Radio Broadcast Monday 09/23/2024

Classic Christianity – Book of Galatians P25 (09-23-24)

Church is NOT a Building on The Corner of Walk and Don’t Walk

~ Our understanding of “church” today for most everyone has become a substitute to knowing Jesus. Most people have no clue what the church really is, but they will talk about all the wonderful things their “church” is doing. They love their “church.” They love their priest, or their pastor. They love the church programs. They love singing in the church choir. They love pretending they are holy by attending their “church.” And all of it is filled with hypocrisy. Because people have substituted their church and don’t have a clue what salvation is in Christ Jesus, they are a slave to the lies of Satan. Oh, they will tell you they go to church to get their sins forgiven, or to take communion, as though that saves them. They will go and be baptized in their “church” for various motivations to do other things. They go to “church” on Sundays or Saturdays, or special Wednesdays in order to show their commitment to their “church.” They will tell you that they are going to “church” as though it is a place they go to, all the while never coming to the knowledge of TRUTH.

Church is NOT a Building, it is the true Born Again people of God. Most are not born again of the Spirit of God, because they don’t even have a clue what that means. They think they are alive, but indeed they are Dead, and the word of God tells us that. They don’t have a clue that the wrath of God is DEATH. They have no idea that they are under the wrath of God right this very moment in time. For without the Spirit of God, they are nothing more than the walking dead.

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.” John 3:36

“For Christ is the end of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.” Romans 10:4

Brothers, if someone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him with a spirit of gentleness. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

Each one should test his own work. Then he will have reason to boast in himself alone, and not in someone else. For each one should carry his own load. Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word must share in all good things with his instructor.

Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return. The one who sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; but the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to the family of faith.

See what large letters I am using to write to you with my own hand!

Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. They only do this to avoid persecution for the cross of Christ. For the circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.

But as for me, may I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is a new creation.

Peace and mercy to all who walk by this rule, even to the Israel of God.

From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers.

Amen. Galatians 6:1-18

Pray to God:

Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

Lord Jesus, teach me the truth of the world today and give me the wisdom to know the truth and identify the lies of the devil. Thank you God.”

~ “You see, we have used going to church as a substitute for a relationship with Christ, Jesus. And after a while, church becomes not a supplement to the Lord, but a substitute for the Lord. And we, we are so proud about how many times we go to church. And of course, if you can get in the church that goes more than others, you really can get holy. And so you if you get in a church that has a church service in the morning and one in the evening, and then one on Wednesday. Now, if you go in the morning, I was told this, if you go in the morning, you’re semi you may not even be in the Lord, you’re just in the building. If you go in the evening, you’re really in Christ. But if you go on Wednesday, you’re ready to make your ascension into heaven. And then if you go to visitation on Monday, on top of that, you’re already there. You just don’t know it. And we got all of these things that we build up, that we put outward attention to, and you can do all of those things, my friends, and not even know the Lord. You don’t have to know the Lord to go to church. I went to church for 36 years without knowing the Lord. I’d hate to think how long you went. You don’t have to know the Lord to go on Sunday evening. You don’t have to know the Lord to enjoy the choirs and the orchestras. You don’t have to know the Lord for that. That’s fun stuff. You pay money to go to a concert to hear that stuff. You don’t have to pay there, unless you tithe. And so you got all these outward things to the Hebrew, it was circumcision. To us, it’s tithing or baptism, or any of these outward things that they say. If you do, you’re a true Christian. And we have to understand those things, and we have to understand that you can sit in a church service and not hear a word that is said. And you get in the car and someone says a good sermon, yeah, it was, what do you say? Don’t have a clue. I was in Zululand. I parked my body and I moved. I was out someplace else. I used to sit and think about my business. You. And I loved silent prayer, because I could think about it without the noise going on. Never hear a word that was said, never hear a word. Or you might catch a glimpse every now and then, but never a word. But you’re there. And you tell your people I was there.” ~ Bob George

Bible Study Booklets

Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the letter to the Galatians. Available for download the complete series on the Book of Galatians. The Letter to the Galatians is key to understanding Law and Grace, the new covenant, and being one in Christ Jesus.

