Classic Christianity – Do or Done – Part 2 – 8-12-26
~ You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. What matters is faith expressing itself through love. Galatians 5:4-6
The apostle Paul always told it like it was. He refused to allow any kind of fake law keeping. For he knew, that a little leaven spoils the whole loaf. In otherwords, if he would have allowed it, and did not write about it, people would automatically assume it was okay to try and keep part of the law. And so when these fake law keepers came into groups of people (local church assemblies) Paul would call them out on it. And he too was telling them that they were falling back under the law, because they had fallen from pure grace. They thought a little law was okay. They thought they could simply dismiss saying anything about it, not calling it out themselves, and cover their eyes to what they were seeing right before them.
Is it any different today? Think about it, you talking with a friend, or even in the online world, we simply gloss over the truth. We give likes on friends posts that are actually going directly against God’s New Covenant. Oh sure, they most of the time talk about grace, but then they throw in a little bit of law every once in a while. And we say to ourselves, “Oh, I don’t want to hurt their feelings, and I certainly don’t want them to get angry at me,” and we use even something that has been used in the wrong context of not judging others, as an excuse not to tell them TRUTH. Yet we see in the above verses that Paul did not pull any punches. He was not concerned about what they thought of him, because the Truth in love was more important than anything else. And love does not mean that you simply allow someone to go down the path that God desn’t want someone to go down. Love steps in and does right and always strives to protect someone from harm, even if that is from themselves. And the harm here is folks, that if you let yourself get even under a little bit of law, it mixes in and spoils the whole loaf, and the loaf is you too. And this is EXACTLY what the apostle Paul was doing. He was calling the Glatians out for their having fallen from grace and gone back to some form of law keeping. Because they had lost clear sight of the TRUTH of the Word of God, and needed to be brought back to the proper foundation. Not a foundation built on law keeping, but one that is built on the Love of Truth. Jesus Himself is our TRUTH.
And so we too have a responsiblity, as part of the body of Christ, to tell it like it is. To call the error of their ways in thinking that a little bit of law is good, and point out to people they need to place their full weight on the proper foundation. Jesus Himself. The One who did it all at the cross.
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Pray to God:
Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?
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.”
~ Bob George discusses the concept of grace and law in Christianity, emphasizing that falling from grace means reverting to the law and human effort for salvation. He critiques the idea of self-righteousness and stresses that true righteousness comes through faith in Christ. Bob contrasts the Old Covenant’s conditional forgiveness with the New Covenant’s unconditional forgiveness. He highlights the importance of faith expressing itself through love, as outlined in 1 Corinthians 13, and warns against indulging in fleshly desires. Bob also addresses the massive misuse of the Lord’s Prayer by NOT addressing the Truth of it, and the need for a clear understanding of the Old and New Covenants to avoid biblical contradictions.
Now he says you’ve fallen away from grace back under the law, but by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. It’s by faith that we await through the Spirit righteousness. Who is your righteousness? Christ Jesus. It is because because of Him, God, that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for you what? Your righteousness, your holiness, your sanctification, your everything. He’s your everything. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value at all. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Now, folks, is this a popular message to the HEBREWS? Their identification to the whole world that if you needed proof who I am was circumcision. It was identification. I am a HEBREW, and I can prove it by my circumcision. Their whole identity was wrapped up in circumcision, at least for the males. He is coming to them and saying, “It has no value at all, none at all. The only thing that counts, and look at this, guys, is faith expressing itself through love. Faith expressing itself through love. How you doing in the love department, self-righteous ones? You want to test it again? I think it’s good for us to do this check every now and then, let’s go back to First Corinthians.
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Bob George 0:28
Well, let’s turn to Galatians five. It says, “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from grace. Now, does that mean you’ve lost your salvation? Do people teach that? Yeah, you’ve fallen from grace, man. You’ve lost it. What’s he talking about here? What’s the subject here? Law and grace. When you’ve fallen from grace, what did you fall back to? The law. It’s not you lose your salvation. You’ve gotten yourself back under the law. You’ve fallen from the grace of God that saved you, and trying to perfect yourself by human effort. He just got through talking about that in Galatians three. You foolish, idiotic Galatians, who has mesmerized you, hypnotized you, and cast an evil spell upon you? You used to see the meaning of Christ’s death as clearly as though I painted a place card in front of your face. Have you gone mad? He said. I want to ask you a question. Did you receive the Spirit of God by obeying the law or by believing what you heard? Well, after beginning by faith, believing what you heard, why are you now trying to perfect yourself by human effort, that’s the question. Why are you now going back under the law and trying to perfect yourself under the law instead of allowing Jesus’ Spirit to perfect you? Why are you working at what you can’t work at? Why aren’t you resting in the completed work of Jesus and accessing His life instead of trying to produce his life?
