Radio Broadcast Wednesday 12/14/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P38 (12-14-22)

Fear Not, For I Jesus Have Overcome the World!

~ “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” ^{John 16:33}

~ “So he says, I can rejoice in my sufferings, I’m going to have sufferings as a child of God. But you see, what is the solution to that peace with God, in the midst of disturbance in the world. And so in this world, I’m gonna have tribulation, but he said, Fear not I have overcome the world. And we’re many times trying to get the peace of God, when we don’t have peace with God. And I think so many times Bob that verse in Philippians, two, in all things with prayer and supplication to let your requests be known to God, and then the peace of God that passes understanding, will quiet in your heart, your mind in Christ Jesus. So we’re trying to get the peace of God, but we don’t have peace with God. And so we look at that and say, Well, I don’t want to say this out loud. But really, the Scripture just doesn’t work. I’m not gonna talk about that out loud going, but God did look bad, but it just doesn’t work in my life. Well, of course, it doesn’t work in our lives because we can’t have the peace of God until we have peace with God and you can’t have peace with God until you realize you’ve been justified by faith.”

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
As we turn to chapter 11, now called the grace of God, we’re going to we’ve examined the fact. And again, I don’t know how much more evidence we need in the Scripture. And again, I say to people who have been brought up under this doctrine for this belief system, that that all of Paul’s writings are not dealing with the 10 commandments, just the ceremonial, I want you to come to grips with what we just talked about. Why would Jesus then have talked as he did in Matthew, it is not the case of ceremonial and the 10 commandments, it’s the case you don’t go to Mount Sinai at all. That is not where we go to, we go to the empty tomb, we go to Calvary. Now we’ve examined that truth that we’re no longer under the law that we’re under the grace of God. But instead of immediately going into what it means to be under the grace of God, we’re going to spend this time together, as well as in our subsequent chapters, looking at what life is truly like living under the law. It is a life that is characterized by fear and guilt and failure and feelings of frustration and condemnation, the lack of ability to love God or others, it’s a life where there is no peace, and certainly there is no rest. It is the exact opposite of the abundant life that Christ promised, a life filled with love and joy and peace and patience and kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control. Now, until we see that the law can never accomplish God’s desire in our lives, we will never be willing to put aside that law in order to receive Him, and the newness of life that he called us to.

Now let’s look at our key verse in chapter 11, which is Romans five to one and to Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access, how? by faith, were? into this grace in which we now stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Now, folks, again, we’ve laughingly said whenever you see a therefore, while you ask, what is it therefore, and the reason that it is there for is because of what the Apostle Paul has explained in detail to us in the first four chapters of the book of Romans, and in those chapters, why you will see Paul talking as clearly as you can talk to anybody, that righteousness, and no one will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God through the observing of the law. And he dealt with that in abundance in chapter three, verse 20, you can just mark the verse Therefore, another therefore, no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law and I think it’s funny why put in his in his sight in our sight while we look good in his sight. He said, It’s filthy rags, but rather through the law, we become conscious of sin. Now, folks, did the ceremonial law make you conscious of sin? That’s it. To me, the ceremonial law was dealing with ceremonies, it was dealing with foods, it was dealing with all kinds of things, it wouldn’t make an us conscious of sin. 10 commandments is what makes us conscious of sin. And He isn’t talking again, separating ceremonial from 10 commandments. It’s the law period. All of it makes you conscious of sin, but no one but the issue is that no one will ever be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law. So if you don’t get righteous in His sight by observing the law, then why do you think you would stay righteous in His sight by observing the law? If I didn’t get saved by faith, how can I stay saved by works are how can I stay saved any other way except by works? In other words, if I’m say, bulwarks, then I have to keep my salvation by works. So we’ve talked about if I have to strive to get money, after I get it, I’ll have to strive to keep it. So if you’re going to strive to get something you’re going to have to strive to keep something and so he says, If righteousness didn’t come from the law, in other words, if I didn’t obtain my original righteousness from God through obedience to the law, then why would I think that that My righteous I’m going to remain righteous through obedience to the law. The law has nothing to do with righteousness. The law cannot produce righteousness, folks, that’s what it’s saying, no one will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God, through observing the law, whether it’s through the law we become conscious of sin.

