Radio Broadcast Tuesday 09/03/2024

Classic Christianity – Book of Galatians P17 (09-03-24)

We Live Under a New Covenant, A Covenant of Grace

~ To understand the New Covenant of Grace we live under today, we need to understand the Love of God. Once a person understands the Love of God, Jesus, God in flesh, who took away ALL their sins on the cross and he is Not counting any of them against them today, then a person wants to jump for joy! And if a person does not realize that all their sins have been taken away from the eyes of God, to never see them again, or ever bring them up again, they will forever be living in a state of fear. They will be thinking in the back of their mind, is God hacked at me? Is he going to get me? Is the hammer going to come down on me? Instead of realizing we live under this New Covenant today, people will forever be on the performance treadmill of thinking they need to get right with God. We need to get to know the Love of God. We need to understand God’s love for us. We need to understand Jesus, the LOVE of God.

So let’s look at the Love of God today, and understand that the word of God is describing God’s love for us. For the Love of God is always upon the believer today. For Love lives in them, because the word of God says that “God is LOVE.” “And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is Love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:16

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.” John 3:36

“For Christ is the end of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.” Romans 10:4

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.

Take notice: I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. All that matters is faith, expressed through love.

You were running so well. Who has obstructed you from obeying the truth? Such persuasion does not come from the One who calls you. A little leaven works through the whole batch of dough. I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is troubling you will bear the judgment, whoever he may be.

Now, brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those who are agitating you, I wish they would proceed to emasculate themselves!

For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is fulfilled in a single decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another. Galatians 5:1-15

Pray to God:

Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

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.”

~ “Who is your Righteousness? Christ, Jesus, it is because of him, God that you are in Christ, Jesus, who has become for you, what? Your righteousness, your holiness, your sanctification, your everything. He’s your everything. For in Christ, Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value at all. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Now, folks, is this a popular message to the Hebrews, their identification to the whole world, that if you needed proof who I am was circumcision. It was identification. I am a Hebrew, and I can prove it by my circumcision. Their whole identity was wrapped up in circumcision, at least for the males. He is coming to them and saying, it has no value at all, none at all. The only thing that counts and look at this guys, is faith expressing itself through love. Faith expressing itself through love. How you doing a love department? Self righteous ones? You want to test it again? I think it’s good for us to do this check every now and then.” ~ Bob George

Bible Study Booklets

Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the letter to the Galatians. Available for download the complete series on the Book of Galatians. The Letter to the Galatians is key to understanding Law and Grace, the new covenant, and being one in Christ Jesus.

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
Now it says you who are trying to be justified by the law, have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from grace. Now, does that mean you’ve lost your salvation? Do people teach that you’ve fallen from grace? Man, you’ve lost it. What’s he talking about here? What’s the subject here? Law and grace. When you’ve fallen from grace, what did you fall back to? The law. It’s not you lose your salvation. You’ve gotten yourself back under the law. You’ve fallen from the grace of God that saved you and trying to perfect yourself by human effort. He just got through talking about that in Galatians three. You foolish, idiotic Galatians who has mesmerized you, hypnotized you and cast an evil spell upon you? You used to see the meaning of Christ’s death as clearly as though I’ve painted a place card in front of your face. Have you gone mad? He said, I want to ask you a question, Did you receive the Spirit of God by obeying the law or by believing what you heard? Well, after beginning by faith, believing what you heard, why are you now trying to perfect yourself by human effort? That’s the question. Why are you now going back under the law and trying to perfect yourself under the law instead of allowing Jesus’ Spirit to perfect you? Why are you working at what you can’t work at? Why aren’t you resting in the completed work of Jesus and accessing his life instead of trying to produce his life? Now he says, You’ve fallen away from grace, back under the law. But by faith, we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. It’s by faith that we await through the Spirit Righteousness.

Who is your Righteousness? Christ, Jesus, it is because of him, God that you are in Christ, Jesus, who has become for you, what? Your righteousness, your holiness, your sanctification, your everything. He’s your everything. For in Christ, Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value at all. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Now, folks, is this a popular message to the Hebrews, their identification to the whole world, that if you needed proof who I am was circumcision. It was identification. I am a Hebrew, and I can prove it by my circumcision. Their whole identity was wrapped up in circumcision, at least for the males. He is coming to them and saying, it has no value at all, none at all. The only thing that counts and look at this guys, is faith expressing itself through love. Faith expressing itself through love. How you doing a love department? Self righteous ones? You want to test it again? I think it’s good for us to do this check every now and then.

