Radio Broadcast Wednesday 06/15/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P42 (06-15-22)

Who is Controlling You: God or Satan?

So many people think they are acting independently, and doing their own thing out in the world. But my friends, there are only two types of people in the world. One type is lost, without the Spirit of God living in them, and the other type is saved, with the Holy Spirit alive living in them, leading them on the path of Life. You still have a choice of which one you want to listen to and which one you allow to control you. There is no middle ground here. Learn why that is the case. Listen as Bob teaches on this lesson for today.

In today’s lesson, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store

Just as a person’s physical growth is based on proper diet and exercise, so is the Christians’s spiritual growth dependent on regular feeding upon the word of God and application of its principles. With more false teaching, shifting opinions and general confusion in the world than ever before, Christians need a solid foundation upon which to base their beliefs and build their lives. The word of God declares that Jesus Christ is that foundation of truth. With that in mind, let’s now take A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ.

Now, I want to take this to its logical conclusion. You see if our understanding that the only difference between a lost person and a saved person is forgiveness, then am I not saying that the, (to a lost person) he must be alive spiritually that is? Because the only thing forgiveness is involved in and is what he’s doing. You get forgiven for what you did. You don’t need forgiven for who you are. You need identified for who you are, and change, get a new identity. I don’t need forgiven. If I’m a worm, I don’t need forgiven for being a worm. I need forgiven for doing wormy things, but I don’t need forgiven for being a worm. It’s who I am. I need to recognize, I’m a worm here, the proposition to become a butterfly here the proposition as to how that can occur through metamorphosis and make a decision. Whether I want to remain a worm or to be a butterfly. I don’t need forgiven for being a worm. I need change. If I’m going down a one-way street, I don’t need forgiveness. I need to get turned around. So if the only thing that’s wrong with me is I need forgiveness for what I do. That means that me, as an individual, I’m okay. I just do some bad things that I need forgiven for. That means, I’m alive. That means that basically I’m righteous until I do something wrong, then unrighteous. But as soon as I get that forgiven, then I’m righteous again. How’d you get to be that? Was born that way. And that’s where the I’m okay, you’re okay comes in. But because you see religion dealing with nothing but reconciliation and forgiveness is a baby religion. It is never dealing with issue. Never. It’s dressing the worm up in Christian clothing, sending him to worm, you to get him educated. Send him over here, to the worm church, to get him spiritual, and then blasting the daylights out of him, because he’s acting like a worm and that’s what most of Christian religion is. No change of identity. Just worm behave properly, get your behavior right. And we do have a system here that when you don’t behave, the way you really ought to behave, then we can get you forgiven. No change of identity. No seeing that you’re a mess. Just, you do things bad occasionally.

And so the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is this guy over here who claims to be a Christian recognized that his behavior isn’t what it ought to be. So he turned to Christ to get forgiven. And this poor soul over here, that’s really okay, but he also does some bad things. He’s so stubborn he just doesn’t seek forgiveness. And that’s the difference folks, that is out of the pit. And that is exactly the type of theology that has kept the Christian world paralyzed of any reality of a living Christ living inside of us. It comes from not going on, it comes from not recognizing what Paul was saying, in Romans 5, 10 and 11. For if, catch this, we were God’s enemies. That’s lost folks. That’s a condition of a lost man, not that he’s unforgiven. He’s an enemy. We were reconciled to the death of His Son, were reconciled while you were an enemy. That’s what He did at the cross. For how many people? All people. Did not John say He not only died for our sins, but the sins of the whole world? Then how much more having been reconciled (lost man) shall you be saved by His life, We are not saved merely by the death of Christ. You’re saved by the Life of Christ. What do you saved from? The wages of sin, the law, death, identity with Adam. All of those things that are in this circle over here. That’s different from the circle contained in the New Covenant, and that’s what salvation is. It’s not just getting yourself forgiven, you can go to the day of atonement and got yourself forgiven, but there was no change in identity. They were still an Israelite in their heart, but not a child of God, just like today, we’re Catholics in our heart, Baptists in our heart’s, Presbyterians in our hearts, but have never been made a child of God, and I have to leave those things behind those identities, those are man-made identities. And even with the Israelite the, at least it was man-made because it came for their mom and dad, but they were tied up in a cultural and in an area of a certain group of people. And so they were saved because they were God’s people came from Moses and Abraham and they were saying, no, you leave that behind, because in Christ, there is no Israelite. There is no Gentile. There is no slave. There is no free. There is no Baptist. There is no Catholic. There’s no Presbyterian. There’s no Methodist. In Christ there’s only one and that’s a child of the Living God.