In verse 21, then goes head to say, but now a righteousness from God not from you, from God, apart from the law totally apart from it has nothing to do with the law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. Now this righteousness again with the key here is from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe there is no difference. How come there’s no difference for all of sin, Hebrews, sin, Gentile sin, everybody sins. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. Now, folks, therefore, you go into chapter three, we go into chapter four, we’re talking about the fact that righteousness is by faith and by faith alone. Abraham believed God was credited to him as righteousness. We talked about in chapter five now therefore, since we have been justified through this faith, we have peace with God, how’s the only way that you could have peace with God? Is when the priests when the Prince of Peace comes to invade your heart. How else are you going to have peace unless it is given to you, you’re going to have temporary peace going out in the mountain someplace by a nice stream and experience some temporary peace. But when you drive home, why it’s gone, you leave it there. And about a piece of God that passes all understanding is something that does not come from where you are, but who you are. Now, since we have been justified by faith and faith alone, shouldn’t that bring some peace to your heart, my friends, I mean, to realize that God has done at all that you have absolutely been declared righteous, any sight, you’ve been declared justified any sight, you’ve been declared, totally saved any sight, you’ve been declared alive, you’ve been made a declaration that you have a life called eternal life. It’s been declared about you that you are, as far as he’s concerned, already seated in the heavenlies with him in Christ Jesus, your destiny is secured, you have what’s called an eternal inheritance. It seems to me that that would bring some peace to our hearts. If that is true. Do I ever have to worry about death? No, because I’m really not gonna die, but body’s gonna fall in the grave. But this thing’s dead anyway. It’s, it’s just a shell. There’s no life here. It’s a difference between you can have a house. But there’s a difference between a house and a home. When it talks about that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into the grace in which we now stand. And I think that it’s also interesting that as that verse continues, it says, And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and not only so but we also rejoice in our sufferings, we not only rejoice in God revealing Himself to us, and we see the glory of God and we see the magnitude of God. But it says, I can also rejoice in my sufferings now. Who in the world in there, right natural mind is going to buy that one? Because how am I going to rejoice in sufferings? Well, big, but because I’m in Christ, and I’m at peace with God, he can say, I’m gonna tell you how you can rejoice in your sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. And you see it just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though, for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated His love toward us and it while we were still sinners, he died for us. And now, since we have been justified by His blood or his life, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him? For when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, that’s when we were lost, how much more having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life? And not only is this so but we also rejoice in God through the Lord Jesus Christ, who, through whom we have now received reconciliation. What’s all his talking about, folks? Is it talking about being preoccupied with our problems? Or is it being preoccupied and by the fact that I have peace with God, what’s more important to you, getting your legs straightened out or having eternal eternal life? What’s what is, again, what is more important death or a cold?

I mean, think about that for a moment. And here we are so preoccupied with, with our cold and with our health and with our physical infirmities. And we just are so proud and you see so many people just constantly that’s all you ever see is somebody’s body supposedly getting healed. And and everybody’s rejoicing and say, Well, God wants everybody healed. Well, what about death? Did God come down and and take away the from everybody the wage is a sin, which is death, no, is your body that you’re so preoccupied going to die? Yes. Is that ever going to go to heaven? No, where’s it gonna go, it’s gonna go in a grave. God’s gonna take that and make a new body out of it. But there isn’t a thing worth saving in the old. And yet, we’re so preoccupied with the physical. And we absolutely ignore the spiritual. Folks, this bodies of ours, I don’t care how healthy you are. There are people that I know, that have never been to a doctor until they die at ninty years old. And I had I had a guy that I knew one time, he said, I tried to go to a doctor at least one once every 100 years whether need to or not. And so, but he’s healthy, but he was lost, this man was lost, totally lost. So he died with a relatively healthy body was an old one, but a relatively what we would call healthy body, but he died and his spirit unless something occurred that I don’t know about, remained dead to God separated from God. So that’s a person that didn’t even need to get physical healing wasn’t sick. But we’re so preoccupied with healing, physical healing, that we miss the point of what spiritual birth is all about, in other words, what’s going on internally, because that’s what’s going to last forever. So he says, I can rejoice in my sufferings, I’m going to have sufferings as a child of God. But you see, what is the solution to that peace with God, in the midst of disturbance in the world. And so in this world, I’m gonna have tribulation, but he said, Fear not have overcome the world. And we’re many times trying to get the peace of God, when we don’t have peace with God. And I think so many times Bob that verse in Philippians, two, in all things with prayer and supplication to let your requests be known to God, and then the peace of God that passes understanding, will quiet in your heart, your mind in Christ Jesus. So we’re trying to get the peace of God, but we don’t have peace with God. And so we look at that and say, Well, I don’t want to say this out loud. But really, the Scripture just doesn’t work. I’m not gonna talk about that out loud going, but God did look bad, but it just doesn’t work in my life. Well, of course, it doesn’t work in our lives because we can’t have the peace of God until we have peace with God and you can’t have peace with God until you realize you’ve been justified by faith.