Let’s go back to First Corinthians. Some people say love’s not. Again, we’re not going to elaborate or go on this for any length of time. I just want anybody, anybody who, because you all look good to me, but there may be someone still sitting there struggling with your self righteousness, and I don’t know who you are, but I’ll guarantee you there’s one in here at least. And so if there’s one, we’re going to try to drive some sense into our heads, because he says, The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. So let’s take a look at First Corinthians 13 love, because this is God’s love for you, first and foremost, and then as we understand, that’s how God loves me. Now I got something to love you with, so let’s see how we’re doing in the love department. I am always patient. Do we still have a self righteous one left? This doesn’t mean I’m patient sometimes and sometimes I’m not patient. It says love is patient. That means continually. My nature is patient. Love is kind. I wouldn’t think an unkind thought if my life depended on it. Love never envies. Love never boasts. I never boast about myself. Love is never proud. You like that one? Love is never rude. Never been rude to anybody in my life. Love is never self seeking. I look out of for others, over and above myself every moment of the day. Let’s see how we’re doing here. Love is never easily angered. Is anyone left in a self righteous department? I’m just curious. Love keeps no records of wrongs. I don’t keep a filing cabinet on Amy’s wrongs. Keep it on my computer. I you can pull them up faster that way.

You keep records of people’s wrongs? Who bring them up when they need them. Great tool, aren’t they? Love doesn’t delight in evil, but rejoices in truth, especially when someone admonishes me, I love it when Amy tells me what’s wrong with me, rejoice in it. Thank you, sweetie for that. Love always protects others, love always trusts others, love always hopes the best for others. Now, how’d you do? Now, folks, I want to say that if you’ve got self righteousness in you that should have destroyed it, because that’s the that’s the goal, that that’s the that’s the line, not this other garbage we go through. But how you doing in the love department? And I don’t know about you, but I don’t do too well in all this all the time. Do you? And that shows me my need for Christ when I look at First Corinthians 13, the demands on that, the only thing I can say is, Lord Jesus, I need your help. I need your life. I need your love. And also, incidentally, Lord, thanks for your mercy. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love, faith in the God of love, who gives you love so that you can give others love. And he says, that’s all it counts.

Now, can you love apart from your knowledge of His love for you? No. Now that’s why you can’t walk around with this lovey, dovey stuff that people come by that make a difference about doctrine. Just love each other. Listen, if you don’t know doctrine, you don’t have anything to love somebody with. If you don’t know the truth of the love of God for you and the grace of God for you and the forgiveness of God to you, then you don’t have anything to give. Old Covenant, New Covenant. Under the new under the Old Covenant, an issue we’ve talked about it. Talk about it because it’s important to talk about under the Old Covenant was forgiveness conditional or unconditional? Totally conditional, that if you do not forgive your brother here on Earth, your Father in heaven will not forgive you. It’s very interesting to me that how, in the Christian community that two things that we’ve memorized, most everybody has memorized, LORD’s Prayer and First John one nine. I would imagine that everybody who’s a Christian, or everybody who goes to Christian Church, has probably memorized those two verses. Do you agree with me? At least one of them, Lord’s Prayer, for sure.

Now, isn’t it strange that the Lord’s Prayer was given according number one, it’s not the Lord’s prayer. The Lord didn’t pray for forgiveness. It’s a disciples prayer. Was it ever prayed again? I mean, did Paul ever pray that prayer? Did you ever hear writings of Paul praying of Peter, author of Hebrews? John? No, no. Nobody prayed it. Why? It wasn’t given to repeat over and over again. As a matter of fact, he warned us before he gave it to us that don’t pray like the heathen do, who take a prayer and pray that over and over and over again. So what do we do? Take his prayer and pray it like the heathen do over and over and over again. Forgive us our sins, our debts as we forgive those who sin or have debts against us. And then we say, Amen, piously, we don’t keep reading because it goes ahead to say, For if you do not forgive your brother here on Earth, that you can see your Father in heaven will not forgive you. Now I want to ask you, how in a world do you reconcile that with God? Was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself? Not counting our sins against us, and he not only died for our sins, but the sins of the whole world. How are you going to reconcile? How you going to reconcile those two? Is that a contradiction? Or is it a contradiction? But is it a contradiction? No, it’s old covenant, and new covenant. Under the Old Covenant, forgiveness was conditional. If you don’t forgive your brother, your Father in heaven will not forgive you under the New Covenant, where all of your sins were, what? Taken away God was in Christ taking away the sins of the world. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Forgiveness is over. Under the New Covenant, forgive one another. How? As Christ, Jesus forgave you. Under the old if you don’t forgive, your Gather won’t forgive. Under the new forgive as Christ forgave you. And when you do not understand the difference between the old covenant and the New Covenant you will be continually confused in your Biblical understanding, and you’ll run across these passages of Scripture that appear to be that they contradict each other. What do you do with those? Read them faster and yell louder and hope nobody catches it. It’s there. And there’s a contradiction between the two. If you do not understand old and new, and you’re going to look at the Bible and say the Bible contradicts itself. That’s where liberal theology comes in. Is it says it contradicts itself. And I say you’re right. It does contradict itself unless you understand the difference between the old covenant and the New Covenant. But when you understand the difference between the old and the new, then again, you understand one is do and the other is done. And when Christ cried out from the cross, It is finished, he meant it’s finished. And that’s why you and I live today under a new covenant. It’s a covenant of grace.

