Radio Broadcast Wednesday 12/07/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P35 (12-07-22)

We Live By Faith in and Through the Holy Spirit ~ Not by Observing the Law

~ Those that want to live under both law and grace, Paul knew exactly how bad it really was. “As a matter of fact, he saw the destructive power of it. Because folks what it does, it keeps you from walking in the life that God intended you to walk in. And that’s a walk of faith. That’s the only way you can live under grace is by faith and without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And so this is what keeps you from walking by faith, you don’t walk by faith into the law, you walk by obedience to the law, you don’t walk by faith, you walk in personal fleshly, obedience to an outward law written on stone. And you can do that, to the best of your ability, whether you’re lost or whether you’re saved, you don’t have to be saved. In fact, people who still live under those rules and regulations in the millions of people are some of the meanest people on the face of this earth. And they’re not saved at all. They don’t even believe in Jesus, not even as maybe a prophet, but that’s about the most. But boy, they’re stringent and they live out of fear. And Brother, if they steal it, get their hands cut off. So that would have a tendency to keep you from stealing. Absolutely.”

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Law & Grace, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store.

Jesus asked how does God love and accept us? And how does he expect us to live the Christian life? To answer those questions, this insightful study explores a vital issue at the heart of the Christian experience, the biblical relationship between law and grace, understanding their role in our relationship to God will bring joy, freedom and spontaneity to your Christian life. Now, let’s take A Closer Look at Law & Grace.

Bob George 0:39
Before we go to chapter 10, we’re going to take a few moments to review chapter nine, which is the real problem with the law. And that is the reason you cannot mix law and grace because there’s a problem with the law. As I’ve said, so many times, Bob that law and grace reminds me of pure homogenized milk and pure chocolate, that both of them are pure, you had pure chocolate, and you got pure milk, you mix those two together, and you end up with chocolate milk, you have you have discolored the purity of the milk, you’ve watered down the purity of the chocolate, yes. And in both instances, you end up with a hybrid breed of both of them. And that is exactly what Christianity has become today. It is a hybrid breed, we have chocolate Christianity, it’s no longer pure, it’s no longer harsh under the law, it’s no longer pure under grace, we’ve just said let’s just mix these together, and have a little grace and a little law. And we’ll have some good ol chocolate Christianity, little little chocolate milk there. And and the Scripture warns against that, it tells us you cannot live that way. Because as an example, if the law even though it was good. As an example, let me give you an example of that. You can have something that is poisoned, that has a good purpose to it. In other words, it will kill weeds, right. It can help farmers to kill the bugs that that eat up the plants that we eat. So there are poisons that serve a good purpose. Now you take that poison that has a purpose, and that is to do something else besides eat. And you put that in a food and you mix it, that poison is going to kill you. So it’s nothing wrong with the poison if it’s used, according to the way in which it was intended to be used. But when you use that poison in a way that is not intended to be used, it can kill you. You can take a hammer, nothing wrong with a hammer, it’s a phenomenal little instrument, you put that into the hands of a carpenter, he can build a beautiful house for you, and shelter for you to live in. You put that hammer into the hands of a serial killer, and he’ll bash your head in with it. Nothing wrong with a hammer, it just depends on whose hands it’s in. It depends on whether the hammer is being used for the purpose that it was intended to be used, or whether it’s being used for a perverted purpose. And so the same is true with the law, the law had a purpose. But the problem is that man got a hold of it. Man cannot live under it. The righteous requirements of the law are something that is impossible for a man to live up to in and off his own strength. And I want to emphasize that in and of your own strength.

