Radio Broadcast Tuesday 11/08/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P23 (11-08-22)

People Say They Believe in Jesus, But They Don’t Place Faith in Him

~ True faith is trusting in Jesus for what he did on the cross for you. Jesus has forgiven You (past tense). Faith says thank you to God.

~ The only kind of life that can be restored to a man who is dead is resurrection life.

~ No man can redeem the life of another. No payment is ever enough.

~ What is redemption from God’s perspective?

~ What is an empty way of life? What makes it empty?

~ How can dead people make themselves acceptable to other people?

~ If you hold on to my teaching, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Law & Grace, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store.

Jesus asked how does God love and accept us? And how does he expect us to live the Christian life? To answer those questions, this insightful study explores a vital issue at the heart of the Christian experience, the biblical relationship between law and grace, understanding their role in our relationship to God will bring joy, freedom and spontaneity to your Christian life. Now, let’s take A Closer Look at Law & Grace.

Bob George 0:39
We are dealing as you said in the chapter six, in our study guide called Christ redeemed us from the law in Galatians, 3:13 and 14, which is the key verse of our study. It states that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us, for it is written curse, it is everyone who hung on a tree. Now he tells us why he did that he redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles. In other words, it’s to the Gentiles as well. It came to the Hebrew. But he did this in order that that same blessing that came to the Hebrews might also come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit. The Abrahamic covenant, that that was put into a place is a covenant that says all men will be justified by faith, that it is for by faith alone, that we are saved, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteous. So when God declares something, then that declaration is truth. If God says, you are going to be saved by faith in my Son, and that is a declaration from God, it doesn’t make any difference whether it makes sense to us or not. If God declares it, that is precisely how salvation is going to take place. And so to the Abrahamic covenant is a covenant of faith that has never stopped. The Old Testament saints were saved in their way by faith. They were not spiritually regenerated, Bob as we are today, because a man could not be spiritually regenerated. In other words, having God restored back in to man, until after the accomplishment of the cross, and the resurrection, the only kind of life that could be restored to a man who is dead was resurrection life. So until the seed came, who is Jesus, who was the resurrected one, there was no life available to us. There was salvation in regard to a holding pattern with certainly the Old Testament saints were in. They were saved by faith in this Promised Messiah who was going to come to give life to the dead. But they were not spiritually regenerated the way we are today. But there’s a world of difference in those two. So he redeemed us now he came and bought us back, he became a curse for us, so that this blessing that was given to Abraham to and that is that the just shall live by faith, you’re going to be saved by faith might come to all men, Hebrew and Gentile a life like so that by faith we might receive the Spirit of God living in us, which could not have been done before in the Old Testament. Or you can’t even say Old Testament prior to the day of Pentecost, even after Jesus life on Earth. Prior to the day of Pentecost, no man was ever indwelt by the Spirit of God, except the only man who was ever born with the Spirit of God. And that is Jesus called the last Adam, similar to when they created the first Adam that he was created, alive spiritually with the Spirit of God living in. But when Adam fell from that day forth, you and I are not created by God. We’re born from Adam. And so we are born into this world in the same condition that Adam became, dead. So the only man born of a virgin, that’s why that’s not up for grabs, is the Jesus Christ, the only man who was ever born alive spiritually, therefore, having the only life available to lay down and the only life available to therefore be raised and therefore the only life available to raise you and me from the dead. So we’re talking about this, this being bought back that could only come and could only be done by Jesus Christ, there is no one else who could have bought us back.

Now in Psalms 49, verse seven and eight, which is our next question there. It says, No man can redeem the life of another, or gift to God a ransom for him. a ransom for life is costly, and no payment is ever enough. How much would you pay for the life of another? I mean, when would it ever be enough? You have a child that suddenly dies. And somebody says, could you pay God to bring him back? And you’d say, if you could? How much would you have to pay? How much is that child’s life worth $10, 1000, 10,000 100,000? A million 100 million? How could you put a price on the life of somebody? And the answer to that is, there is no way to put a price on somebody’s life, it quite frankly, is invaluable to you, it just it the price is just as big as it could get. So no man can redeem the life of another.