Now he says you’ve fallen away from grace back under the law, but by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. It’s by faith that we await through the Spirit righteousness. Who is your righteousness? Christ Jesus. It is because because of Him, God, that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for you what? Your righteousness, your holiness, your sanctification, your everything. He’s your everything. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value at all. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Now, folks, is this a popular message to the HEBREWS? Their identification to the whole world that if you needed proof who I am was circumcision. It was identification. I am a HEBREW, and I can prove it by my circumcision. Their whole identity was wrapped up in circumcision, at least for the males. He is coming to them and saying, “It has no value at all, none at all. The only thing that counts, and look at this, guys, is faith expressing itself through love. Faith expressing itself through love. How you doing in the love department, self-righteous ones? You want to test it again? I think it’s good for us to do this check every now and then, let’s go back to First Corinthians.
Again, we’re not going to elaborate or go on this for any length of time. I just want anybody, anybody who, because y’all look good to me, but there may be someone still sitting there struggling with your self-righteousness, and I don’t know who you are, but I’ll guarantee you there’s one in here at least, and so if there’s one, we’re going to try to drive some sense into our heads, because he says the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. So, let’s take a look at First Corinthians 13, love, because this is God’s love for you first and foremost, and then, as we understand, that’s how God loves me. Now I got something to love you with. So let’s see how we’re doing in the love department. I am always patient. Do we still have a self-righteous one left? This doesn’t mean I’m patient sometimes, and sometimes I’m not patient. It says, “Love is patient. That means continually. My nature is patient. Love is kind. Ah, boy, I wouldn’t think an unkind thought if my life depended on it. Love never envies. Love never boasts. I never boast about myself. Love is never proud. You like that one? Love is never rude. Never been rude day by my life. Love is never self-seeking. I look out of for others over and above myself every moment of the day. Let’s see how we’re doing here. Love is never easily angered. Is anyone left in a self-righteous department? I’m just curious. Love keeps no records of wrongs. I don’t keep a filing cabinet on Amy’s wrongs. I keep it on my computer. You can pull them up faster that way. You keep records of people’s wrongs? You bring them up when they need them. Great tool, aren’t they?
Love doesn’t delight in evil, but rejoices in truth, especially when someone admonishes me. I love it when Amy tells me what’s wrong with me. Rejoice in it. She says, “Thank you, sweetie, for that. Love always protects others. Love always trusts others. Love always hopes the best for others. Now, how’d you do? Now, folks, I want to say that if you’ve got self-righteousness in you, that should have destroyed it, because that’s the that’s the goal. That that’s the that’s the line, not this other garbage we go through, but how you doing the love department? And I don’t know about you, but I don’t do too well in all this all the time to you? And that shows me my need for Christ. When I look at First Corinthians 13, the demands on that. The only thing I can say is, Lord Jesus, I need your help. I need your life. I need your love. And also, incidentally, Lord, thanks for your mercy. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love, faith in the God of love, who gives you love so that you can give others love, and He says that’s all that counts.
