Radio Broadcast Wednesday 08/23/2023

Classic Christianity – The Book of John P87 (08-23-23)

Jesus says, “Stop Doubting and Believe!”

~ There is a key component to the New Covenant message today, Your Sins are forgiven, God is NOT counting your sins against you. Many have heard the message of truth, yet they give lip service to it. And even worse than that, they teach and preach a lie of ongoing forgiveness by God. They have not exercised faith. As we have seen, there are all types of examples of this. Even to the point where people that should know better are propping up ministers of Satan that teach the lie of ongoing forgiveness, or are teaching the lie that only the elect’s sins were forgiven at the cross instead of the sins of the whole world. We see these examples left and right of false teachers being propped up by people that declare they know the truth of forgiveness, yet they still promote deceivers on their social media platforms or even what they say to others. They justify it because they think this one sin or that one sin being talked about is MORE important than the TRUTH of God not counting your sins against you. So by their actions, we can see that people do indeed give lip service to the very foundation of God having taken away the sins of the world. In effect, they doubt God and would rather promote the ministries of liars and agents of Satan. And yes, these other pastors that are being promoted are indeed minsters of Satan, because they are teaching lies and not teaching the very foundational TRUTH:

~ 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}

~ And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. ^{2 Corinthians 11:14,15}

~ “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” ^{1 John 2:22}

—–

~ “And so we’re going to pick up with a story of Thomas called Didymos is one of the 12 was not with the disciples when Jesus came. And so the other disciples had told him that they had seen Jesus. And you remember, this was a situation where they were in a room and Jesus suddenly appeared. And then as he always did said, Peace be with you, after he just walked through a wall. But at any rate, he said to them, Thomas said unless I see other nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. And though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them, and again said, Peace be with you. And then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands, and reach out your hand and put it into my side, and stop doubting, and believe. Now, this is an interesting thing, because in the resurrection of Christ Jesus. And even though he came in somewhat of a different form, the scars were still there, obviously able to be put Thomas to put his hand into his side, and to put his finger into the holes of his hands. And so he was saying to them, you can do this, but I want you to stop doubting, and now believe, and Thomas then said to him, the cry that we all have to come to in our lives, and that is, who is this Jesus that was raised from the dead? And Thomas cried out to him, My Lord and my God. If anyone wants to doubt the deity of Christ Jesus, or the fact that the early apostles believed in the deity of Christ Jesus, this one statement by the one doubter of Christ Jesus should solidify that in our hearts, He cried out, My Lord, and my God, Jesus then told him because you have seen me, you have believed, but blessing are those who have not seen me, and yet have believed, and basically would be talking about those of us today. We have not seen Jesus physically, but we have experienced him spiritually, and therefore have believed in the living Christ.” ~ Bob George

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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
Well, let’s turn to the 20th chapter of the Gospel of John, where we left off last, the last time we were here. We’re coming to the end, obviously, of Jesus life. And we talked about in past messages, how important it is, when you are about to depart from this earth one way or the other, that you give out the most important message that you can. And that’s exactly what took place with him. And again, there are still those who doubt and many times we look at Doubting Thomas as an example, which is is a story of and say, Well, what’s wrong with him? But how many times in our own lives do we really doubt the Lord in regard to the information that he gives to us? We can say that Thomas’ example doubted the fact that maybe he was raised from the dead, which was a historical fact that certainly was true. But as the one who was raised from the dead, he passed on a great deal of information to us, and how many of us like Doubting Thomas, really do not grab a hold of what Jesus said is truth and to hang on to that truth, but rather, to believe the teachings of the world, to grab a hold of all of the different philosophies of the world, and are willing to compromise in the area of truth. I’m absolutely amazed sometimes at how people will compromise truth for anything else, in order to gratify the desires of our flesh. We’ll compromise truth in regard to churches that we go to, that we know full well, truth isn’t being taught, but we have good fellowship there. And so will compromise truth being taught for fellowship, or we’ll compromise because of the music or because of the activities, or because of a number of things. And in so doing, in essence, are saying, I really don’t care what truth is, just feed my flesh and make me feel good. And I’ll be okay. And so even though Thomas was we look at him, and we know that he was kind of doubting the resurrection of Christ, we have to ask ourselves, the question, are we many times doubting the one who was raised from the dead, in regard to the information that he passed on to us and the truth that he told us to hold tenaciously on to.

