Radio Broadcast Wednesday 06/26/2024

Classic Christianity – Book of Hebrews P124 (06-26-24)

Jesus Said, “Father Forgive Them, For They Do Not Know What They Do.”

~ The religious world teaches backwards forgiveness, based on asking God to forgive them their sins. Yet Jesus prayed to the Father at the cross and said, “Father Forgive Them, for they do not know what they do.” So you have to ask yourself the question, If Jesus is God (and He indeed is God), do you think the Father answered Jesus’ prayer? Of course the prayer was answered, for the sins of the whole world were removed from the eyes of God, and is no longer counting anyone’s sins against them. Of course most people don’t believe it. They continue believing the lies of their church, Catholic, Protestant, or other, it doesn’t matter, they ALL call God a liar every day of the week. And that’s what the whole book of Hebrews is about. Understanding the finality of the cross. Yet people refuse to believe it, even after being given the word of God. And people are even afraid to call out the lies, because they will say, “I don’t want to get into a religious argument with people.” It just goes to show by their actions that they really don’t believe the word of God either. For if they did, they would realize that Life eternal depends on faith in Jesus. And they don’t want to hear Truth, and would much rather believe the lies of Satan, and Man.

We get to tell people, “Their sins have been taken away at the cross, and God is no longer counting your sins against you!” That is the most wonderful news of the New Covenant today. Place faith in it. Don’t just give lip service to it. Jesus is never going to die on the cross again, and we know that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness by God. So stand firm in the faith. Share Truth with others. God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ Jesus, Not counting anyone’s sins against them. He took away everyone’s sins at the cross! Shout it from the rooftops.

~ And Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." And they cast lots, dividing His garments.^{Luke 23:34}~ "that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation." ^{2 Corinthians 5:19}

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.”

~ “And so we come up with all of these different things that people want to come up with bringing God down to our level. And fellas, I want to tell you something. Our love compared to his is pitiful. Our forgiveness compared to his is pitiful. Our life compared to his is pitiful. Don’t ever bring God down to our level. He has called us to elevate up to his level. My forgiveness is not how God forgives. God is saying, Bob, I want you in your refusal many times to forgive and forget, to be elevated to my form of forgiveness. I did it without any qualifications. I forgave you without any standards. I just forgave you, period. I didn’t ask anyone to come to me. No one stood at the cross and said, Oh, Lord, please forgive me. Not one person stood at the cross and said, Father please forgive me. Not a one. And yet he looked down from the cross and said, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. Not a person came to him. When the guy brought their friend in, the paralytic that they let down through the ceiling, they brought him down to get him healed. Jesus looked at him and said, Sir, Your sins are forgiven. You can just see a guy said who’s talking about sins I want to get healed. Because God saw a greater need than physical healing. He saw a heart that needed to be changed. That man didn’t say, Oh, God, I’m here. Please forgive me. Not a one ever said, please forgive me. Not a one. Christ forgave he took the initiative. Whenever that is reversed, we become the activator of forgiveness instead of him. And so in every one of these cases, we have turned the tide. We’ve taken the book of Hebrews and the rest of the Bible and reversed it and put the emphasis on me and what I’m doing instead of him and what he’s doing, and in so doing, as the Bible of Hebrews very clearly, spells we are trampling underfoot the grace of God and making a mockery of the cross of Jesus Christ. There is nothing that you and I can do when it comes to forgiveness, except just plain, receive it and live in it. If you are in Christ, in him, you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Are you in him? Then what do you have? Redemption. What else do you have? The forgiveness of sins. That isn’t something you get. It’s something you have. It is a possession from God. You are a forgiven saint.” ~ Bob George

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Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the book of Hebrews. Available for download the complete series on the Book of Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews is key to understanding the New Covenant.

Announcer 0:12
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.