Now, can you love apart from your knowledge of his love for you? No. Now that’s why you can’t walk around with this lovey-dovey stuff that people come by. That’d make any difference about doctrine. Just love each other. Listen, if you don’t know doctrine, you don’t have anything to love somebody with. If you don’t know the truth of the love of God for you, and the grace of God for you, and the forgiveness of God to you, then you don’t have anything to give. Old Covenant, New Covenant. Under the new, under the Old Covenant, an issue. We’ve talked about it. Talk about it because it’s important to talk about. Under the Old Covenant, was forgiveness conditional or unconditional? Totally conditional. That if you do not forgive your brother here on earth, your Father in heaven will not forgive you. It’s very interesting to me that how in the Christian community, that two things that we’ve memorized, most everybody has memorized Lord’s Prayer and First John one nine. I would imagine that everybody who’s a Christian, or everybody who goes to Christian church, has probably memorized those two verses. Do you agree with me? At least one of them, Lord’s prayer for sure. Now, isn’t it strange that the Lord’s prayer was given? According to number one, it’s not the Lord’s prayer. The Lord didn’t pray for forgiveness. It’s a disciple’s prayer. Was it ever prayed again? I mean, did Paul ever pray that prayer? Did you ever hear writings of Paul praying it? Peter, author of Hebrews, John? No, no, no, nobody prayed it. Why? It wasn’t given to repeat over and over again. As a matter of fact, he warned us before he gave it to us that don’t pray like the heathen do, who take a prayer and pray that over and over and over again. So what do we do? Take his prayer and pray it like the heathen do over and over and over again. Forgive us our sins, our debts, as we forgive those who sin or have debts against us. And then we say, “Amen, piously. We don’t keep reading, because it goes ahead to say, “For if you do not forgive your brother here on earth that you can see, your Father in heaven will not forgive you. Now I want to ask you, how in the world do you reconcile that with God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting our sins against us, and He not only died for our sins but the sins of the whole world? How are you going to reconcile? How are you going to reconcile those two? Is that a contradiction or is it a contradiction? But is it a contradiction? No, it’s Old Covenant and New Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, forgiveness was conditional. If you don’t forgive your brother, your father in heaven will not forgive you.
Under the New Covenant, where all of your sins were what? Taken away, God was in Christ taking away the sins of the world. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Forgiveness is over. Under the New Covenant. Forgive one another how, as Christ Jesus forgave you. Under the old, if you don’t forgive, your Father won’t forgive. Under the new, forgive as Christ forgave you. And when you do not understand the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, you will be continually confused in your biblical understanding, and you’ll run across these passages of Scripture that appear to be that they contradict each other. What do you do with those? Read them faster and yell louder and hope nobody catches it. It’s there, and there’s a contradiction between the two. If you do not understand old and new, and you’re going to look at the Bible and say the Bible contradicts itself, that’s where liberal theology comes in. Is it says it contradicts itself, and I say you’re right; it does contradict itself unless you understand the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. But when you understand the difference between the old and the new, then again you understand one is due and the other is done. And when Christ cried out from the cross, “It is finished, he meant, “it’s finished. And that’s why you and I live today under a New Covenant. It’s a covenant of grace.
Now it says it hasn’t any value. The only thing it counts is faith expressing itself through love. Now he says to them, and my goodness, folks, this is applicable to the so-called Christian world today. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you? I love that word, cut in on you. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? What is the truth you’re supposed to be obeying? That you’re free in Christ. We’re to be resting in that. Can you rest? Could you ever rest if your mindset is that I’m going to find acceptance in the eyes of God through my good works? Could you ever rest? Why couldn’t you rest? How would you ever know whether you’ve done enough? Could you ever rest by thinking that I am responsible for keeping my sins forgiven? Is that what religion does? I’m responsible for keeping my sins forgiven. I got to go to the confession booth. I got to do the altar call. I got to do the First John one nines. I’m responsible for keeping my sins forgiven. Can you rest with that, folks? Be honest with yourself. Can you rest in that? How would you ever know if you got them all? We’re too dumb to even know what sin is, 90% of the time. Because the Scripture says that which is not of faith is sin. How many times a day do you not exercise faith in Christ Jesus, and how many times would we be confessing that one, you can’t rest. M______ L_____ wore his knees out, confessing and confessing and confessing. Finally, one of the professors told him to cut it out. How would you know he got them all? What if you forgot one? What if you forgot one and then died?