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Bob George 13:31
Now it says it has any value, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Now he says to them, and my goodness, folks, this is applicable to the so called Christian world today. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you? I love that word, cut in on you. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth What is the truth you’re supposed to be obeying? That you’re free in Christ, we’re to be resting in that. Can you rest? Could you ever rest, if your mindset is that I’m going to find acceptance in the eyes of God through my good works, could you ever rest? Why couldn’t you rest? How would you ever know whether you’ve done enough? Could you ever rest by thinking that I am responsible for keeping my sins forgiven? Is that what religion does? I’m responsible for keeping my sins forgiven. I got to go to the confession booth. I got to do the altar call. I got to do the first John one nine, I’m responsible for keeping my sins forgiven. Can you rest with that folks? Be honest with yourself. Can you rest in that? How would you ever know if you got them all? We’re too dumb to even know what sin is 90% of the time, because the scripture says. Is that which is not a faith is sin. How many times a day do you not exercise faith in Christ, Jesus, and how many times would we be confessing that one? You can’t rest. Martin Luther wore his knees out, confessing and confessing and confessing. Finally, one of the professors told him to cut it out. How would you know you got them all? What if you forgot one? What if you forgot one and then died? Would not these questions be the most logical question in the world to be asking? You can’t rest in the law. You can only rest in grace. You can only rest when something’s been accomplished for you. When it’s finished, it’s done, it’s over, then you can rest. Did he call us to rest? Absolutely. Said they enter into the Sabbath Rest. Resting from our works, just as he did from what? His. What kind of works are you talking about? Trying to work to get accepted? How many of you have been trying to get accepted, working to get accepted, by God, working at it. Does it work? How do you know, if you’ve done enough? You can’t get acceptance in the eyes of God through your working. You only get accepted through his working. It says in the scripture, you are accepted where? In the Beloved, he not only loves you, He accepts you in the Beloved, just as you are.

The only question that will ever be asked to a person by God is, what did you do with my Son? Did you accept him, or did you play religion? You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from observing, obeying the truth, this truth of the grace of God. I’m trying to teach you, that kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. That kind of persuasion to earn your acceptance for God, that comes from where? The devil, in the name of Jesus, comes from, the devil. And if you won’t believe me, wearing a shirt like this, I’ll put on a suit, and if you won’t believe me in my suit, I’ll put on a robe, and if you won’t believe me in my robe, I’ll put on a stupid looking hat. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll get a snake, that I can carry. And when it goes on and on and on, to try to do what? Get people to believe you the lie that I’m feeding you. And he says, this kind of persuasion doesn’t come from the one who calls you. It comes from the devil. A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. All it takes is a speck of leaven to spoil the whole loaf. We tolerate the commingling of law and grace. Paul didn’t. He said, I wish they be acursed. He said, I don’t want a speck of it in here. I don’t want an ounce of it in here. I don’t want an ounce of it in this assembly. I want it to be pure grace. I want people to understand pure grace, because a speck of that leaven spoils the whole loaf.

I’m confident in the Lord that you’ll take no other view. That’s what Paul said. There’s no other view. I hope you’ll grab a hold of this. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be, and that tells me that tells me that there’s going to be a lot of people who have been robbing the cradle, so to speak, that there is some kind of penalty connected for it. What it is we don’t know. It’s not our business. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision. Why am I still being persecuted? If I was preaching circumcision, would I be persecuted by the Hebrews? No, I’d be welcome in that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. Don’t need the cross. Just get circumcised. I love this verse. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves, just bobbing them. You say, Paul, this is the Bible. He says, I know, and the Bible’s real. Does that kind of show you how tolerant Paul was? I mean, I don’t think he had been very politically correct on this. Do you? But he was angered folks, to the point of saying, I wish he had just emasculate themselves those who wanting to be involved in all this circumcision bit. You, my brothers, who said you were called to be free, but now he’s going to give a warning to us, you’re free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature rather serve one another in love.