Bob George 0:29
And so we come up with all of these different things that people want to come up with bringing God down to our level. And fellas, I want to tell you something. Our love compared to his is pitiful. Our forgiveness compared to his is pitiful. Our life compared to his is pitiful. Don’t ever bring God down to our level. He has called us to elevate up to his level. My forgiveness is not how God forgives. God is saying, Bob, I want you in your refusal many times to forgive and forget, to be elevated to my form of forgiveness. I did it without any qualifications. I forgave you without any standards. I just forgave you, period. I didn’t ask anyone to come to me. No one stood at the cross and said, Oh, Lord, please forgive me. Not one person stood at the cross and said, Father please forgive me. Not a one. And yet he looked down from the cross and said, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. Not a person came to him. When the guy brought their friend in, the paralytic that they let down through the ceiling, they brought him down to get him healed. Jesus looked at him and said, Sir, Your sins are forgiven. You can just see a guy said who’s talking about sins I want to get healed. Because God saw a greater need than physical healing. He saw a heart that needed to be changed. That man didn’t say, Oh, God, I’m here. Please forgive me. Not a one ever said, please forgive me. Not a one. Christ forgave he took the initiative. Whenever that is reversed, we become the activator of forgiveness instead of him. And so in every one of these cases, we have turned the tide. We’ve taken the book of Hebrews and the rest of the Bible and reversed it and put the emphasis on me and what I’m doing instead of him and what he’s doing, and in so doing, as the Bible of Hebrews very clearly, spells we are trampling underfoot the grace of God and making a mockery of the cross of Jesus Christ. There is nothing that you and I can do when it comes to forgiveness, except just plain, receive it and live in it. If you are in Christ, in him, you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Are you in him? Then what do you have? Redemption. What else do you have? The forgiveness of sins. That isn’t something you get. It’s something you have. It is a possession from God. You are a forgiven saint.

Now, what is there hope in that? I mean, can you look forward to Jesus coming back knowing that? I mean, how, how much hope would you have in Jesus coming back with wonderful, clean, enough. Wonder if he forgot anything, you know, what, if I get up there and I forgot to confess one, you know? What Is there any hope in that? Guys here and announce a hope in it, the blessed hope that we have. And people sit around in these prophecy conferences and just praise God that Jesus is coming back. And when that guy wrote that book that he was, you’ve never seen so much fear in your life going all over the place. People fearful that the Lord’s coming back. Why would you be fearful the Lord’s coming back? That ought to be the most, greatest thing in the world to look forward to. Now I want to tell you something. If my going into the presence of God was dependent upon me and what I’m doing, that would be one fearful event, wouldn’t it? So I thank God that when I can know beyond a shadow of a doubt the Lord’s coming back and I’m going to go into His presence, that I’m going to go into His presence clothed in his righteousness, not mine. Thank God for that and that he is not up there to test my memory to see if I forgot any or didn’t forget any. He didn’t forget any. And when he said, it’s finished, that’s exactly what he meant. It’s finished. When he said, all of your sins are behind my back, never to see him again, that’s what he meant, all of them. Now, any response to that that is other than Thank You Lord Jesus is a response that is not based upon biblical teaching. It’s based upon a religious standard that has been set for you and me, but it is not based upon New Covenant Theology.