Now last week, I gave the illustration of the slave being placed on an auction block and purchased with a price and purchased for the purpose of being set free. And incidentally, that type of thing literally happened in the days of slavery. Obviously, anyone who do who would have done that would have been someone who would have been a Christian, someone who is truly a born again believer who realized that they had been set free by the Lord Jesus Christ, and they were going to set somebody else free. But there are incidences of that literally happening, of people buying paying a massive price for a slave, and then freeing them of their leg chains, and their handcuffs and saying go free, I bought you to set you free. Now that is a picture of redemption. In that particular case, you are buying another living human being. And so it is a picture, but it doesn’t get to the depth of what redemption is because of from God’s vantage point, because literally from redemption, you’re not talking about buying another living human being, you’re talking about buying someone who is dead. Now how much you’re gonna pay to bring a dead person back to life? And so it says no man can redeem the life of another. There’s not enough money to pay to raise somebody from the dead. You just can’t raise a corpse with money. Nor it says, Can you bribe God, you can’t use that as a ransom God, if you’ll raise them from a dead, I’ll give you so much money. He’d say why it’s not enough. Well, I’ll give you more but added enough either. In other words, a ransom for life is costly, no payment is ever enough. And so when you’re talking about true ransom, when you’re talking about eight, excuse me, a true redemption from God’s standpoint, we are talking about buying you and me back from the dead. We’re not talking about buying a living slave to come to either set free or to go to work. You’re talking about freeing a person from the wages of sin, which is death, and bringing them into a new state called life. Now, no man can do that. That had to be done by the only person who could do it, and did do it. And that is Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Carrying on with what we were talking about. We go to First Peter, chapter one, verse 18, and 19. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold, that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers. But with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect. Bob, a couple of things, and that verse is worthy of talking about, first of all, it talks about we were redeemed from this empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers. Now again, what is that empty way of life that was handed handed down to the Israelites from their forefathers or an empty way of life that was handed down from to us from our forefathers? Well, first of all, it would have been a preoccupation with and with silver and gold, it would have been a preoccupation with the fact that these are the things that are permanent and the spiritual things don’t amount to anything. And to think that you could buy something back as precious as your life was silver and gold is a ludicrous thing. But it also had to do with handing down the law. Because you and I were redeemed from the curse of the law. And we were redeemed from the curse of the law, by dying to the very thing that became the curse.

So we have to realize that that is an empty way of life, to be under the law, which most Christians are absolutely enmeshed in today, to be under the law that says, if you do this, God is going to get you, if you do this, you’re out of fellowship with God, and God’s gonna zap you if you do this, God’s gonna take you the woodshed. If you do this, but if you do this, then God will bless you. If you tithe to make up for what you’ve done. If you go through this deal in this performance, then God will come back and shine upon you. If you go to church more often, if you pray more, if you study the Bible more, if you have a quiet time, God will bless you. That is an empty way of life. And what makes it empty is the fact that it keeps you preoccupied with you, instead of him. And the fullness of life does not come from a preoccupation with an empty being. It comes as a preoccupation with the only one who is full, and that’s Christ Jesus, the one who is full of truth, and of grace. And so anything shy of a preoccupation with Jesus becomes an empty life. If I become preoccupied with this world, it’s an empty way of life handed down to me from my forefathers. Why? Because this world is going to perish. If your riches can be taken away by either a thief, or it can be taken away by bankruptcy, it can be taken away by fire, it can be taken away in a New York minute. So everything that we have down here and we play such great importance in is fading, it’s going to disappear. We can have all kinds of, of faith in in our muscles and how good a shape we’re in and in our youth even. But that too, is fading and very temporal because there’s going to come a time when you get older. And it doesn’t make a difference where you lifted weights all your life. It’s going to come to a point where even Jack LaLanne gonna sag and back one of these days, or maybe has already started. It does, yes, does it make any difference. Nature is just nature and humanity is humanity and it’s headed toward a grave. I don’t care what you do, it will do to it. There’s no Fountain of Youth available. All of us are aging, and will soon disappear just like the law was supposed to do. So that’s an empty way of life to be preoccupied in the temporal. It is a full way of life to be preoccupied in the permanent and Christ Jesus is not perishable. perishable things produce an empty way of life, preoccupation and pair of perishable things produces an empty way of life a preoccupation with eternal things, produces a fullness of life.