And so folks what You can place here and getting back to that statement whenever we are, all we ever see is salvation is getting your sins forgiven. Take going back to my illustration then it means I’m okay except in what I do. Now, folks, I want to ask you is that true? You see when when we’re told were we not, when you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God, made you alive with Christ, He forgave all your sins. I want to ask you a question. What’s the worst of your problem? Sins or death? It’s like saying, which problem do you have? Which do you think the biggest problem is, a sniffle or death? You know, I’ve asked people who are tied up in this first John 1:9 and they literally looked and because they didn’t want to admit what they were about to have to, said a cold is worse than death. I literally had people say that. Well, a cold is worse than death. Boy you’ve got something wrong, you’ve got your head screwed on wrong. Folks, death is about as stringent as you’re going to get. In fact, the Bible says, it’s what keeps people paralyzed in fear, is the fear of death. We’ve been freed from that. Now, when I see something about myself, not what I’m doing, what i’m doing helps me to see of something about myself. That’s what the law was given to do is show me who I am? No! How am I’m not living up to the righteous requirements of the law? Now, if I got a brain in my head, I’ll start thinking. Why can’t I live up to those? They seem pretty simple to me, as only 10 of them ought to be able to live up to those. And yet you can’t.

And you find yourself living with parents who have raised you. And yet I can’t love them the way I should. And then you’re all oshy gooshy over this girl. I just can’t wait to marry, and two weeks later you come back from honeymoon and you’re wondering what you did. What happened? That love capacities gone. It seems like you say, what’s wrong with me? And now you’re getting to the point. What’s wrong with me? Not sure what’s wrong with me, what I’m doing, what’s wrong with me? That’s why Jesus said. It’s not what you put in your mouth. Drinking’s not problem of man. It’s his ehart. He said, it’s not what you put in your mouth. It’s what precedes out of your heart. There’s something wrong with you. And when I see that now, I say I need a new me. And Jesus says, now you got it.

If all I needed was forgiveness. And if I was okay, after I got forgiven, Then that means I was born in this world righteous. Now you see, I never was righteous. That’s why at the cross, I had to be cleansed of all unrighteousness. I never had righteousness, you and I folks, in and of ourselves have never been righteous. It says that Christ died for sins once and for all that means once, and for all doesn’t mean once and forever. It means once and for everybody. He died once and for everybody, the righteous that was Jesus alone, for the unrighteous. Now had I ever been righteous then when He said the righteous for the unrighteous, then I could have died for you, because I would have to been called righteous, but I never was righteous. You never were righteous, you never will be righteous in and of yourself. If righteousness we’re told, could be gained through obedience to the law, then Christ died for nothing. Righteousness has to be credited to you. It has to be given to you. It has to come from without, it cannot come from within. Now folks, birth, new birth, and a same thing with, talks about your eyes not seen, your ears not heard, your mind is not conceived of those things that God has prepared for those who love Him. It must be revealed. How? By the Spirit.

Conception requires a sperm and an egg. A woman is not born with sperm in her. That has to come from without, into within. It has to be met with an egg that is fertile, but the sperm has to come from without. You’re not born with it. And concepcion takes place when sperm and a fertile egg gets together. Now, it’s the same thing. We had to be born again from outside of ourselves that has to come from God, conception of the Holy Spirit of God has to come from God. That occurs when your egg is fertile so to speak, your spiritual egg is for a when you come to a point in your life where you see your need for a total change and then new birth takes place. Now, folks forgiveness is absolutely necessary but God was not going to do that forgiveness over and over and over and over and over again. There was a system called atonement to do that, He says I’m not going to do that. The blood of Jesus of God himself which was of such import value that it covered the sins of the entire world from the time of its development from the first man on earth to the end of all. It is done. It is finished. And folks that act of forgiveness was not done just for saved people because there weren’t any. It was done for lost people, He died for everyone since He didn’t go to the cross and say I’m going to die for the forgiveness of sins for the saved people. There weren’t any. There was no one spiritually regenerated until Pentecost, 40 some days later and so He died for the sins of the entire world. Even those who crucified Him. Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.

Now that forgiveness has been executed on you, the worst criminal who may be listening to this broadcast. It has already been done. But you’ve got a problem greater than forgiveness, but you see, it’s when I see the love of God that reached down to me in my mess and said, son, I forgave you that on the cross. I’ve loved you, I came for you. I forgave you, I took away your sins so that there’s nothing left to do except receive My life. I’ll say, well Lord, I’ll clean myself up so it… No no no Bob. You cannot clean yourself up.