And so we’re going to pick up with a story of Thomas called Didymos is one of the 12 was not with the disciples when Jesus came. And so the other disciples had told him that they had seen Jesus. And you remember, this was a situation where they were in a room and Jesus suddenly appeared. And then as he always did said, Peace be with you, after he just walked through a wall. But at any rate, he said to them, Thomas said unless I see other nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. And though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them, and again said, Peace be with you. And then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands, and reach out your hand and put it into my side, and stop doubting, and believe. Now, this is an interesting thing, because in the resurrection of Christ Jesus. And even though he came in somewhat of a different form, the scars were still there, obviously able to be put Thomas to put his hand into his side, and to put his finger into the holes of his hands. And so he was saying to them, you can do this, but I want you to stop doubting, and now believe, and Thomas then said to him, the cry that we all have to come to in our lives, and that is, who is this Jesus that was raised from the dead? And Thomas cried out to him, My Lord and my God. If anyone wants to doubt the deity of Christ Jesus, or the fact that the early apostles believed in the deity of Christ Jesus, this one statement by the one doubter of Christ Jesus should solidify that in our hearts, He cried out, My Lord, and my God, Jesus then told him because you have seen me, you have believed, but blessing are those who have not seen me, and yet have believed, and basically would be talking about those of us today. We have not seen Jesus physically, but we have experienced him spiritually, and therefore have believed in the living Christ.

And once you are born again of the Spirit, you are born again. You cannot be born again by physical means, you are born once of the water, we’re told. And again, there are people who will try to spin this into all kinds of things. But when Jesus said, You must be born of the water and the Spirit, there is no spinning to that. You don’t need to spiritualize that verse at all. He goes ahead to explain precisely what it means that that which is flesh is flesh, and that which is spirit is spirit, to be born of the water is to be born of the flesh, and to be born of the Spirit is to be born of the Spirit. It is a new birth, not meaning that my physical birth is something new. But I’ve got a new birth, I’ve been born physically. And now I have been born spiritually of the Spirit. And one is natural birth, the other is spiritual birth, I was born in a sack of water when I was born physically. And then I had to be born again, spiritually, that does not mean a new physical birth, it means I am now born physically, now I am going to be born again spiritually. And that’s precisely what Jesus was talking about there. And so he said, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Now Jesus were told, did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written, what is recorded in the Book of John is written, so that you and I may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing that you may have life, in his name, in other words, in all that Jesus is, you and I have the privilege of having LIFE. There, again, guys, is the emphasis of the New Testament on what salvation is all about. It’s in the receiving of a life. It’s not just a life, it is his life. It is the receiving of Christ Jesus, to come and take up residence in you and me in the person of the Holy Spirit of God. And when you and I put our faith in the death and the burial, and the resurrection of Christ Jesus, we are saved. If you put your faith merely in the death, and the burial of Christ Jesus, you’re not saved because you have missed the dynamic of what salvation is. And that’s why we have had such difficulty in my opinion in our discipleship in this world, is because our evangelism has been so poor, we have stopped at the cross and you hear this continuously. And if you listen to the radio or television continuously you hear this, come to the cross and be saved. Do you not? Come to Jesus to the cross and be saved, nothing could be farther from the truth. The cross was preparatory as we studied in past messages. His death was on the day of preparation, in the Hebrew calendar, the day of preparation, where there was a house cleaning to take place where the Hebrews were to go in and to clean all the leaven out of their homes, every ounce of it out of their homes, love and represented sin. And on this day of preparation, the holiday of preparation, Jesus went to a cross to do what? Prepare us for salvation. It was also a day of preparation. It was the day when he prepared us for salvation, which is life, he took away the sins of the entire world at the cross, no sin was forgotten. No sin was missed. You’re not a person who gets forgiveness, you are a person who is forgiven. And when you believe that you’re a person who gets forgiven, instead of you, a person who are forgiven, you are negating the cross of Christ Jesus. And whether you know it or not, you’re looking into the face of Jesus. And you could be as holy and nice and kind as could be but you’re looking into the face of Christ Jesus and saying you’re a liar when you said it is finished, and You’re a liar when you said I took away the sins of the entire world.

