Classic Christianity – Book of John Part 44 (07-10-19)
As we have been studying through the gospel of John, it becomes more apparent what Jesus Christ came to accomplish on our behalf. In order for him to accomplish these things, we had to understand who he is, God. He first came to this earth to declare this. He came first of all to the Jews, who had their religion and traditions to lean upon on to explain this. He came to explain that it is not religion or tradition that saves you, but a person. He is not just a figure we study in the bible. Jesus is the one who came to save you. Sometimes we miss not only the reality of who he is, God, but where he is. The fact is that Jesus lives in us and he lives in us with the purpose to teach us truth. That truth will set us free.
John 8:36
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
What are the enemies to truth? Lies. The opposite of truth are lies. Where do we get lies from? From the enemy of our souls, the one who did not come to proclaim truth, but to proclaim lies. Those of us that listen to the lies of Satan, he says there is a big group of you and I who do that, because our father is the father of lies. We do not belong to Christ Jesus. We still belong to the world. So the most natural thing to listen to is the language of the world because that is the language we speak and the language we live to listen to.
John 8:42-47
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
There is also, in comparison to the enemies of our soul, is the truth of God. How are we going to know what truth is if we do not get into reading the bible? How are you going to understand truth if you do not read truth or listen to truth? We used to get fed on the road by good teaching programs. But how many of us listen to it? Or do we listen to good old rock-n-roll music or rap music more than good teaching? There are still a few good teachers on radio. But in the final analysis, where you are going to get truth is in this book. You do not have to listen to a radio station. You have a book to read, the scriptures. “Why did the church not teach me things?” is a more prevalent question, but do not let resentment build in your heart over false teaching. The Holy Spirit awakened Bob to this by saying, “Well, you have a bible to read. Just go and do what God says and abide in his word”.
John 8:31-32
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Many times we are hell bent on destroying ourselves. We do things, knowing full well that those things we do damage our bodies and minds, yet it feels good. So we proceed to do things that we know will kill us. We eat food that is not good for us. We put smoke down our lungs that kill us. Others drink alcohol that poisons their body. We do all kinds of things yet do not do things that God says will set us free. We do not need something to calm our nerves when we have Christ Jesus. If cigarettes satisfied you, then you would only need one. It is not going to satify. You are just spending money and burning it up. There are things about so-called Christianity I do not understand. Why can’t you let go what you picked up? I can put down anything I picked up. It is not a testimony to the Lord to be smoking and blowing some in people’s face when telling people about Jesus. We do not drink down a martini when telling people about Jesus. We do not live that kind of life that Jesus has called us to live, to be separate from the world. How can we be different from the world when we act like the world.
John 8:31-32
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
We are not saved just to say “praise Jesus” and that is it. Jesus says I have a life for you to live, a life of cleanliness and a life to walk in the newness of life. Now people who want to argue against God when we know ourselves it is harmful to us.
John 8:33
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
When we sin we are enslaved to what you are sinning to.
John 8:34
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
Why do we have habits that we cannot git rid of. I am enslaved to them. We become enslaved to habits.
Romans 7:14-24
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
We have to be broken from that sin, those habits, that enslave us. This is a life God has not called me to.
John 8:35-36
35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word.
That is the problem in the world today. No room in the heart for the word of God. When I was lost, I did not even understand God’s word. There was no room in my heart for the word of God. I was not born again.
John 8:38-40
38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.
39 “Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did.
40 As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.
Recall also that Jesus lived in total submission to hi father. Jesus only did what he saw his Father doing and only said what His Father told him to say and how to say it.
John 5:19
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
John 12:50
I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
John 14:10
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, who say they believe in Abraham.
John 8:40-41
Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the works of your own father.”
Either you have Christ Jesus as your Father or Satan himself as your Father. There is nothing in between. You cannot be in an alleyway. You are on one side of the fence or the other. You have the choice to be controlled by the Lord Jesus Christ or Satan himself.
Jesus told them that the devil, or Satan, is their Father. In essence, they accused Jesus of being an illegitimate child, because he was born a virgin.
John 8:41-42
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
They said they are Abraham’s child. Now they are saying they are children of God.
Jesus answers both of those statements.
John 8:42-46
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
The natural man cannot understand spiritual things. Only a spiritual man can understand and discern spiritual things. So when you were lost, you can hear what believers are saying but have no ability to know what they mean. You do not put your faith in what God says but you put your faith in what God means. But you first must know what he says in order to know what it means. As deep as you can get is, “God said it so I believe it and that settles it”. If you do not know what that application means to you then that is a shallow type of thinking.
1 Corinthians 2:14
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
God wants you to grow in the depth of the knowledge of God, to get to know him deeper and deeper.
Ephesians 3:17-19
I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
John 8:43-44
43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.