And so the law had a purpose. But as we studied last week, and Hebrews Eight, seven and eight, it said Had there been nothing wrong with that first covenant, and that was a covenant of law, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people. And therefore he said, The time is coming declares the Lord, when I’ll make a New Covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. And so we talked about that fact as to how that New Covenant came into effect. It was new in relation to the old to the Hebrew, new period as it amounts as it relates to the Gentiles who was never under the law to begin with. And so but both of us are under a New Covenant. It’s a covenant of grace now whereby God says because of the cross their sins and lawless acts, I will remember no more. And where those have been forgiven. There is no longer any sacrifice for sin. So it says Put away your sacrifices. Today, he’d be saying put away your confession booths put away your altar calls if you’re coming down there to get forgiveness instead of coming down to receive life. Put away all of those outward manifestations. Put those put those all aside, no one is saved by getting sprinkled or dunked Water. But those things aside, and to realize that salvation is because of what Jesus did never because of what you did. Anything that I asked you to do on the exterior is merely a reflection of what I have already done on the interior. And so something exterior can never cause something to happen on the interior. And so there’s no outward act that I can do to bring about an inward salvation. Salvation is by Christ Jesus alone. Salvation is a spiritual experience, and a spirit. Spirit has to deal with my spirit and nothing on the exterior can cause that to occur. And so Christ Jesus came to this earth was born of a virgin born under the law fulfilled the law with his life upheld the law with his death, the life that he lived, qualified him for the death that he died, and the death he died is what qualifies us for the life that we live. And so he was raised from the dead, so that he could give us what we could not get on our own, that’s resurrected life, to be have a life of resurrection. So that we who are born into this world dead could be raised from the dead. And that is the purpose of salvation was to restore life to the dead.

Now, when we do not understand that, and we still think that the law is there for us to obey, and I want to say something, Bob, that walking in the Spirit, the Spirit is not going to be in contradiction to any of the laws. In other words, the Spirit is going to say, oh, it’s not important to love your God with all your heart and mind and soul, or it’s okay to commit adultery, it’s okay to steal, or it’s okay to covet know, the Spirit of God is never going to be in contrast to that. But you see, we don’t live by that law. Because if you’re under the law, then you have to be under the punishment of the law. You cannot separate the law from its punishment. And therefore, you need a way to either serve out your sentence, or to remain dead under the law. So we had to be freed from something so that we could walk in a newness of life led by the Spirit. But you see, when you’re led by the Spirit, you’re not thinking about what you shouldn’t be doing. You’re being led by a spirit that says, here’s what I want you to do. And that’s love. And love is the fulfillment of the law. So in other words, all the law can do is to show you what you’re not doing, but it cannot reward you. I mean, you don’t you don’t stop at the stoplight sometime and get a little reward from the police department because you were driving 35 and a 35 zone, you just didn’t happen. Now, if you’re driving 45, you’ll get a little notice. But it will not be a happy one. Yes. So the law is not there to reward. But under the grace of God, the grace of God is showing us not only how to live, but why that is important to live, why it’s profitable for you to live that way. And our stupid minds still rebel against those things Bob. There’s no question about it that, that we have indwelling sin living in us that is in constant rebellion toward truth of what Christ Jesus is continually trying to pour into our minds. But we walk in the newness of life, we’ve been freed from the power of sin that is in the law, so that we can walk down no longer under the power of sin, but now under the power of the Holy Spirit of God, which is the provision of the Holy Spirit of God. And when it talks about you shall receive power, that means you will receive the ability, you’re going to receive the ability to grasp power long and wide and high and deep as the love of God, I’m going to give you a power or a supernatural ability to grasp something and to do something. So that’s how we live today we live with an ability given to us by the Holy Spirit of God to walk in the newness of life. Yes indeed.