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 0:28
Let’s turn to the sixth chapter of the book of Galatians, going to move down to 11 as we come to the end of this book, the apostle Paul, in conclusion, is confirming a couple of things. First of all, he’s saying, see what large letters I use to write to you with my own hand, as I explained briefly last week, that you had people in those days who would write letters and sign the apostles names to them. There’s a whole segment of literature like that called the pseudepigrapha, and just kind of a long name that means, I don’t know, but they were letters that were written by someone else, other than the apostles, and there were reasons for protecting those things because in the Scripture and in the canon that we hold in our hands today. And incidentally, that word canon is the same word in almost every language, whether it be German or Greek or whatever, whatever it is, the words canon and it means a rule. And so in order for these books to be in the book that we hold in our hands today, it had to be written by an apostle or an amanuensis of an apostle, which means a scribe. And so as the Apostle Paul would have written this book, he would have dictated that to a scribe. And many people believe that one of the scribes that he had was Dr Luke, who traveled with him and who would write down as the apostle Paul, would communicate these truths. The Apostle Paul had a thorn in his flesh that he talked about, and no one knows for sure what that thorn in the flesh was. But there’s another indicator in scripture where he talks about the fact of his eyes being weak, and I’m of the opinion that that was the thorn in his flesh was poor eyesight, and even to the point of his eyes being unsightly to look at in one form or another. And yet he said, you welcomed me like I was an angel from God. And so he writes, look at the large letters that I’m writing and signing my name to prove that this letter came from the Apostle Paul. And the reason, as I said, for that is because of the number of letters that would have been sent throughout the church with their signatures on it that they had nothing to do with kind of like we had today. And so what he did was to sign his letters in such a way that no one could mistake the fact that this letter came from the Apostle Paul. And so we are very certain when we hold this Bible in our hands today, that the letters that are in these books were written by an apostle or an amanuensis of an apostle, and so we know that it’s the word of God. Now that would be in comparisons to as an example, what you have in between in what we call the Catholic Bible, which is really not a Catholic Bible. It’s just the Old Testament and New Testament, with a group of writings in between. And you don’t have to be a genius to read any of those letters and to know that it’s not scripture. But yet, they kept them in there in retaliation to Luther, who said to take them out. So they kept them in because of Luther. And so we kind of have a little history of our Bible coming together as we know it today. It had to be in the Old Testament, written in Hebrew by a prophet, and in the New Testament, it had to be written by an apostle or an amanuensis of an apostle.

And so he says that, look, see what large letters I use to write to you with my own hand. Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. Now again, the circumcision group, and that was the Hebrews, the leadership among the Hebrews, the circumcision group, they were saying that you could not be a true Christian unless you became a Hebrew. And one of the outward signs for being a Hebrew was to be circumcised. And that was a big thing. For the people in those days, that was the identification for being a Hebrew. And so they were going to the Gentiles and saying, if you’re going to be a true Christian, you must be circumcised. And Paul talked about that, and the people talked about that, and they had counsels on that, where they in the council said that is not true. That was a sign for the Hebrew, but it has nothing to do with the Gentile. And so he’s saying to them, they’re trying to make a good impression. They want to make a good outward impression. Now, folks, I want to think about that for a minute. How many of you live to make a good outward impression, but inside you’re a mess? We we go to church, hi there! We’re so happy. We get in the car going home, and we’re as miserable as a bear. You get your kids in the back seat, knock their heads together and then smile out the window. Good to see you, brother! We live to make good impressions, don’t we? We do something and we tell everybody the good things that we’ve done, how many of you communicated the bad things you’ve done this week to your friends? So glad you called Barry. Let me tell you of my failures this week. We are in bondage to making good impressions, outward impressions on people. Are we not? But folks, who you are is who you are at home, not who you are here, because you can act nice here, it’s only an hour, so everybody can act nice for an hour, but it’s Who are you at home? Who are you at work? Are you mean as a hornet? Are you miserable? Or is the joy of the Lord a reality in your life? Because we live to make outward impressions. I want to make an outward impression on everybody. Do you know that’s the main reason for people going to church is to make an outward impression on people. And like my daughter said when she was in college, all the guys and gals used to get all dressed up in their suit and tie and go to the cafeteria to make everybody think they’d been to church.