So we’re talking about hope in the 12th chapter, and in regard to our lives, the direction of our life, the drives of our life, which is the love of God. And now we come down to the 13th chapter, where we’re talking about the power of love, faith, hope and love. And how do we apply now this love into our lives? So in conclusion, to all of the things that we’ve been learning in this book of Hebrews. It says, Keep on loving each other as brothers and don’t forget. It says to entertain strangers, for By so doing, some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Now that’s kind of a tough passage, because I have not had too many angels that don’t think in my house when you look at that, referring back, it could be either one of two things, either what was talked about in the book of Exodus, when when there was a visitation of what was considered angelic beings, or the word angel is a messenger. Now that’s where we get our word evangelical. In the word Evangelical, evangelical is the word angel, E, V, A, N, G, E, L, evangelical. Evangel, evangelistic Angel. And so an angel was a messenger, a messenger from God. So this could also be referring to that very thing, that many times when you’re entertaining a stranger, you could be entertaining a messenger from God who has something for you. And so it’s talking about practicing hospitality, to be hospitable. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, as those who are mistreated as you yourself were suffering. In other words, remember people who are in situations that are much less desirable than you, and then you and me. Now this isn’t one of those case do this. Or if you know God’s going to be zapping you. This is the case that because of who you are in Christ, because of this new identity that you and I have in Christ, these are attitudes that God wants to develop in us, an attitude of of reaching out to the unfortunate, reaching out to the people who are incarcerated, who are in jail. Do you realize that more people come to Christ, many times in jail, as a population figure, than about any place that I know of. We had, we had in our ministry. I think I might have mentioned this to you the an absolute first. As far as I’m concerned, there is a prison up in Northern California, Avenel prison. And we went to Avenel prison when we were out there the last time the warden had allowed the chaplain there to bring us in. That prison is made up of wings, and every wing is distinct within its own. One wing could have been a woman’s prison and another wing a prison for murderers and that type of thing, another wing for less offenders. But there are were wings never. Had there been an assembly in that prison where the different wings came together into one place. It was a first and they arranged it for us to come out there. The radio ministry. Radio gets into prisons, isn’t that amazing, and it gets there and people begin hearing the gospel, and lies began getting changed out there. And so when the warden went, when the when the chaplain went to the warden for permission to do this, he was wide open to it because of some of the effects that he had seen in the lives of the prisoners. Well, we went there and proclaimed to them the grace of God, hopefully in its fullness, and we had a marvelous time the chaplain out there, it was of a little different persuasion than us, which is not unusual and and so we were going to bring Jeff Title, who’s a pastor out there that’s very active with us and some of the other people in on a weekly basis to minister to those prisoners. And they were prohibiting us from he was making all kinds of excuses. And there were one excuse after another as to why we couldn’t get into the prisons out there and and finally, this was a first, as far as I know, there was one of those prisoners out there that I’m telling you. He’s one of those guys. You say, Where does he sleep? Anyplace he wants to that guy. I was about that tall, one of the biggest human beings I have ever seen my life. He was a pro football player on I don’t know. He had two super, super bowl rings. I don’t remember who he played for, but he is big enough to be the whole team and and this guy had really caught the message, I’m glad, and well, he staged a sit in a prison sit in to get grace into the prison. Now, can you believe that? And literally staged a prisoner sit in in rebellion to the chaplain who was refusing to let the grace message come into that prison. And the warden called the chaplain in and said, Have you gone out of your mind? These are our model prisoners, and why are you prohibiting the message that has produced these men, the model prisoners that they are. Why are you refusing the message to let them in? And because of that, sit in in order to get the grace message into a prison. Are the prison’s been opened up to our people out there who are going in now on a weekly basis and sharing Christ with the people and that unbelievable a grace sit in. Have you ever heard such a in a prison? Well, that’s part of what he’s talking about here, is to visit prisoners to realize that, yeah, these people have made mistakes, but who hasn’t? And and some of us have made more mistakes than others who hasn’t made mistakes, who couldn’t possibly be in prison had we been caught in something that we’ve done in our lives one way or another? And so it says, Don’t ever look at that. Don’t look down your nose at people like that. Go and share the gospel with them. It talked about, we talked about marriage should be honored all things, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and the sexual immoral. And that’s talking about identities. And it is talking about the fact that adulterer is not a child of God. A fornicator is not a child of God. A homosexual is not a child of God. That does not mean a child of God cannot be engaged in adultery. It doesn’t mean a child of God cannot be engaged in homosexuality. It doesn’t mean a child of God cannot be engaged in fornication, anymore than a child of God could be engaged in lying or anything else. That is a possibility. That can happen. It could happen to anybody. But when you see adulterer, fornicator, homosexual, those are identities, and they are identities of people who that’s their only identity. That’s who they are. They’re an adulterer, they’re a homosexual. That is an identity. Now, if you’re a child of God, then you’re going to have to make up your mind whether you’re a homosexual or whether you’re a child of God, because you can’t be both of those any more than you can be an adulterer and a child of God at the same time, you’re going to make up your mind which one you want to be, as I’ve said, if you want to be if you’re an adulterer, well then go out and enjoy your adultery, because that’s natural what you’re doing. But if you’re a child of God, then that behavior is contrasted to who you are. It is a contrast to your identity. It is not that you can’t do it. It means it doesn’t make any sense for you to do it.