Last week, I asked our listeners to turn to Romans seven, beginning in verse 15, down through 24. And if you were not listening last week, why you might want to do that right now. And what I asked them to do is to circle the I’s, and the Me’s, and the My’s, and the myselves. In that passage of scripture, and and as you circle all of those and get down through the end of verse 24, where he says, Who will rescue me from this body of death? All you see on that page is circles. Yeah, because all that is doing is showing what I’m saying you cannot live under the law. There is no victory under the law, only condemnation under the law, there is no way to experience victory because there’s always the chance of the violation. And so there’s no victory there is no freedom. You cannot walk under the law in the freedom of the Lord nor can you walk under the law without experiencing fear of punishment from the law. The main reason that you obey the traffic signs if indeed you do, or especially if you see a police car in front of you, I’ll guarantee you you do. That’s the reason people have these fusbusters on their cars, is to give a little signal so that what it’s not so that they won’t speed it so that when they are speeding, they can detect to a police cars close by so they can slow down. Why, for fear of punishment under the law. Now, as long as you’re under a law, you’re going to live under the fear of the law, you can have even with your fusbuster you’re afraid it won’t work. And so there’s constant fear that is created the fear of punishment under the law. Now that’s why it says that it is the perfect love of God that casts away all fear. Because fear has to do with punishment, and a man who fears cannot be perfected in love. We talked about in one of our subsequent lessons, that, that the problem with the law was it could never make anyone perfect to draw near to God. And so that that idea of being complete, made complete nothing to do free from fear. That’s completeness. When I can get to a point when I am free from fear, fear of death, free of the punishment of law of the law, and the and the requirements of the law. There’s a freedom to that Bob. And so with perfect love had castaway fear, fear has to do with punishment and a man who fears cannot be what made complete or perfect in God in his sight. So I’m trying to explain to you folks that you cannot live under the law, apart from the fear of the law. Now some people say Well, that’s good, that fear is what keeps you on course, I say I’d like to interview your wife to see if you’re on course, or your husband, just see how on course you are under the law guarantee you if you’re really under your means a hornet because that’s what the law produces. You’re hard on yourself, and you’re absolutely without mercy on everybody else. That’s a legalist’s heart. That’s a person who is absorbed in self righteousness. And that’s the only kind of righteousness that you do possess is self righteousness, because you cannot produce receive God’s righteousness when you’re hanging on to self righteousness. You’re refusing his in order to hang on to yours. And so there’s a death that has to occur, folks. And when you look at that Roman seventh passage, you see I and that’s Paul, under the law, I want to do something but a can, what I don’t want to do I hate and any identifies the problem. There’s something called sin living inside of me, that absolutely prohibits me from walking in a total life that I want to live in as hard as I can try saved or lost is not the issue. It’s a man under the law. I cannot seem to live the life that I want to live and you come to a point of recognizing something about yourself, wretched man that I am. And Bob, I believe until a man and woman comes to see their own wretchedness. They’re never going to be able to rejoice in the Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, my Lord, which was Paul’s only answer and his only solution to that question, who will free me rescue me from this body of death? The answer to that in 7:25, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, my Lord. Now what he’s saying is, Jesus had to do something for me, that I could never do for myself. Anyone who died we’re told in Romans six, seven, anyone who died has been freed from sin. What are you talking about freed from sin freed from sinning? Now, it doesn’t mean you’re freed from sinning but you have been freed from the entire day God dealing with sin. God has dealt with sin. He dealt with it one time, and he’s not dealing with it again. And when he says when I come back the second time, I am not coming to bear sin. I’m coming to bring salvation for those who are waiting for me and the reason he isn’t coming to bear sin is because he’s already done that. It’s finished.

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Bob George 14:24
He is through dealing with you on the basis of sin because if he was dealing with you on the basis of sin, he has to deal with you on the basis of sin and death. You cannot separate one from the other. It’d be like the government saying I’m gonna deal with you on the basis of the law. Is there any punishment for violation of the law? No. Well, then woopee. Yeah. It reminds me how rebellious we are as people, someone told kind of the joke that this, this this duck, came in to the grocery store and sat there at the went up to the up to the grocery store clerk and said Do you have a strawberries? And clerk said no we don’t have any strawberries and the duck walked out came in next day said you have a strawberries, said no don’t have a strawberries duck walked out, came in the next day said again. Do you have a strawberries? Clerk said I’ve told you now two times we don’t have any strawberries here. And I’m gonna tell you something. If you come in asking for strawberries one more time, I’m gonna nail your feet to the ground. So the duck walks out. Next day the duck comes in he says Do you have any nails? The clerk says we don’t carry nails here. And he said good, said, Do you have any strawberries? Kind of explains our kind of explains a little bit our rebellious power of sin is in the law.