Now you can play with all kinds of sin that you want to. But I want to tell you that I cannot think of a more dramatic sin in the world than looking into the face of Jesus and saying, You lied. When Christ Jesus went to a cross, he went to a cross to take away the sins of the entire world that was preparatory. That was what prepared us for salvation. But salvation is not just getting your sins forgiven, it was a necessity, for the kind of forgiveness that God are the kind of salvation that God wanted to give us, which was eternal life, not temporal life, eternal life. And in order to give you eternal life, he had to eternally deal with the cause of death, which was sin. And that’s what he did at the cross. So you don’t come forward to get your sins forgiven, you come forward to get life, there’s a consequence to sin called death. And the only solution to death is life. And the only life available to us is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. Now, Christ did all kinds of miracles in order to prepare us for this. His life when he was here on this earth, again, was preparatory, he was preparing us for the cross and for the resurrection. In order for you and me to have an appreciation for what Jesus did, when he died, and was buried and was raised from the dead, we have to understand our condition. Why would I be excited about Christ’s forgiveness? If I didn’t think I was a person who needed forgiveness? I wouldn’t be excited about that. Who needs it? I’m basically a good person. Don’t we hear that? But you see, he had to prepare us, he had to show us Look, God is looking on the heart. You’re looking on the outside. And you’re comparing yourself to how other people and quite frankly, we can look pretty good. In our own sight, of course, we’re so blind to ourselves, we can look real good. But if we really saw ourselves as we are, well, we wouldn’t look that good, but we think we do. But we can we can say well, I’m not as bad as Oh, Charlie over there. And I’m not as bad as Oh, Minnie over there on all of this. But that’s not the issue. The issue is how you’re doing up next to Jesus. And so he had to prepare us his whole walk on this earth was preparatory for salvation for the offer of salvation to us. He told us things like the law says, don’t commit adultery, but I say unto you, I’m looking God’s looking under the skin. You’re looking at the outside as an outside act. But I’m looking at your heart, what’s going on underneath the skin down where you live, which is where you think, the attitudes of your heart. And I’m saying that if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you’ve already committed adultery. And what he’s saying there is if you’re capable of lessening, you’re capable of adultery, if you’re capable of being angry at someone, you’re capable of murdering somebody. So let’s not walk around thinking we’re some big deal, and that we’re sinless, because we’re not because God is judging us, not on our outward acts, but what is going on under the skin. Now that prepared us for the cross, prior to that time, you were looking well, I’m not doing this, and I’m not doing this, I’m not doing this and doing this. So I’m okay. He said, I’m not looking at what you’re doing. I’m looking at what you’re thinking. And when I look at what’s going on in that head of yours, you try to stand before me and tell me tell me your holy. And when I see what’s going on underneath the skin, you just try that on for size. And and and so doing he prepared us for the salvation that He was coming to offer to us.

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Bob George 14:17
And so it says that, that there are many things that Jesus did. And but he they didn’t record all of them. In one account. It says it couldn’t fill up all the libraries of the world had it recorded all the things that Christ Jesus did. But he said, I’ve recorded these things so that you by believing in Him, may have life eternal life that He came to give us. Now beginning in chapter 20, or chapter 21. Jesus is saying first of all, guys, first of all, you have to come for life. I came here to show you that you’re a sinner. I didn’t do that to put you on a guilt trip. I didn’t do it to For you to bury yourself and get into introspection and say, Woe is me, I just came to show you the truth of something. And that is that you have sinned, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So you don’t have to feel like the Lone Ranger. You got good company, everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So you don’t need to sit around beat yourself to death over this. I’m just pointing out to you your condition, there is a consequence to sin called death. It’s not physical death that will come later, but spiritual death. And you were born into this world not alive spiritually, but dead spiritually, you are alive physically, but not spiritually. Now you know your condition. Now I’ve prepared you for salvation, I’ve showed you you are a sinner, and a sin, there’s a consequence to sin called death, there’s your problem, you’re a sinner, and you’re dead. Now you’re ready for salvation. And until you understand those two things, you’re not ready for salvation. Now you’re ready, understanding what I’ve said to you. And what I pointed out to you, you are now ready to receive the only solution on the face of the earth to that those conditions, you’re a sinner that had to be forgiven, and you’re dead, that had to be corrected. Now, I want to tell you, Buddha can’t do that. Mohammed cannot do that. Christianity cannot do that. Muslim religion cannot do that. Catholicism cannot do that. Protestantism cannot do that. Protestantism, or Catholicism, or Buddhism, or the Mohammed religion cannot forgive sins and raise people from the dead. It’s a religion, it’s an institution, it can’t do anything except organize you. Only a person can forgive your sins. Only a person could give you life. And the only person who came to this earth to do that was not Mohammed. And if it was not Buddha, and it was not the Pope. And it was not Luther, or Calvin. It was Jesus Christ. And the foundation of our religion is not in some founder. That’s the founder, maybe of a religion. Jesus came to give us life. He didn’t say I came that you might have a religion and have it abundantly. He said, I came at You Might Have Life. And the only life available to us is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus.

Now he’s gonna show us something else. That not only that I come to give you life. But the only standard that I’m looking for is for you to love one another. I’m not looking for your church attendance. I’m not looking for your tithing records. And I’m not looking for all of that stuff. Because that’s what it is stuff. I’m looking for, how are you doing in the love department, I came to give you life. No greater love has any man that he lays down his life or his sheep. I showed you what love was that not only did God talk about it, but God demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, he came to die for us so that he could give life to us. He’s going to show us a story here.

