Radio Broadcast Wednesday 05/08/2024

Classic Christianity – Book of Hebrews P103 (05-08-24)

God Wants to Teach us Truth, All Truth

God’s name is Truth, and he wants us to know Truth. Why? Because when we know Truth, then we can easily spot the lies of Satan. And folks, Truth is much much deeper than people imagine. And the opposite of that is the Lies are also much deeper than we imagine. The lies are everywhere. Most people are living a life of lies. Even Christians are so into the world, that it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a true child of God and the people of the world. They are into their music idols, their sports idols, their technology idols, their movie idols, their television shows idols, their news idols, their so called Christian idols, and even their political idols. They don’t have a clue about the world we live in, and the schemes of the devil that are everywhere. They would much rather be programmed by their Tell a Visions and Radio Programs rather than the Word of God. They simply don’t want to stop drinking the Kool-aid, because after all, they are very comfortable pretending that all is well, even as they promote Satan’s agenda in their own lives and the lives of others around them.

We are told in scripture to fix our eyes on Jesus, yet most don’t do that. We are told to focus on His righteousness, not our own self righteousness, yet most don’t do that either. Folks, if you are hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit, don’t close off your ears to Him. He is teaching you at this very moment in time. And this discipline is feeling very harsh on some people at this very moment, because they are not understanding where the battle is taking place. The battle is taking place for your mind. If Satan can get you to believe his lies (and we all have fallen for his lies and schemes) then we pass those lies onto others, and we never draw proper conclusions within the Word of God, which is where it counts to begin with. Drawing proper conclusions is Faith. We were given examples of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. So let’s move on in chapter 12 and draw proper conclusions to what God wants us to hear. Listen carefully, for the details matter in all things.

~ 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.”

~ “The advertisement that came out that a lure though is based on the principle of deception, that’s a true thing. Any lure is based on the principle of deception. That’s why fish bite into it, and then up in a frying pan. If they knew that that was a lawyer, they wouldn’t bite into it. So the attractiveness of the lure based upon deception is it’s easy to deceive somebody and that’s why you bite into it. Now, those are the sins that so easily entangle us. That’s what he’s talking about. So it says to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. In Colossians were told, don’t give in to worldly philosophies, which depend on human tradition instead of on Christ. That’s what he’s talking about here. Let us run with perseverance, the race that is marked out for us, in other words, finish, go to the finish line. Don’t give up before the life’s over. 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 he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. And we talked about the fact of birth pangs and about birth, how a woman will endure that cross, so to speak, endure the pain, and the shame and everything else connected with childbirth, it is not a real pleasant deal. And yet for the joy set forth before you of producing that little baby, you’re willing to go through it again and again, that’s a miracle to me, after watching the pain of first childbirth, it’s amazing for me, second, third and fourth child to me, but it just shows how short our memory is.” ~ 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 0:30
So when he was sweating as it were great drops of blood. It was that that temptation between his own identity not My will Father but then be done. Because don’t ever think that the Lord Jesus Christ was just saying, oh, Whoopi, today I get to go out and take upon myself the sins of the world to the point where I just become sin. When He who knew no sin, sinless, pure became sin for you and me, so that in Christ, we could become the righteousness of God, believe me, he was not looking forward to that event. And so to be able to with that struggle of not my will, but Yours be done, Lord, this is the only way that man can ever be reconciled unto us. It’s the only way in the world that sin can be paid for once and for all. Until we don’t have to continue with sacrificial systems that go on and on and on again, that can indeed forgive sins, but can never bring life to people. I want to see my children alive again. And the only way I can do that is through going to that cross and becoming sin for them. That’s resisting the temptation to do my thing. Instead of his, that call brought about as it were, the sweating of blood.