There was a true story of years ago. I believe it was by Gillette the razor people who were going to do a commercial and showing the toughness of their blades and they had called a mission place where a lot of street people came. And said, I want you to get the scruffiest beard guy, bearded guys there are. And once you have them ready for us tomorrow morning, we’re going to clean them up, shave them and show the toughness of these blades. So they went in and got a couple guys whose beards looked like steel wool and said, I want you to be ready for tomorrow. The jet Gillette people are coming in and you’re going to be on television and going to clean you up. So they got together that night, they got all excited about being on television and said well man, we’re going to be on television, we probably need to shave. So here they went out and they shaved themselves so they showed up the next morning all clean shaven and the Gillette people looked at him. Said, what’d you do that for? I can’t use you, I came to clean you up and you cleaned yourself up. I can’t use you. And so that’s when man is I try to clean himself up. God says I’m sorry, how can I clean you up when you’re cleaning yourself up and besides that, you did a lousy job shaving. So we have to realize friends, that God did this for us. This was something He did for, not for it to end there, mean as wonderful as forgiveness is, don’t stop there. You’ve got a problem worse than that. It’s called identity.

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You’re a forgiven corpse. You are a forgiven child of Adam. You haven’t entered into that forgiveness yet because you haven’t entered into the New Covenant, that was brought about by the living Christ and come see all of these things. But it has been provided for you. It’s there you are in essence when you were enemies we were reconciled to God. In other words He took it off His books. Folks, I’d take it off my books. That’s for all of man, everybody. That to me is why there’s going to be gnashing of teeth. You see to say, that I rejected somebody that had done everything for me already is stupid. Now, if I’ve got to go earn all of that, why, I can rebel against that, but when someone said, no, I’ve already given it to you. I mean, the money’s already at a bank. How do I get it? Go to the bank. And to not do it, well, that’s dumb, you’re going to gnash your teeth. You say, I don’t know how I could’ve been so dumb as to reject what has been given to me? I couldn’t earn it, didn’t deserve it, given to me and I like an idiot didn’t walk in to it. So we have to realize folks that this reconciliation is dealing with what God had to do as an example of his unbelievable love and grace to do for you and me. Not that that is an end in itself, but to provide what was absolutely necessary to do on behalf of all mankind, in order that mankind could now walk into the presence of God and be born again. Now, there’s the ultimate reason.

Why did He forgive us at the cross? So that there was nothing left for man to do in regard to his sins except walk into and recognize his spiritual death. The wages of sin being death, recognize life being offered to you by a living resurrected Jesus Christ. And enter into that life and be born again. Enter into that circle of the New Covenant that encompassed total forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, everything we’ve been talking about. Enter into that circle and never have to question those doctrinal issues again. Just learn what they mean in regard to you and me, nothing else to do nothing to earn. Nothing else that I can do to try to please God. But to realize, because I am already pleasing in His sight because of my relationship with the pleasing One, and that’s Jesus. Apart of that pleasing One’s body Christ Jesus. That from now on, the issue is do I want to live according to my new identity or don’t I?

Now, let’s go on to another passage in Colossians 1, 19 and 22 for God was pleased to have all of His fullness to dwell in Him, that’s in Jesus and through Him, Jesus, to reconcile to Himself, to God the Father, all things, all things are reconciled, whether things on earth, or things in heaven. How? By making peace through His blood shed on the cross. Peace, it’s a fruit of the Spirit. Jesus says come come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you peace and rest for your souls.

Folks, I want you to think about something for just a moment. When we realize this effect, I think it’s going to be life-changing to you and I had an opportunity the other day of going into a child of God, as far as we know a brother in Christ who came to Christ out of alcoholism. Had been freed from the bondage of that for a period of time, slipped back into it and walked into a place where the guy was retching his guts out going through DTs and over the toilet bowl, crying out, out of control. I’m out of control. We took this young man to the hospital and we’re praying for restoration there. But I couldn’t help from thinking those words kept pounding into my head all night long, “I’m out of control.” And I started thinking about that because it’s quite a psychological term that people use all the time and we have a tendency to use that word. I’m just, I am just out of control and I got to thinking that again, is one of those lies that keep us paralyzed. You see, he was not out of control at all. He was totally under control of satanic influence. He was totally under the control of the desires of his own flesh. It says that, that we yield our bodies to, we become slaves to that which we yield to. And so, no he was not out of control at all. He was totally under the control of, satanic influence.

Folks we want this no man’s land. We want evil over here, good over here and then we went this hallway in between that’s neither evil, nor good. I’m just kind of down in this neutral zone. It’s not that I’m a citizen here or a citizen there. I’m a displaced person. I don’t have any citizenship. I kind of like that I don’t have to be, I don’t have to have a responsibility to anybody. Now, and folks God didn’t make any DPs.