After what Jesus appeared to His disciples at the Sea of Tiberius. It happened in this way. Simon Peter Thomas called Didymus. Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. Now, guys, Jesus had been away for a while. And I can just see him impetuous Peter. And he said, well, the Lord, Lord took kind of took off and let’s just say I’m going back to my boat. I don’t think Jesus was saying, let’s go out and kind of have an afternoon fishing. I think what he’s saying, I’m going back to my work. I’m going back to my boats. I’m going back to the floorcovering babies. I’m going back from a medical but I’m going back I’ve been following this Jesus, but he’s gone. So I’m going back to my boats. Let’s go out and fish. Let’s go. Get back to what we know what to do. So Simon Peter told them and they said, well, we’ll go with you. Again, if you want to go we’ll we’ll go with you. So they went out. And that night, and they caught nothing. Now that is not really a fisherman’s paradise. Now, early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore. They had been out all night fishing hadn’t caught anything. The disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. And Jesus called out to them friends. You got any fish? Now, do you suppose Jesus didn’t know that they hadn’t caught a fish? These suppose he knew full well that they had been out there all night fishing, and hadn’t caught any fish? Now guys, these were professional fishermen, were they not? They made their living, fishing. So they were professional fishermen. And now this guy standing on the side calling to us, do you have any fish? Like said ah shut up. And they answered no. And I think probably about like that, no. And he said, Throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you will find so now guys listen to this thing. Can you imagine this thing to think unto themselves? If they if they did recognize this was God? Can you hear him saying this? This guy’s a carpenter. He tells how to build a house. That’s okay. But tell me how to fish. When I’m a professional fisherman. And here’s this guy standing on the shore, and kind of belittling us. And saying throw that net out on the right hand side. And you’ll find some, but they did it. They were unable to haul the net. And because of the large number of fish, there were so many fish in there that they couldn’t even haul the net in. And then the disciple whom Jesus loved, which is John said to Peter, it’s the Lord. And as soon as Simon Peter heard him say, it’s the Lord. He wrapped his outer garment around him, for he had taken it off, and he jumped in the water. Now, isn’t this typical of impetuous Peter, he saw or heard, it’s the Lord, he recognized as the Lord and immediately said, I’m gonna go, go, I’m gonna go out and hug him, or whatever he’s gonna do. The other disciples followed in the boat, they didn’t get out of the water towing the full net of fish, for they were not far from shore, about 100 yards. And when they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. And Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish you’ve got, Simon Peter climbed aboard, and dragged the net ashore, it was full of large fish 153. But even with so many, the net was not torn.

Now, I think this is another kind of an interesting observation. The guys came in the boat dragging the net, obviously in the water, which is not that difficult to do, when something’s in the water, who got in and dragged that huge net of fish out of out of there? Peter, he didn’t say he went in with the rest of the guys. He said he went in himself. Now, that kind of shows you that Peter was not exactly a panty waste. He was a huge, strong man. And he dragged that whole net of 153 fish by himself to the shore. Now Jesus said to them, Come and have breakfast. None of the desciples dared to ask him, Who are you? They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and he gave it to them. And he did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus had appeared to His disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Well, they had a wonderful fish fry. They were all full. And after they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, he referred back to Simon, son of John Simon Bar-Jonah. That was Simon’s name before Jesus changed it to Simon Peter. It was kind of like, let’s go back to the very beginning. Let’s go back to when you first met me, Simon, bar Jonah. Do you love Me more than these? Now, it’s interesting in the Greek language, and we miss that in our English translations, the different meaning of the word of love. You have the word agape, which means God’s unconditional love. It can only be produced by God. And then you have the word philao, it’s where we would get our word Philadelphia philanthropic, philao. It means a friendship, kind of love. Now it’s interesting because Jesus said to Peter Simon bar Jonah Do you truly agape me more than these? In other words is your love for me unconditional? Do you love me more than you do these boats and this fish and all of this lifestyle that you were gonna go back to, decided to kind of go back to. Do you love me more than you love what you’ve been doing all your life, do you love me unconditionally? And the whole deal was Simon Peter do you agape me? Now it’s interesting because Peter’s response to that was yes, Lord, you know that I philao you, you know that I’m your friend. Jesus was asking, Simon Do you unconditionally love me? And Simon’s answer was, Lord, you know that I’m your friend. And that all comes out in a Greek language do you agape me Peter? Lord, you know, I philao. Then he said, Feed my lambs. You’ve caught the fish to feed your bellies. But I have called you to do something far greater than making a hungry man full. I’ve called you to go into the world, and to make disciples. And to baptize people in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, identify them with a Triune God, and to teach them to obey the things that I’ve commanded you, which is to love one another. And behold, he said, I’m with you even to the end of the age. And he identified himself with the fact that I am going to be living in you until the end of the age. And we’re going to go together into the world and to make disciples of Christ Jesus. So Feed my lambs.

Announcer 27:16
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’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 in praise the Lord. Amen.