ, that we only had one place to live and that was in the flesh, that was our single nature. That was death. Today we have Christ Jesus alive living in us, who gave us life and therefore he said let That mind now be controlled by the Spirit of God that lives in you. Because that is not only life, but it’s also peace, peace. So back again, there is no way for you and me to ever experience the grace of God that has been given to us freely, until we apply the discipline of God in teaching us how to walk by faith in the midst of whatever we’re going through. And that’s what this whole book of Hebrews is about. When God disciplines us, it’s for our good, he never punishes you. But he’s in a constant discipline and it isn’t something that comes upon you because you need it. When don’t you need the discipline of God? You see a person who walks around, say, Oh, God, discipline me yesterday, I got news for you, he disciplined the day before, too. We live in a constant state of discipline, if we are walking, as it says, in the Spirit that is walking in truth, we’re going to be living in a constant state of the discipline of God, which is his way and means of teaching, training you and me, how to think in the midst of a world that is in total contrast to the mind of God.

No discipline, it says, seems pleasant at the time, it’s painful. You know, it’s painful, to let go of preconceived notions. Have you noticed that it’s painful. Because one of the one of the reasons why it’s so painful is I’m going to have to admit I’m stupid. I mean, God forbid that I would ever be stupid. Isn’t that amazing how we resist ever being thought of as being stupid. You know, that’s one of the reasons people don’t ever want to change jobs is because you always feel so dumb when on a new job. After a couple of weeks, you don’t feel bad, but boy that knows those first couple of weeks or a bear aren’t they just feel dumb as a horse. Don’t like that. It’s painful. It’s painful. So we have to understand that there is no discipline when God is having to renew your thinking. Push stuff out, it’s painful. Painful.

We had a at our conference, I think I might have mentioned this, but we had at our Chesapeake Bay conference a number of weeks ago, a lady who came out there with the two of the people that were in their church and their little daughter, little daughter, she’s probably an early 20s. Guess I just showed my age. My daughter about 20 years ago, I noticed how young they were hiring the airline stewardesses. Maybe said, No, they’re not hiring me younger, you’re just getting older. But at any rate, they came out there and it turned out that this lady, very attractive lady, very talented musician, and this other couple they were with with their older daughter in her 20s. It turned out that the daughter was the secretary of the Seventh Day Adventist pastor in that area, and the wife was the wife of the Seventh Day Adventist pastor. They heard the radio broadcast one time. And they heard something and their spirits snapped. And they called Becky and said can we get in and we so happened to have three spots for them. And through the week. And I got to go into detail. But any of you have been involved know that there is an awful lot of legalism in Seventh Day Adventist more than what you’d ever dream. And a part of that is the Sabbath. And if you don’t worship on Saturday, instead of Sunday, you’re really God’s really gonna zap you. And there’s a lot of that type of thing. More subtle even than that. And so we saw the week go by, and a lot of purging, a lot of purging taking place. But one of the beauties of the conference is the fact that I stand up there for nine to 11 hours with nothing but overheads with nothing but scripture on it. There it’s it’s it’s not a conference to hear what I think about something. It’s a conference where you can look at the Scripture and see what the scripture has say about something. And so it’s a little hard to argue with that, if your hearts open to it, you saw a purging take place, painful purging at the end of the week why the pastor’s wife called her husband and said we just signed up for Glennairy and so Glennairy there he was, he was there. And, and you saw the same thing. You saw the purging. You saw the discipline taking place, and it wasn’t pleasant because you were having to let go of a lot of preconceived notions, and let God’s truth continue to sink in and sink in and sink in. And I watched that man and so did our staff who was by himself most of the time just walking on those paths with this pondering, look on his face of pondering and thinking this thing through. And the next day, the last day asked if he could get together privately with me and, and sat down. And we talked and talked, and how he said, when he, when he came here, his wife and his head deacons there had said to him, that at the end of this week, you’re either going to be People to People east, or Bob’s going to be a Seventh Day Adventists. So he said, I just got through talking to my wife. And she said, which is it? He said, I guess it’s People with People East. And to go back after all of that, to say that I’ve already called and I’m resigning my church. And we’re going to form a new church in Washington, DC, where there’s about 17,000 people who have been involved in that bondage who are no longer involved in anything. And I’m going to start a church. And we’re going to start one there. And I’m going to hold my service on Saturday, I thought, oh, and Sunday. And I’m going to let people know, there’s nothing sacred about a day. And I’m going to take the people that that’s a stumbling block to, and I’m going to have a Saturday service for them. And then I’m going to take the people that want to hear about the grace of God, as well. And we’re gonna do it on Sunday as well. That had all happened over a period of time but consummated in a week, was that easy? No that was painful. It’s painful to let go and to say, I have been wrong. In that denomination. There are five major evangelists, they don’t have evangelists all over the place, they had five of them, for one on the East Coast, central South, West, this type of thing, he was the East Coast evangelist for the entire denomination. He’s in charge of all knows all the people in the high places. You think it’s gonna be easy for him? No, that’s painful, that’s painful. He’s going to go through what some of us have had to go through, and will have to go through and that is the persecution, the rejection, and everything else that takes place with that. Is it worth it? Yeah, it’s worth it. Louis Meaks set over there as church of Christ pastor, do you know the greatest group of pastors in the United States that are coming to our training are out a Church of Christ, one of the most legalistic, organizations around and yet their pastors are hearing grace, and are coming and changing their mind. They’re being disciplined by the truth of the Word of God, and their lives are being changed. Some of the sweetest brothers you ever want to meet in your life have are coming to grips with the grace of God. In the two conferences that we’ve held in Chesapeake Bay, and in Glennairy 80% of the people there are out of a Catholic background, 80% of them who have been trained and disciplined by the truth of the grace of God.

Now, folks, when God is talking about this whole thing of grace, you can’t stop it with just appreciating the wonder which it certainly is the wonder of what he’s done for us. But we have to go on to realize that God is going to be in a continual state of discipline in our lives of teaching us things that are hard to let go of. And that’s what this whole book it says, Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and your weak knees. Make level paths for your feet. So the lame may not be disabled. Don’t let the weakness get you. Instead, be healed. How? How? By the discipline of the Lord, from the grace of God. You see, discipline without grace is always perceived as punishment. Discipline with Grace is training. But you can’t have one without the other. The average duration of worlds’ civilizations and we get together this weekend celebrating the Fourth of July over 200 years that we’ve been in existence The average of the world’s great civilization has been only 200 years. And in each one of those cases, there’s been a common progression to every one of these nations. And it goes like this, you go from bondage, to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith, to great courage, from great courage, to liberty, from liberty, to abundance, from abundance, to selfishness, and from selfishness, to complacency, and from complacency, to apathy, and from apathy, to dependency, and from dependency, right back again, into bondage. That is not only the path of a nation, it can be the path of the church. It can be path of people sitting in this room who know the grace of God. And you came out of bondage to a great faith in Christ, and from there experienced a great courage to proclaim Him. And from that courage, you began to experience liberty and then you got an abundance. And from that abundance, we begin to get self centered. Instead of body centered, thinking of ourselves rather than the good of the body. And from there, you get complacent. You just get bored with Jesus. And from there to apathy. Who cares? Let somebody else do it. And from apathy, right back to dependency again, upon your own flesh. And from that dependency, right back again, in the bondage that you’ll have. In freedom, we’re either going to have grace, plus discipline, or you’re going to have grace without discipline. Grace plus discipline equals freedom. Grace without discipline, equals bondage again, return to the very bondage of the law plus punishment.

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.