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Bob George 13:48
Now, there was only one way that I could be redeemed brought back from that empty way of life, which was brought about through religion that points to dead people, how can dead people make themselves acceptable? No one, they’re not going to turn to Christ for life. So the only thing I could do is to try to make myself and acceptable corpse and that’s what religion is. It is it is a religion of dead people trying to make themselves look good in each other sight, dressing up the corpse trying to make them smell better, looking better, putting some stained glass underneath the ground, and all of those type of things. In other words, it’s a preoccupation with spiritual underground condominiums. Now, Jesus came to those people and to anyone who is suffering from that emptiness of life because of our spiritual death. And, and, and he spoke to the Pharisees and again, these were extremely religious people or the Jews, the Jewish leaders. And if you will look in the chapter of of John beginning in chapter eight and I’m going to back up to verse, verse 31. It said, the Jews who had believed him Jesus said, If you hold on to my teaching, you really are my disciples, and you will know the truth. And the truth will set you free. Now, you’ll see here were some people who said, it says that they believed him. But the issue is, do they really believe him? And we have to be cognizant of the fact that every place that it states that someone believed did not mean they were a believer. It says that in second chapter of John, it talks about that they saw the miracles he did and believed, believed in his name. But it says Jesus didn’t entrust himself to them. You saw Simon, the source were whose they said, believed and then tried to buy the Holy Spirit. Well, you see, what is that? Less people say, Yeah, I believe if you can do something for me, and we all function to that, what have you done for me lately? So when it says someone believes, don’t believe that that means that they are born again, it just means I believe, just like, I believe, 36 years I believed in Jesus was I born again? Of course, I wasn’t born again. I believed in Jesus as a historical character. I believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Did I believe he was crucified on a cross? Without question. Did I believe he was raised from the dead? Well, absolutely. I went to church every Easter. I believed and I believed Abraham Lincoln was shot in the Ford theater. And I believe that George Washington crossed the Delaware I believed all those things. But did that mean I knew any of them? No, it didn’t mean, I just believed in historical fact that that’s, historically that is true. But you see, there’s a world of difference between that. And saving faith. Believing is one thing, faith in what you believe is something else. You see, somebody could say, Bob Davis is a multimillionaire. And I could say, Okay, let’s say that was true. And I believe that there’s some proof that that’s yeah, that I believe that’s true. And then somebody can say, and Bob, you don’t have a penny to your name, you’re bankrupt, and you’re hungry. And if that was my condition, I could say, Yeah, I believe that too.

And then somebody say, if you if you will make yourself available, Bob Davis would like to give you food. And you say, Well, I’m not sure that I believe you’re a millionaire, I believe I have a need, but I’m not sure you’d provide it. And so therefore, I’m never going to come to you, for that need to be met. Because I don’t have faith in the fact that even though you’re a millionaire, you’re willing to share that with me, right. So when it says that someone believes there’s a world of difference between believing that Jesus is the provider, and walking by faith in His provision, I mean, it’s the same old stuff of people saying, I believe Jesus died on the cross for all your sins, past, present, and future. And boy, you hear that and then you go in and tell them that first John one, nine is not for you. And I tell you, they’ll kick you right out of the church, which means one thing, I don’t have faith, that what I say I believe applies to me, I do not have faith in the fact that when he said, it’s finished, that applies to me, or for sure to you, because you got a whole bunch of that unconfessed stuff in your life. So you see what it means is one thing, I believe something, but I don’t have any faith in it. So I will teach what I believe. But I don’t have any faith in its application. I can believe that, that God has given us everything that we need for life and godliness, through our knowledge of Him. And that’s why we have everything we need for life and godliness is through our knowledge of Him. But I have no faith at all, in his being able to provide for my need. I believe that he’s given me but I don’t have a faith in the fact that he’s given me. Now I don’t know if that makes any sense or not. But it doesn’t make any sense for us to say, I believe and not have faith in what we believe, either. But this is the case. So it says they believed in him, but Jesus is going to catch them in this belief system. If you hold on to my teaching, you really are my disciples. In other words, you’re really you really are someone who is a follower of mine. And they say and if you will follow my teaching, you’re going to know truth, and that truth is going to set you free. Now they answered him well, we’re Abraham’s descendants, we’ve never been slaves to anyone. In other words, how can you say that your truth is going to set us free? We’ve never been a slave to anyone. How can you say we shall be set free? And he goes ahead to say, I tell you the truth that anyone who sins is a slave to that sin. So he just nailed him right there. In other words, they’re saying, we’re not a slave said, Yeah, you are, you’re a slave to your sin. Now, a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. In other words, you’re still a slave to what you need to be freed from. And that sin, and the wages of sin and the repercussions of sin, which you are trying to get covered by a sacrificial system that can never take away sin.