Have you forgotten the word of encouragement that addresses you as sons? Now, here’s one that people have really latched on to my son do not make light of the Lord’s discipline. Don’t lose heart when he rebukes you because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Now, that’s the NIV translation. One of the things that you’re going to see, folks is this, when you understand the grace of God, you understand the finality of the cross, and I mean, understand it, you can spot error in translation that quick, because there is nothing sacred about a translation. And the NIV, although it is very readable, and sometimes it is very good. It has some of the dumbest translations that you would ever want to see in your life, it pulls atonement into New Testament, which is not there. It uses the word punish. And so in translation, and what you will see in translations, the persuasion of the translator, is always there. And if you’ve got a translator, that does not understand the finality of the cross, and He sees a word that needs to be translated out of Greek into English, and there’s different options on it, he’ll always pick the punish option, because that’s his persuasion. Now, you go back to what that is quoting from, and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. And turn back to Proverbs two, because this is where this is being quoted from. In other words, don’t you? Have you forgotten the word of encouragement that addresses you as sons? In other words, he’s going to pull from a quote out of the Old Testament as a word of encouragement. So this is what the Old Testament quote is. It’s in chapter three of Proverbs, beginning in verse 11. My son do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke. because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father, the son, he delights in. Now, that’s the quote. So what somebody do? Punishes everyone accepts as his son.

Now, that could cause confusion to somebody and say, Well, can I rely on the Word of God? You, you can rely on the Spirit of God within you to teach you what it means. That’s why there are different translations. That’s why some translations are good, and some aren’t so good. But if you understand the premise, you can spot it like that and go back and check it out. And sure enough, every time that thing within you was right. Now, that’s hard for people to understand, because we’re taught that the more education you get, and if you can get more degrees than a thermometer, well, then you’re really gotta You Really Got it. But you see, what does the Bible say about that? It says, Your eye can’t see your ear can’t hear. And your mind cannot conceive of those things that God has prepared for those who love Him. But it has to be revealed by what? The Spirit of God living in you. So if the Spirit of God had revealed what something means you don’t know what it means anyway. You might know what it says or think you know what it says, but you don’t know what it means. That’s why when you when you truly have the Spirit of God living in you, when you’ve come into an encounter with the finality of the cross and the reality of the resurrection, that foundation alone, will enable you when you see scripture that is contrary to the finality of the cross, contrary to the reality of the unconditional love and grace of God that is yours in Christ Jesus, you can look at that immediately and say, I may not know for sure what it says but I do know what it doesn’t say, Lord, teach me what it means. And he’ll teach you what it means every single time if you let him. And so we have a translation here. If anyone has a New American Standard, you’ll see a very good translation, you will see a good one in King James. But NIV very poor, as when they bring over, as I said the word atonement instead of taking away. But again, that’s not discouraging, that’s encouraging to me, it’s encouraging to be able to understand the word of God. And when you see something, say, it can’t be can’t be. See, guys, this is the way you have to come. This is where we have to come to in our lives, we just can’t know something, we have to form a policy on it, we have to come to a point where we’re saying if this is true, and this is true, and this is true, then this is true period. That’s it. It’s a policy, it’s a foundation, Jesus is Lord, that is a foundation. And if you build on any other foundation, then that you’re gonna have a cracked house. And it’s the same thing, his death for us was final, not temporary, you build on any other foundation that you got a crack house, you got to come to some conclusions on something, to have some policies on something, to have some guts to be able to say this is true, and stand on it. And that is exactly what happens. When you come to the truth of this. You’ll spot error every single time in translation sometimes, and for sure, in sermons. Now, what’s he talking about here? It says, endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father, if you’re not disciplined, and everyone undergoes discipline, then you’re an illegitimate child, and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? The discipline in our spirits? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best but God disciplines us or for our good, that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, it’s painful later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace, for those who have been trained by it.