Now, Paul in Galatians 2 said it was through the law that I died to the laws that I might live to God. In other words, the power of sin is going to be in that law. It says we have died to the law, we have died to sin and God is not dealing with us on the basis of nailing our feet to the floor anymore. And so there really isn’t a need to go in and bug somebody for strawberries anymore. It just that’s just the way it is I now can live in the newness of life and go enjoy something go enjoy duck food. Now it’s through the law that I died to the law. We talked about that very briefly, Bob. And the fact is, as that compared to marriage, that you and I are in essence married to the law. But when you die, you’re free from that law of marriage, and you leave the marriage certificate in the grave, and that and are raised in the newness of life. And when you’re raised and newness of life, what you were married to remains, and you’re free to marry another. And that’s exactly what you and I did when we came to Christ, we died to the law so that I can now live to be married to another and that is Christ Jesus, the one who loved us and gave himself for me.

Now, in conclusion, we see again that the real problem with the law is you and me. The law demands us to perform and to live up to its standards. But because sin dwells in our flesh, we’re totally incapable of doing so we cannot free ourselves from the power of sin. And as a result, no matter how hard we try, or how strong or desire to do good is we will always be finding herself saying what I want to do, I don’t do and what I hate I do. Now the only solution to our struggle is to die to the law, and to come alive to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Law and Grace is more than an issue of how we live the Christian life. At the root of this issue is the source of the Christian life. Under the law, it’s you and I that are doing the living. Under grace it is Christ who lives. With us doing the living, there is no way to be free from the power of sin. Therefore, for us to be free, we must die to what keeps us under the power of the law. The Christian life is all of Jesus and none of us. And that’s why it is so important for us to die to the law. Because as long as the law is active in our lives, it is trying to live the Christian life. And we missed the experience of Christ, living his life through us. He’s the only one that can free us from the power of sin. And it is the grace of God that focuses our attention on him.

Well, Bob, let’s go now to chapter 10. And we will see in chapter 10, that you cannot mix law and grace. Obviously, if you’ve died to something, you don’t have a thing to mix anymore. If you’ve just in essence crossed up chocolate and said no more for me why you don’t have to worry about chocolate milk anymore. But in as much as the Christian world has insisted, nothing new, it’s been going on since the right after Christ died and was raised from the dead, insisting upon the commingling of these two, why, again, we must take time to deal with the fact that you cannot mix law on Grace. So if you’ll turn to page 66, Chapter 10 will begin in this lesson on you cannot mix long grace. Now we’ve just got through hopefully discussing in great detail that you and I are no longer under the law. The Scripture is very clear on this. Roman 6:14 says you’re not under law, but under grace. As Christians, we came to Christ through grace and as a Christian, we live under the grace of God, the same grace that gave us Jesus to begin with the same grace that saved us is what sustains us in our daily lives. Now the problem is that most Christians try to mingle the two. We recognize we recognize that Oh indeed we’re saved by grace but and we think we have to live under the law. We would We would call many times a person a heretic who said otherwise we think that people are heretical, who say that we’re no longer under the law. But is that very unusual? Because that’s exactly what they said about Jesus. And, of course, that’s why they tried on numerous occasions, to beat Paul half to death and to ultimately kill all of the apostles. It was because of their teaching. Have you ever heard this statement that God gives a god’s grace gives us the ability to live up to God’s law? This commingling of Law and Grace is the most prevalent error error that is plaguing Christians today. And said, it’s not a new problem. Paul addressed it throughout his letters, and primarily in the book of Galatians. Now, as a matter of fact, the mixing of long grace is commonly referred to as what is called Galatianism, because in that book of Galatians, Paul really dealt with this issue, Jesus addressed the issue and showed the damage it causes and his illustration of pouring new wine into old wineskin. So when, when God said, I’m going to give you a new covenant, I found fault with the people in the old one, I found fault with the covenant because of the people he didn’t say, I’m going to give you a new covenant so that you can commingle the old and the new. He said, I’m giving you an old covenant so that you can get rid of the old and put on the new again, if you if you’re dressed in old raggy clothes. And somebody came up and said, I’m gonna give you a new set of clothes. You don’t put those new clothes over the rags. You take the rags off and you put on the new. Nor, after you put on the new do you take the old rags and put them over the old either one you don’t have under the new or over the new you get rid of them. It’s not applicable anymore. You got a new suit, and wear it and enjoy it. Now Jesus was trying to explain, as he always did, he taught in advance of something occurring so that when it did occur, you could see the significance of it. It didn’t take you by shock. In other words, he said in Matthew 9:17, Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins. And both are preserved. In other words, the wine and the skins. Now what is that as a picture of? Well, if you poured wine into wine skins and the wine ferments, and when that occurs, the expansion takes place why the wine skins expand to its ultimate capacity, and you preserve the wine. Now in as much as those skins have already expanded to its ultimate capacity, you put new wine into that and the wine ferments and the expansion takes place, and there’s no place for those skins to expand. And so the only outcome of that is they burst. And when that occurs, you’ve lost the skins and the purpose of the skins and you’ve lost the wine and the purpose of the wine. Now that’s what happens when you try to pour the New Covenant into the Old Covenant, the Old Covenant are already been expanded to its ultimate conclusion. It didn’t need any more evidence of the fact that man cannot do it. My goodness, we had 1000s of years to prove that man cannot live under the law. And here were the Hebrews who were sincerely trying in comparison to us just give lip service to it. But I mean, man, they were really working at it. But we’re so egotistical as Gentiles we think, Oh, well, the Hebrews couldn’t do it. But we can sure he said nobody can you’ve had enough experience to see that you can’t do it. And so why don’t you quit trying and get under the New Covenant.