Now to indulge yourself is, is what? What are you doing when you’re indulging in something? If any of you ever indulged in a Thanksgiving dinner? It really kind of mean, just go gorge yourself. Just just gratify your flesh every step of the way. Now, folks, does your flesh have flesh desires? Does your spirit have spirit desires? Are they in conflict with one another? Now what he is saying, He’s not saying, Get rid of your sinful desires, because to do that, you’re going to have to die. But he’s saying, don’t use your freedom to indulge them. There is an indulging of the flesh, and there is the starving of the flesh. It doesn’t mean that you’re a freak if you have fleshly desires. There are some people that, again, are so heavenly minded, they’re no earthly good, and they act as if they would not have a bad thought if their life depended on it. You have to be realistic. Your flesh is your flesh, and your flesh has sinful desires. It just says you don’t have to carry them out. They’re there, they’re strong, but you don’t have to carry them out. You got someone living in you stronger than your desires, and that’s Christ, but he ain’t going to do any good till you turn to Him. Now, what do we normally do when we have fleshly desires? Go fulfill them. It’s most natural thing in the world to do. That’s why it’s called natural man. But is that the spiritual way to go? No, and that’s where we have to determine between the flesh and the spirit. Now, folks, here’s the key to it. What did he just say? The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through what? Through love. So let’s go through the love funnel. Are you really loving yourself? Are you really loving and we’re to love your God as you love what? Yourself.

You know, I have people sometimes that come in and say, I just hate myself. Say, how come? Because I’m ugly. I said, if you hated yourself, you’d be glad you’re ugly. The reason you’re mad is because you love yourself and you wish you weren’t ugly. See, everyone’s talking about everyone’s talking about this stuff of love. We love ourselves. The Bible says we love herself too much. It’s not that we have a poor self esteem. We have too good a one. We love ourselves too much. I wish I look better. I mean, I deserve it. I do.

Now, when you’re serving yourself and when you’re serving in love, are you serving yourself when you are out indulging every aspect of your flesh? I mean, do you ever find satisfaction there? There is no satisfaction. There, none at all. Remember the old ad Chesterfield satisfies? Remember that the old cigarette ad Chesterfield satisfies? I said, if that’s the case, you’ll need one. It doesn’t satisfy. There isn’t anything that satisfies. You and I have a hollow point in our heart that we are constantly searching until we find our rest in Him. And when we were in that lost condition, when we’re spirit was devoid of the Spirit of God living in us, because God and the man is indispensable to the humanity of the man. In those days, we were looking and looking and looking every place, and we were looking for what, what ultimately is the flesh looking for? Love. Were we made to look for love? We were made to be loved, weren’t we? And so that vacuum that’s there is wanting love. Now what’s the problem with the lost person? Well, he’s looking for it in the wrong place. So it isn’t unusual the way we’re looking for it. I mean, no sense. You don’t criticize a dog for barking. Sometimes you do, yeah, but the issue is that’s the natural thing to do is to seek love in all the wrong places. And you may have gone apart in your life where you never did that, but just give it time you would have and then, as a child of God, all of a sudden, you become fulfilled with him, and the Spirit of God comes to live within you, and you’re now indwelt by him.

Now, what keeps us from being resting in Him, because those desires of the flesh are still there? And what we will study next week as we get together is, how do you handle the desires of the flesh, and how do you learn to walk in the newness of life instead of indulging the flesh? And Love is the answer to that serving one another in love. And I think is a passage of scripture that I think has been very helpful in my life, and that is that everything is permissible, but not all things are profitable. And I believe that the the greatest thing that you can use in this decision making is, is this profitable? To me? Is it profitable? It’s permissible. But is it profitable? Would it be permissible for me to go out and get smashed out of my mind tonight, go out and just drink a fifth of booze? Would that be permissible? Sure. Would God zap me? No, alcohol would, but not God. Would it be profitable? Be stupid. Think about this, people, why would I want to alter my mind on a dumb bottle of booze when I can get my mind renewed by the God of this universe? Now think about that. Why would I settle for an altering instead of a renewal? And that’s the choice we have. Is it permissible? Sure it’s permissible. Is it profitable? No, it’s just plain not profitable. You’re not serving yourself, yourself in love, when we’re doing things that are contrary to what God says.

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.