What is discipline? It’s a training. It’s a training. What do you do with an athlete? Well you train them for what? The game. What what, what is absolutely necessary to be able to play the game without getting killed? If you’re playing football? The discipline of getting in shape, the discipline of learning the plays, all of those things are disciplines. Now, is that something that comes on you? Or it’s something that is on your period? Does a coach sit around and say, Well, today, I think on discipline the players? Or is the coach in a continual state of discipline? Which is it? You see, God doesn’t come on you all of a sudden, here on that bad little boy down there, I’m gonna go discipline him. You’re in a continual state of discipline, because discipline is continually renewing your mind.

Now, guys, one of the problems that we run into, and I think back in the service, Colorado always reminds me that I took basic training there at Colorado Springs, and I say, whenever you end up loving, where you took basic training, it’s a nice place. And so it’s a nice place. But you’re going to see something that I think it’s important for us to to understand on that. One of the reasons that I think we don’t understand or appreciate discipline, is because many times as a Christian, we don’t know we’re in a battle. When you’re taking basic training in wartime you don’t look at your drill sergeant as your enemy. That’s the guy that’s going to keep you alive. When you’re in wartime, and you’re out there and you attach a bayonet on to of those times M1 rifle M1 rifles and learn how to poke a dummy with sometimes some of your friends, but, but you learned, you’re you’re serious about learning how to do that because you’re going to be sent into battle, and you better learn it. When you’re crawling on your belly, underneath, a net with machine gun bullets going over your head with a full awareness of the fact that if you panic and get up, you’re gonna get killed. You learn to crawl on your belly. And those bullets go over and over your head in basic training are a little bit fearful, a little scary. When you sit down and someone says, I’m gonna teach you how to fire a gun, and you know, you’re possibly going into battle, you’re gonna learn how to fire a gun, and all of that stuff that they’re doing to you getting up at four in the morning and all that type of thing. You don’t look at that as punishment at all. It seems like punishment. Now your body’s saying to me, why are you doing to me? What are you doing to it? You got unconfessed in your life? What’s wrong with you? But you see, that’s because your body doesn’t know where you’re going, but your head does. Your head knows I’m going to war. Body doesn’t know that. So it’s complaining and griping as it always does. But your head knows I’m going to war and therefore body, I’m going to discipline you and I’m going to get you in shape. So that I don’t get killed over there. At least by neglect. On the other hand, when you’re in a peacetime army, and they’re training you for that stuff seems like punishment seems like stupidity to you. Idiotic, what I need to fire gun for, I’m not gonna shoot anybody? What do I need to stab a bayonet, what I need to learn how to put a bayonet on the edge of my gun for I’m not going a place? When you’re in a peacetime army, and you’re getting trained in peacetime, and you don’t think there’s any chance at all for a combat zone. That stuff’s punishment to you. But if you know you’re in a battle, you are grateful for it. Aren’t you? Now the reason that most Christians are walking around, thinking God is punishing them, instead of disciplining them, is because we don’t realize we’re in a battle.