You see, we have used going to church as a substitute for a relationship with Christ, Jesus. And after a while, church becomes not a supplement to the Lord, but a substitute for the Lord. And we, we are so proud about how many times we go to church. And of course, if you can get in the church that goes more than others, you really can get holy. And so you if you get in a church that has a church service in the morning and one in the evening, and then one on Wednesday. Now, if you go in the morning, I was told this, if you go in the morning, you’re semi you may not even be in the Lord, you’re just in the building. If you go in the evening, you’re really in Christ. But if you go on Wednesday, you’re ready to make your ascension into heaven. And then if you go to visitation on Monday, on top of that, you’re already there. You just don’t know it. And we got all of these things that we build up, that we put outward attention to, and you can do all of those things, my friends, and not even know the Lord. You don’t have to know the Lord to go to church. I went to church for 36 years without knowing the Lord. I’d hate to think how long you went. You don’t have to know the Lord to go on Sunday evening. You don’t have to know the Lord to enjoy the choirs and the orchestras. You don’t have to know the Lord for that. That’s fun stuff. You pay money to go to a concert to hear that stuff. You don’t have to pay there, unless you tithe. And so you got all these outward things to the Hebrew, it was circumcision. To us, it’s tithing or baptism, or any of these outward things that they say. If you do, you’re a true Christian. And we have to understand those things, and we have to understand that you can sit in a church service and not hear a word that is said. And you get in the car and someone says a good sermon, yeah, it was, what do you say? Don’t have a clue. I was in Zululand. I parked my body and I moved. I was out someplace else. I used to sit and think about my business. You. And I loved silent prayer, because I could think about it without the noise going on. Never hear a word that was said, never hear a word. Or you might catch a glimpse every now and then, but never a word. But you’re there. And you tell your people I was there.

I remember when I was in business, I went down to San Diego with two guys who were President and the Vice President of the carpet company, one of them that I represented, and we went out on a complaint of carpet that was laid at a church. And the night before, we had been out on the town and and came home, probably was taking a look at that complaint with it, with a headache, not feeling real good, all of us. And we went into this church. And I went into this church, I looked around, I said, This guy looks like the church I go to and this guy said, you go to church? And the other one said, you go to church? I said, Well, of course, I didn’t see anything contradictory about being smashed on Saturday night and go to church on Sunday. I didn’t see anything contradictory about that. Yeah, I went I go to church. They couldn’t believe it. Well, today I look back and say, I don’t blame them. I couldn’t believe it either, but I saw no contradiction to that at all. None at all. People say you didn’t see any? None, none. Because going to churches meant you went in church, you parked your body for an hour and put your dollar in the offering plate and tried to look to see if there’s a change. So you get some back, but there wasn’t, so you left it there and moved on to the next week. And that’s all there was to it. You have church all over the country where people are sitting on Sunday with no meaning to it. So if you’ve had good church exposure, praise God for it, because I want to tell you it’s not common. I sat in church for 36 years of my life, and never one time ever heard the gospel. I was in a liberal church. I didn’t know it was liberal. I didn’t know it was anything. I never listened to anything, but I knew that if I did listen, I wouldn’t have heard anything anyway, because it was all liberal. And folks, that’s the major condition of the Church of Jesus Christ today, not people who are proclaiming truth, but people who are proclaiming nonsense.

And so we have to understand that there’s an outward appearance that we love to give to people. We got this outward thing, and we love to con people, and we sound so nice. And you’ll see that in sales, you’ll see it on the phone. I’ll see that on the phone, where people are so nice on the phone. And the thing of business. I know who they are, and I’m not saying that to be discrediting anything, but I can remember that there was a time when I had spent a little bit of time working and helping Zig Ziglar in his positive thinking deal, and he had a girl that worked for him, and she had called me on the phone for counseling. And so I called her back, and she answered the phone. It’s a great day at Zig Ziglar. And I said, Joan, of her of death. This is Bob, George. Oh, my God. Am I glad you called. Well, let me get to the other phone. Get the other phone. About to die inside. But it’s a great day at Zig Ziglar. That’s how phony we are, folks. Do we realize how phony we can be on the outside? Just phony as can be. On the outside everything’s wonderful, everything’s good, but inside our guts are hanging out. You want to know something? Jesus isn’t looking at her outside. He’s looking at her guts. What’s going on underneath the skin. Not what’s going on in the outward appearance, but what’s going on underneath the skin. Where are we? Where are we living right now? Underneath the skin.