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Bob George 14:11
Now the world comes along and tries again, stands at the foot of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and says, We know more than you God, and tries to say that homosexuality is just a lifestyle, an alternate lifestyle. We’re born this way, and all of that kind of garbage that comes down the pike that is in total contrast to the Word of God. And the Word of God says that is not so, that is not so. But if you’re not a child of God, well then it’s you’re a homosexual, you’re an adulterer, you’re a worry wart, you’re you got all kinds of identities on you, but if you’re a child of God, and that’s who you are, then you’ve got a new identity. You’ve stepped out of Adam into Christ. That’s a new identity when you were in Adam, you had a destiny. Hell, you had a father called the Devil. When you stepped out of Adam into Christ, you got a new destiny. Heaven, you’ve got a new Father, God of this universe, you have a brand new inheritance. In Christ, Jesus, you are a new creature. And that’s where the Scripture says, If any man be where? In Christ, he is a new creation. It has nothing to do with what you’re doing. It has to do with who you are. And so it is talking as a child of God, as a child of the living God. Keep the marriage bed pure. Honor your marriage. Keep it that way your lives. It says, keep them free from the love of money and be content with what you have. And folks, many times, those two things go hand in glove, money and sex out of marriage. Not always not saying it. I’m just saying it can, and we need to look at it.

Now let’s turn back to Timothy first. Timothy chapter six. First of all, you’ve got a lot of teaching in regard to prosperity, and you can look on you don’t have to flip through your television channel very often or look at some billboards around to see people who are making tons of money. Prosperity is certainly coming their way. But are made tons of money by teaching people the name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, whatever you want to call it, mentality, that godliness is a means to financial gain. Now again, guys, we have to realize the same thing that I was talking about in regard whether it be with homosexuality, whether it be with adultery, fornication, money grabbing, whatever it might be, we have to go to the Word of God to see what we have to say about that. Because the reason this country is in a shape is in is because we don’t go to the Word of God. We are the ones who determine what’s right and wrong and good from evil. That’s why you have to have law on top of law. On top of law on top of law is because man has refused to go to God to say what is right and what’s wrong. And so we we have a standard. We have a plumb line in the Word of God. So if we want to know whether something is true or not, there’s one place to look for it, not in how’s it looking out there, but what does it say in here? And so when you’re talking about that whole philosophy of prosperity and people who teach that you are going to see in the sixth chapter of the book of Timothy, beginning in the third verse, that anyone who teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of the Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and he understands nothing. The reason that you listen to that teaching is because you’re conceited and you don’t understand anything. That’s the reason you teach it, and that’s the reason you believe it. Jesus said, My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me. If you’re not following Him the shepherd, maybe it’s because you’re not His sheep. Because he said, My sheep hear my voice, and when they hear truth, they respond to it. So it says, when you’re teaching false doctrines and you don’t agree with the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the godly teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, there’s a reason for that conceit. That’s pride, and you don’t understand anything. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words and that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt minds who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. To a teacher, teaching that godliness is a means to financial gain, and to you as a listener, believing that godliness is a means to financial gain is a person that it said is conceited. And you don’t understand anything. The teacher is a corrupt mind. And in another translation, says a perverted mind, which means you’re a pervert, a spiritual pervert. Now I didn’t say this. I didn’t make this up. This is out of the plumb line. When you believe and are taught that godliness is a means to financial gain, you have corrupted your mind. Why? It’s not true, and what it will do is make a phony out of you trying to act and look godly so that maybe you can get some financial gain out of it.