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Bob George 13:23
Now in Ephesians, that sixth chapter of Ephesians, it tells us chapter six, verse 10. And again, it’s tying in to what is being said here in Hebrews. Finally it says, Be strong in the Lord. This is Ephesians six, beginning in verse 10, be strong in the Lord. And in his mighty power. It’s talking about a combat. It’s talking about a continual war zone that you’re you and I are in. Folks, we’re in a battle. Now, the battle has already been won. But we’re still in the battle. And the battle is for right up here. And the only thing that Satan can do is to influence you’re and my minds. So there’s the battlefield. You want to know where your Armageddon is, right up here, this is Armageddon. Now there’s going to be one someday physically in the meantime, this is your in my Armageddon. This is your My battlefield. And this is where the battle is fought right up here. Satan can’t do one earthly thing to you, he can get you to do something to you. But he can’t do a thing to you, except try to influence right up here. So there’s the battleground. So it says Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. So what are we taking our stand against? The schemes of the devil. What is it is total goal in his schemes to get you to do what? Stop believing God, that’s all. If I can get you stop and believe in God, then you have belief some. So I got you, and I’ll take you down any pathway, I want to stop believing God. So it’s a scheme. So he says, Our struggle, or you’re in my struggle here on this earth is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, and the authorities and against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. And because we now know where the battleground is, we now know the source of it is Satan, the demonic influence that is all over the place, not coming upon, you know, looking for demons in refrigerators and all over the place. Man, just, it’s just take a look at a television program, that’s part of it. In other words, it’s all over. And the only solution is not trying to stop it, because you’re not going to stop it. Unless you know how to stop things in heavenly realms. You’re not going to stop it. Like people with some of these TV preachers, wow, I wish they’d get rid of him. If you do 10 more is going to pop up. Just 10 more. So you’re not going to stop error. You’re not going to stop charlatans. There have been around for 2000 years. And if the Lord tarries, they’ll be around for another 2000 years, the only thing you and I can do is to ask the Lord to reveal some truth to us. And let that truth then do what? Set us free. Truth is the real bill. Anything other than that is a counterfeit. People say that’s narrow, I know. But it’s true. That’s dogmatic. So is two plus two equal four. But try to work a problem without it. And so we have to understand that this battlefield that you and I are fighting is right up here. And we’ve got a phenomenal schemer, who is the source of every bit of this error that is in the world today. And so it says, It started about put on the full armor of God. So when the day of evil comes, you’re going to be able to stand your ground. And after you’ve done everything to stand stand firm with a belt of what? Truth buckled around your waist. In other words, the belt is where all the weapons hung on. So if you don’t have truth, and you’re trying to hang a weapon on it, your pants are going to fall off. You don’t have a belt on. And so the belt is truth. So it is a very important thing that he’s saying to hang on to that truth put that belt of truth around you. And then the breastplate, the breastplate of righteousness in its place now that what is the breastplate of righteousness? Well, that’s his righteousness that to you and I put on his righteousness. Where is it? Right over our hearts. Now, what is the world trying to tell you your righteousness comes from? Is there scheming in religion? Why, of course, and what is one of the schemes of religion? Why you make yourself righteous. You little unrighteous thing you need got make self righteous. And you listen to some of that I unfortunately had the radio this morning turned into one of these Christian stations. And man, I, it got me up quicker than I mean, listen to that stuff I got up, I had to get out of there, get that thing turned off. Because that’s the kind of stuff you start hearing on the radio and wherever else, how we’re supposed to go out and be it be this and be this and be this and just work when you’re trying to do? Clean up your flesh. It’s your flesh. And that’s all Satan’s constantly doing. You can get that place clean. Just keep working on that. And you’d think Well, why would he be interested in that? Let me not think he’d be interested in Skid Row stuff. Oh, no. No, you see, a good spy is one who looks like an American talks like an American acts like an American. But he’s a Russian spy. So Satan isn’t interested in Skid Row. He doesn’t like them anymore. Those are people gone astray. For him too. He likes I’m looking religious. And the closer he can get to it, the better. Because that’s where deception takes place.

And so when he’s talking about the breastplate of righteousness, that’s understanding that my righteousness comes from Him. I put it on, I don’t have it in me. And he talks about it. Let your feet be fitted with readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to this, take up the shield of faith which you can extinguish all the flaming errors of the evil one. And again, the whole book of Hebrews is teaching us about that. That’s the is taking up of faith. What is that? Faith and who? Faith in Christ. Take the helmet of salvation. That’s up here. That’s what you could cover your head with. And where does Satan always try to bombard regarding your salvation? Well he keeps hitting your head doesn’t he? So he says, Put that helmet on. And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, which, incidentally, is the only offensive weapon in that whole lineup, the only one that is for the offensive, everything else is defensive, is the word of God. And that’s why it says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. How do you resist Him? by speaking truth. Who is the father of lies? Satan, he can’t stand to hear truth. So when he hears truth, what’d he say he had do? Flee from you. How come? He ain’t gonna hang around and listen to it. So what do you do when you have a bunch of air into your head? Replace it with what? Truth and verbalize it. Let Satan know you’re not going to be deceived by error. Sounds hocus pocus. But it isn’t. It’s true. We’re in a battle. It’s a war zone.