Now in Galatians 3:1 to 5, as Paul tried to explain that, and that was what was happening in the church of Galatia. And that’s why they call this commingling of long Grace Galatianism. In other words, your theologians refer to it in that fashion. Now, I want you to see how Bob how stringent Paul felt this heresy is because that’s what it is. Now, we don’t look at that as heresy. We look at that as it’s okay, this just good old Christianity. You get a little law you get a little grace. That’s okay. After all, we need them both. I had someone say that one time. We had some people had been sitting under our teaching for a long time. And then he went back under this other teacher that I mean is really legalistic, not a little, a lot. And someone said to them, golly, how in the world after being under Bob’s teaching on Grace, could you go back to that and said, Well, we we need a little of both. We need a little grace and a little law. Some curse there. Yeah, we need that. Now, Paul didn’t think we did need it. As a matter of fact, he saw the destructive power of it. Because folks what it does, it keeps you from walking in the life that God intended you to walk in. And that’s a walk of faith. That’s the only way you can live under grace is by faith and without faith. It’s impossible to please God And so this is what keeps you from walking by faith, you don’t walk by faith into the law, you walk by obedience to the law, you don’t walk by faith, you walk in personal fleshly, obedience to an outward law written on stone. And you can do that, to the best of your ability, whether you’re lost or whether you’re saved, you don’t have to be saved. In fact, people who still live under those rules and regulations in the millions of people are some of the meanest people on the face of this earth. And they’re not saved at all. They don’t even believe in Jesus, not even as maybe a prophet, but that’s about the most. But boy, they’re stringent and they live out of fear. And Brother, if they steal it, get their hands cut off. So that would have a tendency to keep you from stealing. Absolutely.

Now Paul is saying to people commingling these two, he says, You foolish, idiotic, Galatians subtle is a meat cleaver. He said, Who has bewitched, you know, when you get the bewitched, that means you have been deceived. Somebody’s bewitched you. Now he has to be talking again to people who are in Christ, but back under the law, just like so many of us have been. He said, I’m he’s going to explain something he said before your very eyes, Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. The Living Bible put it this way that you used to see the meaning of Christ’s death as clearly as though I’d waved a place card in front of you. In other words, I painted a picture of it. And they said, I’d like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law about again, the Spirit of God comes to live within us at the moment of spiritual birth. And as Roman says, if we don’t have the spirit, we don’t belong to Him. And that comes by faith and faith alone. Faith in Jesus Christ who died for you faith in Jesus Christ, who was raised for you faith in Jesus Christ who came to give his life to you. And we we enter into that by faith. So he’s asking, Did you receive the Spirit by faith in essence, or by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? How did you come to Christ, folks?

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.