Now he’s talking about there godliness with contentment is great gain to be content in whatever circumstance you’re in, that’s what gain is. Money will buy a bed, but it won’t buy sleep. Money will buy a house but it won’t buy a home. Money can buy entertainment but it can’t buy contentment. And so what you’re dealing with here is that godliness with contentment is about the greatest gain that you and I can ever have. Anything wrong if, if you have worked hard and earned money, or a lot of money? No, not as long as you have contentment with it. But what is, what is the lack of contentment? Well, I want more. Yeah, I want a bigger place. I want a bigger car. I want this. I want more. I want more. I want more. I want more. And normally, when you want more, you try to get it how? Any way you can, and as quickly as you can. That’s why it’s only somebody wanting to get rich quick that normally can get duped by a con artist. If you don’t want to get rich quick, you’ll never be duped by a con artist. It’s the get quick rich schemes that will get to you.

I wanted to get rich quick. And I remember the time that I was leasing and managing a large office building in California. This was long before I came to Christ, and I had leased space to a place there a group called Weavers Beavers. Now, Weavers Beavers had a marvelous way of getting rich quickly, they raised beavers. And everybody knows that those beaver fur is expensive and as very good, and they’re prolific too, those little beavers can get with it. And so you bought a set of beavers and let them get with it and produce more beavers. And as that family grew where they kept track of the genealogy, and course, you got the benefit of all the furs. And so it only cost our life savings to get into Weavers beavers. And so I came home and announced Amy that I was going to buy some beavers. Well, that was thrilling news to her, and she as well, no, and I got mad at her. You don’t understand y’all, you know, all you want to do, just live the way you just live. I want to get rich, you know I want to be rich, and so I’m going to buy these beavers and get get rich. Well, fortunately, my dad was coming into town a couple weeks, and she just pled with me, please just wait till your dad gets here and talk to him. So I agreed to that. And so I took my dad up to talk to the Weavers Beavers. And my dad was an attorney, and and my dad asked a question, what happens if one of those beavers die? He said, Well, you’ve just lost some of that kind of took care of Weavers Beavers, but it was a biggest scam in the world. But I’ll tell you, I can’t believe the number of people that bought beavers out there. I knew hundreds of them. I was so envious of them, and so even to this day, I’m reminded occasionally when I get a hair brain idea about Weavers Beavers, but that’s the way you get blown out. You want to get rich quick. You can get conned easily.

And so it says, Be content with what you have now if you continue working. You keep getting more and more fine. That’s fine, great. Be content with it. Whenever your contentment starts going away, you need to take a look at what’s going on your life, because what good is money without contentment? Seriously? So it’s talking about for here’s the reason that you should learn to be content in all things. He says, we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. You don’t see a U haul it on the back of a hearse. They’re just not there. You’re not going to take one thing with you. When it says, Seek first the kingdom of God. You know where moths come in, they take away. Thieves come in steal. Well, we got hit again last week or two weeks again, two weeks ago. And you know, marvelous place that we live in this society, but our house is broken into, again, ransacked all over the place, and stolen stuff, one thing after another, and and you look at that and and you say, well, where there’s some things there that you wish that weren’t taken? Yeah, there’s sentimental things, value things, they can be replaced, clothes and be replaced, that kind of stuff. There were some sentimental things there. They’ve been in my family since I was a small kid gone. But you look at that, you say, Well, you know, one of these days it’s all going to be gone. And Amy and I were there looking at some pictures yesterday, and you know, you look saying, Well, thank God that thieves don’t come in and steal your pictures. Because in the final analysis, you know, if I had a fire in my house, that probably the first thing I’d go for would be the pictures. They’re irreplaceable. Those are the things that are meaningful in life. And we were sitting there looking at our little kids back in those days, and it just brings tears to your eyes to see those, those little kids, and how quickly life goes from us. And Amy said, you know, honey, it’s not probably very many years from now that our kids are going to be going through these boxes saying that was Mom and Dad. There was Mom and Dad, and that’s true. Life goes by in a hurry.

Announcer 27:11
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