Now, he says, so if the Son set you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you’re Abraham’s descendants. Yet you’re ready to kill me. Because in other words, my word has no room at all in your hearts. Now, think about that for a minute. How many people is can Jesus literally say My Word doesn’t have any room at all for you? There is no room in your heart for my word. You’ve got the psychiatrists word in your heart, you got the psychologists word in your heart, you got the philosopher’s word in your heart. And even more than that, you got your own opinions in your heart. But there’s no room left, because you’re so full of everything else. There’s no room left in your heart. For my words.

We’re reading through the Gospel of John, verse eight. When we started in 34, we’re going to pick up there with probably some of the harshest words that Jesus ever spoke to anyone. You’ll never see Jesus ever speaking harsh words, to the unrighteous, which all of us are, but they know they’re unrighteous. In other words, the sinner, you see him speaking harsh words to the self righteous. And the reason for that is the self righteous is so full of themselves that there’s no room for him or his Word in their heart, they are merely functioning like a blithering animal. And that’s by instinct, which is the only way that you can function if you’re not going to function in truth. They’re functioning by thoughts and attitudes handed down to them by their forefathers, or learned in their own schools of education. But there’s no room for God’s Word in their hearts. And folks, the same words of admonition are here today. And the same words are as pertinent to you and me today as they were back then. Because there’s a lot of people blinded to the fact that even though they have tasted, they’ve never drunk of the Living Word that we may have shared, but we’ve never participated with the Holy Spirit of God, that there’s a world of difference between being a believer and being saved. Because all of us, most of us, who grew up in the so called Christian world are believers in the historical Jesus, but we’ve never come in contact with the resurrected Jesus. And what he is doing here, folks is helping us to identify themselves. He was helping the disciples, he was helping the Pharisees. He’s helping you and me today, to identify ourselves. And one of the ways that he’s saying to identify yourself is your attitude toward him, and as well as his children, because did not Jesus say, if you have done this to me, you’ve done it to them. Or if you’ve done it to them, you’ve done it unto me. If you and I are a part of the body of the same head of Christ, Jesus, then if I whack off or trying to whack off one part of the body, I have harmed all of the body. And it doesn’t make an ounce of sense if you realize that you are a part of the body of Christ. If you don’t belong to that body, then you can whack off its parts and think nothing of it. It hadn’t done any harm to you at all, because you are not a part of that body. Now he’s going to tell us some things here, folks, and this is Christ himself talking to us, that helps them to identify themselves and will also help you to identify yourself. Now there excuse for all of this of not wanting to be set free by Jesus, because they’re so full of their own understanding that they have no room for his word. He goes ahead to say that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. A slave has no permanent place in the family might have a temporary place but not permanent, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son set you free, you will be free indeed. And I know that you’re Abraham’s descendants. Let’s say, I know that yet you’re ready to kill me. Because you have no room for my word. And I’m telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father. In other words, if you have a desire to go out, and kill the Lord, to kill somebody in his body, and when I’m talking about that, I’m not just talking about physical. If you have a word of desire in your heart to go out and just to destroy a person who is in the body of Christ, you’re destroying your own body. Now, he said, the reason that you want to do that is, quite frankly, you don’t belong to the same body. I’m telling you, he said, what I’ve seen in the Father’s presence and you do what you heard from your father, the reason that you believe that would be a noble act is to go out and try to destroy another member of the Body of Christ, is because you’re believing what you heard from your father. Now, what Jesus is saying is your father is not mine. The Jews responded, Abraham was our father. It’d be like somebody, somebody’s saying to them, you’re listening to you’re listening to who you consider to be your father. And somebody saying, well, the Baptists or my father, or the Presbyterians or my father, well, he said, If you were Abraham’s children, then you would do the things that Abraham did. If you were truly if he was truly your father, which in essence, he’s going to show in a moment he really isn’t. In other words, he’s just a stop gap to who your father is. If you are truly a follower or a disciple of Abraham, you do the things that Abraham did.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity, with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord, find more information online at shop.BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.