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Bob George 14:37
And so this thing of trying to please people and to look good outwardly is not unusual. It’s been going on for centuries. So he says in this particular case that the only reason that these people are doing this is to avoid being persecuted of the cross. Now who got responsible for killing Jesus at the cross? Who was the blame laid on there? The Jews. Now, did the Jews execute Jesus? No, who did that? The Romans. What did the Jews do? Encouraged it. They were the motivation behind it. But the but the Gentiles carried it out. So who killed Jesus? The Jews and the Gentiles. But in essence, you killed Jesus and I killed Jesus because of my sins, but the Jews got credit for it. Now here they had a way and a means of being set apart from the rest of the world. What was it? Circumcision. So if I can get the Gentiles circumcised, no one’s going to know whether I’m a Hebrew or not, because everybody’s circumcised now, and that has gone on to this very day, and I won’t go into the details of that, but I think we know that to be true, that circumcision is no longer a sign of being a Hebrew. So that was accomplished, and that was one of the ways in which they avoided being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Now he’s saying about these people who are looking for outward impressions, that even to those who are circumcised, not even those who are circumcised, obey the law, yet they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh again. How does that relate to this modern day? I don’t care what’s going on in your heart, just show up. I’m not interested in you. I’m interested in numbers, nickels and noses is what I’m interested in.

And so it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re growing in the Lord or not. I could care less about that. I just want a large number of people to show up so that I can boast in how many people show up. Any of you been involved in that, around that? And so everything is outward, and we brag on how many people we have in our congregation, we don’t have a clue what’s going on inside their hearts, whether they’re in the Lord, whether they’re not in the Lord. And of course, then the way to do that is to promote baptism, not baptism as proof of salvation, but as a means of joining my church. So the way that you become a member of my church, not a member of Jesus’ body, but a member of my church is to get baptized. And so we baptized hundreds last year, and because we’ve convinced ourselves and others that that’s a means of joining the church, and then we may throw a little Jesus in there. That’s also a means of coming to Christ. We throw that in just in case we might need it. But basically it’s, this is church membership. When I was a kid, we went to church in the Christian church, it was a branch of the disciples of Christ, and in that church, every Sunday you recited the Lord’s Prayer, and every Sunday they had communion, and every Sunday the cup was passed by with the bread. And I loved grape juice, and every Sunday that grape juice came under my nose, and I sat there dying to get some grape juice. And I used to, you know, have those little glasses, and after it was passed, I’d get the little glasses out and lick the bottom out of them just to get me some grape juice. And finally, one time, I asked Mom, Mom, how do I get to drink grape juice on Sunday? And said, by being baptized, I said, lead me to the waters. And I was baptized the next Sunday, and I got my grape juice. Now, that’s a phenomenal motivation, isn’t it, for being baptized. And that lasted for a while until one of my buddies asked me to go to the Presbyterian Church.