He says that the devil is their father. Either your father is the devil or your father is God. We have two desires. We have desires of the flesh and desires of the Spirit. Where do the desires of the flesh come from? The devil if your father is still the devil. Where do desires of the Spirit come from? From God the Father. Source is from the father the devil or the father the Son.
Galatians 5:17
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
The flesh wars against the Spirit with demands. Your flesh demands that you obey it. The voice of the flesh says, “I know I should not be doing this but it demands that you got to do it”. It is relentless. The father, who is the devil, is relentless in creating those desires in you that are contrary with the Spirit. So we have this conflict, listening to good news of the gospel or the bad news that Satan wants you to fall on.
From years of years of counseling from people down in the dumps, that got into depression, you learn to ask these questions. Who put those thoughts of depression in you? God or Satan. Whose voice is saying, “I will bless you today?” Whose voice is saying, “You are a scumbag?” Did God put those thoughts in you, saying you are not a good father or a good husband? So a voice says, “Come back in a week so I can tell you some more good news. So I can tell you again you are scumbag.” Is that the voice of God? No. Where do you think those thoughts are coming from? Those thoughts are certainly not from God who says “I love you”.
This is what God says he will do for you if you let him.
Philippians 4:13
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.
You can do all things through Christ if you will let Him. He will guide you into all truth, He will lead you in this life, if you let Him. Just let Him.
So if you sit back and listen to the voice of Satan about how bad you are then you are like a man who compares himself by himself, a man who compares himself with other people. The bible says you are a fool if you think like that.
2 Corinthians 10:12
12 We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.
God may just want you to be a good father or good mother, and whatever he has planned for you, be content in wherever you are. Quit looking where you should be or could be. Quit playing the “would of, could of, should of” game. Quit listening to the devil who wants to keep you in bondage.
1 Timothy 6:6
But godliness with contentment is great gain.
Philippians 4:11-13
11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
John 8:44
He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.im.
He always sounds like he has some truth, a hook in there, in order to destroy you. When he lies, he speaks his native language. What is his native language? Lies.
John 8:45
45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
Ian Thomas said, “Man will believe anything except the truth”. A person, a deceiver, tells a man, “You mail me in some money and I will send you a handkerchief dipped in the Jordan river and you can ask God, and he will give anything to you”. So what does the man reply, “Mail me the hanky”. You tell a person that Jesus died and rose from the dead to give you eternal life. Yet, what does a person say, “Too good to be true”. Man will believe anything except the truth.
Men get on television, total deceivers, and just talk about money, and tell you, “Send in money and I will pray for you.” Bob says to them, “Keep your money and I will pray for myself. What do you have that I do not have? Do you have Jesus in you? I do too. That is why I pray for me and you should be praying for you”. If you are a born again Christian, you have got a hot line to God. There is nobody who is super-spiritual. There is just natural man and spiritual man, not real natural and real spiritual, just natural and spiritual. Yet man makes heroes out of people. So you hear, “Whoever sent me money, Father, bless them”. Charlatans! It is amazing what goes on.
Bob once hear a man respond this way to a charlatan, scamming money out of people in the name of God. “You send me a 100 dollars, God will send you a thousand”, says the charlatan. “It seems you need more money than I do. So why don’t you send me a 100 dollars and God will send you a thousand.”, say the Christian, exposing the lie of the charlatan, and putting him to the same test.
People do not want to hear truth because it is painful. You tell your son he is acting like an idiot. Oh, these parents are too hard on him. But the issue is, is he telling him the truth. Bob wanted to get into show business. His dad was not real long on that. His dad was not for it, and it hurt to hear that. Later, as Bob got older, he realized that his dad was telling him the truth. Most of it was about me and it was the truth. So people are having resentment to a father who is telling you the truth. Maybe some of you had parents way over the line. But I am talking about those parents who are normal. I do not know a parent, unless they are perverted, who will say something to them to screw them up. I do not know a parent, who is worth his salt, who is not looking out for the best for his children. They may not always have the best advice but their heart of love is that they want the best for their child.
A child came in with her parents one time and said, “I want to be free.” Bob said this to to her parents in her hearing. “I agree with this child. She needs to be able to be free. What I want you to be is to be free to go into the library and be free to study. I want you to be free to go to your room and study. I want you to be free to have a good life. I will not bug you about that anymore. You do not want freedom. You want freedom to feed your flesh. That is what you want but you do not want freedom to live a good life.
Galatians 5:13
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
So every parent should tell their child, “do not use your freedom to indulge your flesh, and I am not going to encourage you to do that, but I will be encouraging you to use your freedom to serve one another in love.”
You will not hear that from Satan, for he is a liar, and will not tell you the truth. When Jesus tells you the truth, then believe him.