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Bob George 13:22
So as long as you’re still trying to work for your justification, as long as you’re still trying to work, for your acceptance in the sight of God, you’re not going to ever have peace with God, there’s always something more to do. Or I’ve done, have I done enough, or have I done too little, always there. And so there’s no peace. So folks, you’ve been called out of that dilemma. You’ve been called out of that. So when you go through sufferings, you don’t have to think God’s punishing you. When you go through any type of trial and tribulation, you’re gonna have to realize from God’s vantage point, because Bob, you have peace with God, God is going to produce perseverance with you, and he’s gonna produce character in you, and the kind of character that he is looking for. I sometimes say, I’m enough of the character I don’t need any more than it’s like a guy said, Yes. He said, You know, I know that the Bible promises that he will not give you any more than what you’re able to stand. But Lord, it seems to me that your definition of more and mine are two different things. Oh, yeah. And so, we’re but God has promised that to us. Now, when we realize that character, Christian character, ultimately the ultimate of Christian character is love. And that’s where the faith, hope and love comes in. I can only be justified by faith or by by faith. My justification is by faith that produces hope in me, I have a blessed hope that I don’t have to worry as to my destiny. I don’t have to worry anything anymore in regard to my relationship with God. It’s there. And that is what produces love, that I have a God who loved me so much to accomplish all of these things for me and in me and to me and through me that now I can abide in Him and trust in him, let him live his life through me. And I don’t have to worry about my eternal security at all. It’s been secured by the one who is eternal. Now, that’s a God that I can love. And if I can turn around, and that’s a response mechanism, I cannot initiate that kind of love to God only respond to it. But that kind of love of I have a God who loves me in that degree, that I’m willing to get out of the way and let that God love through me in the same degree. And that’s what the Christian character is all about. And until that occurs, we really don’t have any character. But it’s perseverance I think through perseverance is what Paul was talking about when I’ve become convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of God. He’s persevering in the midst of terrible trials and tribulation. And in the midst of that he still is hanging on to the grace in which he now stands. And so this passage is talking about that we have gained access by faith, faith into this grace in which we now stand. And so folks, when we’re talking about standing, you’re standing and something means Brother, I am sure footed, I am standing on a rock. I’m not sitting there vacillating back and forth, I am standing on something.

Now, if I’m standing into the grace of God, let’s take just a moment to discuss, again, the ramifications of the law in our life, both as a lost person and a saved person. And then about this grace in which we now stand, what is it? And what does it mean to live under this grace of God and to stand in it? The grace of God is not something that we can define with a simple phrase or a sentence. We’ve made some feeble attempts to do that, such as God’s unmerited favor, or we go to the acrostic, Grace, G R A C E and call it God’s riches at Christ’s expense. And that’s good. But grace is so much bigger than that. As a matter of fact, Bob, you cannot separate the grace of God from the person of God. It’s not a grace message. It’s not a grace theology. It’s Jesus. And you cannot have grace apart from Jesus. So in essence, you’re talking about a Jesus message. The law is relatively easy to define. It’s the commands that were given to Moses that were written on stone. But I’ll tell you, when we’re talking about grace, you’re talking about the very nature of God, and you just can’t put that in a definition. It’s just too big. So we’re not going to sit here and try to define it, we can see grace in action through the person of Christ Jesus, and Jesus tells us that Christ is full of grace and truth. And so when we look at him and what he has done on our behalf, we can see what the grace of God is all about.

Now, in Second Corinthians eight nine, it says, For you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, as though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. Now, is he talking about personal riches? How could he be talking about personal riches when Timothy says that anyone who teaches that godliness is a means to financial gain is a man of a perverted mind. So if that’s the case, then whoever wrote Second Corinthians, which is Paul would have been a man of corrupt, perverted mind, if he was meaning that in our poverty, we might become rich and have Cadillacs and all the other things that people want you to believe that that’s what it means. Folks, we become rich in the grace of God that has been given to us. It’s internal. It’s something nobody can take away from you. Quite frankly, some of the richest people that I know on the face of this earth were the most poor material, but rich in the Lord. I think of Amy’s sister, and certainly by coming over here losing her husband or mom all kinds of things. She lives on a very meager amount of money. But that lady is rich in her relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. I had to laugh because some people were talking about maybe wanting to fix her up with with a date with some old gentleman, you know, that was not married and this type of thing. And Amy called and said, Would you be interested in her comment was Oh sis, No, don’t confuse my life. I’m having too much fun with Jesus.

Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. Now, folks, I want us to just take a moment to look at that verse. It is by grace that you’ve been saved. If it’s not that of yourselves, it’s a gift of God. Now the it as a gift of God is not faith. It is the grace of God, its salvation. And there are people who will again, take that verse and say it for it is by grace, you’ve been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it’s a gift of God and say, faith is not of yourselves, it’s a gift of God, and everyone is so in such a condition that they just couldn’t even be saved apart from faith. As a matter of fact, Bob, there is a group that believes that until you are regenerated, you can’t exercise faith. Now, that’s the group that believes, of course, that that there is no free will connected with man at all, that were so depraved that we could not even have enough faith to accept Christ. So you have to be regenerated before you could have faith. And I just wonder if they think that maybe Abraham was spiritually regenerated before he exercise faith. And I think the answer to that is, I believe that would be an impossibility if the Holy Spirit of God had not come to dwell within a person as yet, then there’s no way for them to have been spiritually regenerated, born again, as we are born again today. But at any rate, it gets down to a misunderstanding, again, of what salvation is, that salvation is the receiving of life, it is bringing and restoring the dead back to life. It is buying us out of spiritual death into spiritual life out of darkness, into life. And man’s human spirit is empty, and has been vacated from God’s Spirit, which is life, and therefore his human spirit is not dead, in regard to being dead to what is alive to and that is, it is alive to the world, but it’s dead to God. It’s been vacated by God. And so my human spirit is there’s a vacuum. And if man’s human spirit was so dead, that it couldn’t even exercise faith, he would be nothing more than an animal. Because an animal has a soul and an animal has a body. But an animal does not have a human spirit. That is in total recognition of the fact that something is missing. A dog isn’t sit around asking Who am I where to come from? Where am I going? The dog isn’t sitting down and planning his day, nor is he contemplating God, animals don’t do that. They just function by instinct. But man was designed by God in such a way as to function not by instinct, but by direction from the spirit. We’re a spiritual being, clothe and our humanity. And so when the human spirit was vacated by the life of God, it became dead to what vacated it, and that’s the life of God, but absolutely alive to the world. And if man’s human spirit was so depraved that it couldn’t even exercise faith in God, then why all over the world in the most remote areas of the world? Do you find people practicing religion, and acknowledging the fact that there is some form of a god? And why is it that man is incurably religious, if indeed, his spirit is so dead, that he couldn’t even realize that there was something outside of himself called God. And so it is not the case, that God that we are dead, and therefore God just elects those that he’s going to save. It’s the fact that men all men are born into this world dead spiritually and with a capacity to receive life, just like a caterpillar is born into this world as a caterpillar, but with a capacity of going through a process of metamorphosis, and being recreated into a new creation. He has that capacity, so do we. And so as man enters into this world, and as the Holy Spirit of God comes to all men, because it is God’s will that none should perish, and all should come to repentance. So if it’s God’s will, that none should perish, and all should come to repentance. And it would be a little ludicrous to think that his Spirit does not appear in some way or another, to all men. And what I mean by that, that someplace down the line, God’s Spirit is drawing a man unto an understanding of God. And Bob, I am convinced that I don’t care where the man is in the most remote part of the world, or in the most sophisticated city of the world, that Jesus said that anyone who no one comes to me unless he’s drawn by the Father, but he also states the fact that anyone who desires to know the Father will find out about me. So I do not believe there is a place in the world whereby a man who is sincerely wanting to know God, that God will not see to it that the message of Jesus is given to him.

That fact Bob was brought to life In my particular life through a little guy named Joshua, and I will always remember him. I was a brand new Christian at the time. And I was going to a conference as a brand new Christian. And as a new Christian that was full of zeal, and probably obnoxious zeal that I had had had people challenge. What about the heathen in Africa? And what about the person who’s never heard all of this type of thing? And I was pondering those questions and wondering about him and really did not know enough of the Scripture at that particular time to come to a conclusion. But I was very curious. And I went to a conference and lo and behold, here I was sitting next to this little guy, probably about four foot nine and height. That was from Biafra. And his name was Joshua. And so I just couldn’t wait for him to eat his meal. So I could lay the question on him. And I asked him a question. I said, Joshua, I keep getting this question you came from be Biafra in Africa. And he told about living in a jungle area and just a remote area of the world. And I said, People are always asking me, What about the heathen in Africa? So I’m asking you what about the heathen Africa? He said, When I was a relatively young boy, he said, we would sit in our little huts, and then and worship, this little thing had been carved out of a tree, and this little idol, and I was young enough, but I was bright enough to realize that if something was carved out of the tree, that the carving shouldn’t be the idol, the tree ought to be the idol of anything was going to. And then I started thinking about that, that if that’s true, then who made the tree, I want to know God. And he said, I’d look up at the sky and say, There’s got to be something out there that is keeping this whole thing together. So he said, while I was standing out on the cliff every day praying for somebody to reveal truth to be about this God of the universe, God was putting on the heart of some missionary in New York City, to come to Biafra and to share the gospel with our people. And he said, Of course, I didn’t know that and he didn’t know as they’re waiting on him, but God did. And he said, I and I gave my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, I ended up converting all of my old village to the Lord. And he said, Now I’m over in Los Angeles, trying to save the heathen in America.

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