Coming back to what I believe is a vitally important thing for us to see is there’s no middle ground. As far as God is concerned, there’s two types of people, you’re either lost or saved. There’s only two types of people. You’re either natural, lost, or spiritual, saved. There’s no carnal Christians. You hear that terminology going around with that’s an identity. And that’s not an identity that’s in the scripture. I can be lost and act spiritually, and I can be spiritual and act carnally, but it’s a spiritual man acting carnally. Just as it’s a lost man acting spiritually, but it’s not an identity. As a child of God my friends again, you are never out of control. You are either going to walk being controlled by the flesh, energized by satanic influence, indwelling sin living in you, or you are going to walk controlled by the Spirit of God. Period. There’s no in-between. We use verbiage to neutralize truth constantly, words as an example like “unsaved.” And I can use that easily, because it’s become natural. But it’s not natural. It’s a terrible terminology. I am not unsaved. I am lost. If I’m lost, it doesn’t mean, well, he’s just not saved, and not quite saved yet. No, you’re lost, you’re dead. He just like saying, well, I’m just kind of un-alive. No, you’re dead. And those kind of terms neutralize things. We’ve talked about this before that the wages of sin is death. So we come along and say, no, it’s out of fellowship. Or I am in fellowship. Those terms watered down the stringency of death and water down the beauty of grace. And so it’s the same thing when we’re talking about control, as we are created beings. Now if I am a created being, then that means that the control factor has to come from my Creator and if it doesn’t, then it’s going to come from my enemy but because I am going to be controlled as a human being by something to say I’m out of control. No, no, I’m being controlled. And as a created being, that is not a bad thing. It’s the only way you can function. Do you realize that your automobile has to be controlled by who’s driving it? Now, it’s a very expensive intricate instrument, but it is worthless unless someone is in it, driving it. And so the automobile is under the control of the driver.

Now man has been made in such a way whereby, God living in the man, was indispensable to the total humanity of the man and was indispensable to that man functioning in accordance with the way that God intended him to function. God in the man, indispensable to a man functioning the way that God intended a man to function. You take God out of the man, you got a man on your hands, but he cannot function the way that God intended him to function, because the control factors are gone. A car can’t function in the way that it was intended to function if no one’s in it, just sits there now, unlike the car, as a human being with a will that when God went out of the man, the control of the man was taken over by the only thing left and that’s the world, people, places and things. Indwelling sin entering into that man, creating the desires of the flesh rather than the desires of the Spirit that are impossible to be created until the Spirit lives in you. So, when we are born again, we are under a brand new identity and the Spirit of God lives in us. And the reason that the Spirit of God came to live in us, was to give us life and to provide a control factor once again, for God’s children. So that I have a source that I did not have before of control of being controlled by God. But see the rebellion of man says, I don’t want anyone to control me, including God. And that’s called a rebel. And so that with the problem with the dumb rebel, and we’re all dumb rebels, that I don’t want anybody to control me. I’m sorry my friend but that’s an impossibility unless you want to die. Because you’re going to be controlled either by God, or by Satan. But as this rebel, he doesn’t realize it. I think I’m doing my thing. No you’re not, you’re being drug around like someone with a ring in their nose. You’re being drug around by Satan deceiving the daylights out of you, telling you all this stuff is going to do something for you. And I’m going there to ruin you. What is this boozing?. Oh, it’s going to make it feel good. Yeah, guy says, I take a little coke in order to ease the pain and there’s somebody wrenching their guts out. Well you got deceived, didn’t you?

So you said I don’t want anyone controlling me. Well, I’m gonna tell you, I’d hate to think that I did that to myself intentionally so you see, you are being deceived by Satan or you are being led by the love of God. Folks, and there’s no middle ground. I want you to get a hold of this, there’s no middle ground and it’s a scary thought when I realized that when I stopped letting God control my life, the Holy Spirit of God, to control my life, being controlled by the love of God, that says Bob you’re my instrument here on this earth and what I want you to do is to serve one another in love. In other words, let love be your motivating factor and love doesn’t do harm to your neighbor. Why? Well because the minute you refuse to do that you’re going to be controlled by Satan and that’s a scary thought. See I said, No, no. If I don’t do it I’m just kind of in no man’s land. I’m just kind of doing what? My own thing. No, you’re not, you’re never doing your own thing as a created being. You’re never doing your own thing anymore than Pinocchio was doing his own thing. And I don’t mean to say we’re puppets. And he’s a created being to function, is going to have to be controlled by something. And so, the very moment that I make a determination to get out of the airplane, that is being controlled by the law of aerodynamics, I’m going to hit the ground under the law of gravity on it. So the very moment that as a child of God, we walk out of this desire to be led by the love of God, we are automatically over here being controlled by Satan. He just laughed his fool’s head off. See, I got you again. You can see God, what I did to one of yours? Just wait till you see what I do to him, and that’s scary.

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.