And what was spiritual about the Presbyterian Church is it had a basketball court in the basement. Now the ceiling was only about eight foot tall, so you could slam duck when you were five foot tall. But it didn’t make any difference to me. It’s a basketball court, and Reverend Spurgeon was loved kids had a phenomenal youth ministry in that little church. 20,000 people, 300 kids marched down the aisle on Easter Sundays with palm branches singing up from the grave. He arose. None of us knew the Lord. He didn’t know the Lord, but we sang songs. And in order to play basketball in the basement, you had to be in the choir. And so every kid in the church was in the choir, and his concept was, I don’t care whether you can sing or not. Some people are off key low, some are off key high. It’ll all balance out in the end. Just open up your mouth and make a joyful noise unto the Lord and sing. And that’s what we did. What did it sound like? I don’t know, but we sang, and we got to play basketball and we got to go out on he bought a bus that was unheard of back in my days, for a church to have a church bus, turned a bus, went out to Memorial Park. And Amy and I were just back there recently, and we played ball there, and we’d have take our lunches out and have a prayer with us. And all those things were true, and they were good. It was a good environment to be in, but no one knew the Lord. No one knew the Lord, but we had a nice youth ministry, and we had a nice program, and today, the same is true. You got a program. You got a youth program. The good you and that’s what, where am I going to go? Where they got a good youth program. Doesn’t matter, we know the Lord or not just activity. And we got a good singles department, and we got a fantastic young marriage department. We got the auto adult and here the Bible says we all ought to mix together and Oh, and here we separate. You got the old adults and the medium adults and the young adults and all of this, and you got all of these classes down so the people can relate to each other, because that’s what’s important, isn’t as relating to each other, and that’s the condition of our organized church today, is programs and more money and more buildings to house what? Here in the Gospel? No, programs. And so before long, as we’ve talked about before, what is no a supplement to becomes a substitute for, and it’s subtle, and anyone who thinks that they’re not subject to that something’s wrong in your head, you’re not aware of the spiritual battle that is going on in the hearts of man today. You’re not aware of what Satan wants to do to you, and that is to deceive us and to get our focus off of him and on to anything except him. Satan does not care what you have your eyes on. As long as they’re off of Jesus. That’s all he cares Christian activity. Praise God. He likes that. It doesn’t make a difference as long as they’re off of Jesus.

And so we have to understand that the apostle Paul, in writing this book, is trying to drive us to our senses and trying to get us to see it’s not activity. It is not flooded games that this Christian life is a serious matter. It doesn’t mean we walk around looking like we just ate a skunk, because we have joy in the midst of trials and tribulation. But he says, In this world, you’re going to have trial and tribulation. I want to tell you, folks, there’s not a person sitting in this room that doesn’t have trials and tribulation, is there. And so in this world, you’re going to have it. If you don’t have it externally, we have it internally. And the issue is where you going to go to? And you see, we get all of these young people, especially all wrapped up in our youth groups, in our high school youth groups. What happens when you go to college and your youth group in there anymore? I’ll tell you what happened to probably eight or 10 people that I know of. They all died of AIDS and became homosexuals when they got to college. They might have been in high school, I don’t know, but I do know they’re dead today from AIDS sitting in the Baptist Church singing their hearts out. Folks, you don’t have anything to draw upon. If you don’t have Jesus, you cannot draw upon your youth program. When you don’t have a youth program, you can’t draw on your young marriage class. When you don’t have a young marriage class, if you’re by yourself, all you have is Jesus, and we better have a relationship with him and someone that we can talk to and relate to and pour our heart out to and be ministered to by Him, because he’s always he’s all you’ve got.

And so to these outward appearances that we get so hung up on, they’ll kill you, and they’ll put you in bondage to desiring outward appearances and acceptance by man. Paul said, If I was if I was teaching the law, I would not be persecuted by man. I’m not here to be pleasing to man. We’re not. Thing for sheriff. We are children of the living God who’s under a continual spiritual warfare and an attack every moment of our lives by the one who says, I have only one goal for you, to kill, steal and destroy everything in your life. I’ll steal your marriage from you, if I can, I’ll destroy your marriage from you. I’ll destroy you. I’ll destroy the ministry. I’ll destroy anything that I can get my hands on, if you allow me. And that’s the enemy that is nudging into your in my head every single moment of the day. And I want to tell you fun and games don’t contradict that. And so he’s saying to us that not only those who are circumcised obey the law. The people were saying, be circumcised at the part of the law, but I don’t obey the law. What are the requirements of the obedience to the law? If you’re under the law, it says, first of all, you’re under a curse. Why are you under a curse? Because you can’t obey the law, and what’s the wages of sin under the law? Death. That’s the curse of the law. As long as you hang on to one piece of the law, he says, You may as well hang on to all of it, because if you’re trying to obey one law, you’re obligated to obey all of it. We studied that, didn’t we, and it says in there that if you, if you kept the entire law and just violated one law in all of your life, you violated all of them. And so he’s saying to you, if you’re under the law, you’re under a curse. So if you’re going to hang on to the law of circumcision or baptism, or any other law that you hang on to for salvation, you’re under the curse of death because you’re obligated to obey all of it and all of its outward signs, outward impressions that mean nothing to God.

Announcer 27:11
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