Pray in the Spirit. What is the spirit? Truth, praying in truth on all occasions. There’s a lot of dumb prayers going on. Because we’re not praying accordance with truth we’re praying in accordance with error. We look at prayer as something that I initiate to God instead of what God has initiated to me. And what in the world good does it do for me to pray my wisdom to God? I want to pray his wisdom back to him. I want to verbalize back to him what he has revealed to me through his word which is true. So I’m going to pray in the Spirit doesn’t have anything to do with doing a spiritual mantra. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything except God is Spirit and you must worship Him in spirit and in what? Truth. So if I’m going to pray in the Spirit, I’m going to be praying in truth. That doesn’t mean praying what I don’t understand. It means praying what I do understand. And that’s truth. So he says pray to Spirit on all occasions, with with all kinds of prayers and requests, prayers and requests, that’s verbalizing something that, you know, again, that’s not a mantra. That’s not Eastern mysticism, where you put your mind in neutral. That is being revealed truth by God and praying it back to him, in sober mindedness, sober judgment, and in prayers and requests that have been put on your heart by God. Now, with this in mind, he says, Be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray for me and whenever opened my mouth words may be given to me that so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel. What’s the mystery of the gospel? Christ is in you, your hope of glory.

And Paul is saying, I pray that I will have a boldness to proclaim that wherever I am, and for which he says I’m an ambassador in chains, and pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. So, folks, we’re in a battle. And back to Hebrews. If we’re in a battle, then we don’t look at discipline as a punishment. We look at discipline as what God is doing to prepare us for the battle. Now, think about it for a minute. People will come along, and you will see this I heard many testimonies like that of people. When I was in Glennary of people saying this is what happened to me. Again, how many times do you have some bad things happen to you? And immediately blame God? Have You Ever Have you ever done that? And in other words, a mate dies. God, how could you do that? To me? Where’s God? Get all this? A child gets killed. Where’s God in all this?

You know, it reminds me of Have you ever seen golfer out there and got that club in his hand? He goes out and he hits, hits a ball and slices and goes into a lake someplace, what’s he do? Looks at that club. Bangs in a tree pitches it like it’s the club’s fault. Have you ever noticed that? Yeah. See baseball players strike out and go pitch the bat that dang bat did it again, struck out. We don’t want to blame herself blame the bat, blame the club, blame anybody. And when all else fails, why he always got God to blame. We do to God strange things like with our kids, you say God’s gonna get you for that we don’t say I’d like to wring your neck, say God’s gonna get you. And we’ve put, and we have all kinds of things with God, don’t we? Now did God bring about sickness? Did God bring about illness, did God bring around death? No, who brought all that on themselves? Man. What’s the wages sin? Death, did God send it? No. You see, when we’re asking the question, How could God? Once again I think we have to see first of all, we’re doing it because of our own selfish motivations because you really don’t care. Otherwise, we’d be reading the obituary column every morning just weeping like crazy saying how good God allow this to happen? Go out to the graveyard every day and say, How could God allow this to happen? We don’t care unless somebody we know is out there Secondly, we have to understand something and that’s where this doctrine that some people come up with where we don’t have a will is an absolute insult to God who gave us a will. Because if we don’t have a will then you may as well blame God for all the evil in the world because abandoned everything to do with it then God is the one that had to bring it about. And if he didn’t want to bring it brought it about then he so feeble that he can’t do anything about it. Can’t do anything about it. Satan is so powerful God can’t do anything about all this famine and all that and all this stuff in the wars going on he just sitting up there wishing and quit fighting, but I just can’t do anything about it. You take the will away from man, and you got somebody’s gonna blame God for everything. What other How else can you function then that?

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.