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Bob George 14:40
Would not these questions be the most logical question in the world to be asking? You can’t rest in the law. You can only rest in grace. You can only rest when something’s been accomplished for you. When it’s finished, it’s done. It’s over. Then you can rest. Did He call us to rest? Absolutely. Absolutely, said to enter into the Sabbath rest, resting from our works, just as he did from what His. What kind of works are you talking about? Trying to work to get accepted. How many of you have been trying to get accepted, working to get accepted by God, working at it? Does it work? How do you know if you’ve done enough? You can’t get acceptance in the eyes of God through your working. You only get accepted through His working. It says in the Scripture, “You are accepted where? In the beloved. He not only loves you; He accepts you in the beloved, just as you are. The only question that will ever be asked to a person by God is, “What did you do with my Son? Did you accept him, or did you play religion?
You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from observing, obeying the truth? This truth of the grace of God, I’m trying to teach you. That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. That kind of persuasion to earn your acceptance for God that comes from where? The devil. In the name of Jesus comes from the devil. And if you won’t believe me wearing a shirt like this, I’ll put on a suit. And if you won’t believe me in my suit, I’ll put on a robe. And if you won’t believe me in my robe, I’ll put on a stupid-looking hat. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll get a steak that I can carry. And it goes on and on and on to try to do what? Get people to believe you, the lie that I’m feeding you. And he says, “This kind of persuasion doesn’t come from the one who calls you. It comes from the devil. A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. All it takes is a speck of leaven to spoil the whole loaf. We tolerate the commingling of law and grace. Paul didn’t. He said, ‘I wish they’d be accursed. He said, “I don’t want a speck of it in here. I don’t want an ounce of it in here. I don’t want an ounce of it in this assembly. I want it to be pure grace. I want people to understand pure grace, because a speck of that leaven spoils the whole loaf.
I’m confident in the Lord that you’ll take no other view. That’s what Paul’s saying. There’s no other view. I hope you’ll grab a hold of this. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. And that tells me that there’s going to be a lot of people who have been robbing the cradle, so to speak. That there is some kind of penalty connected for it. What it is, we don’t know. It’s not our business, brothers. If I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? If I was preaching circumcision, would I be persecuted by the Judaeans? No, I’d be welcome. In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. Don’t need the cross; just get circumcised. I love this verse. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves. Just bobbing them. You say, Paul, this is the Bible. He says, I know, and the Bible’s real. Does that kind of show you how tolerant Paul was. I mean, I don’t think he’d been very politically correct on this, do you? But he was angered, folks, to the point of saying, “I wish he had just emasculated themselves. Those who are wanting to be involved in all this circumcision bit. You, my brothers, who said you were called to be free, but now he’s going to give a warning to us. You’re free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another and love.
Now, to indulge yourself is is what. What are you doing when you’re indulging in something? Have any of you ever indulged in a Thanksgiving dinner? It really kind of means just go gorge yourself, just just gratify your flesh every step of the way. Now, folks, does your flesh have flesh desires? Does your spirit have spirit desires? Are they in conflict with one another? Now, what he is saying, he’s not saying get rid of your sinful desires, because to do that you’re going to have to die. But he’s saying don’t use your freedom to indulge them. There is an indulging of the flesh, and there is the starving of the flesh. It doesn’t mean that you’re a freak if you have fleshly desires. There are some people that again are so heavenly-minded they’re no earthly good, and they act as if they would not have a bad thought if their life depended on it. You have to be realistic. Your flesh is your flesh, and your flesh has sinful desires. It just says you don’t have to carry them out. They’re there. They’re strong, but you don’t have to carry them out. You got someone living in you stronger than your desires, and that’s Christ. But He ain’t gonna do any good till you turn to Him. Now, what do we normally do when we have fleshly desires? Go fulfill them. It’s the most natural thing in the world to do. That’s why it’s called natural man. But is that the spiritual way to go? No. And that’s where we have to determine between the flesh and the Spirit. Now, folks, here’s the key to it. What did he just say? The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through what? Through love.
So let’s go through the love funnel. Are you really loving yourself? Are you really loving, and we’re to love your God as you love what yourself? You know, I have people sometimes that come in and say, “I just hate myself. Say, “How come? Because I’m ugly. I said if you hated yourself, you’d be glad you’re ugly. Reason you’re mad is because you love yourself and you wish you weren’t ugly. See, everyone’s talking about everyone’s talking about this stuff of love. We love ourselves. The Bible says we love ourselves too much. It’s not that we have a poor self-esteem; we have too good a one. We love ourselves too much. I wish I looked better. I mean, I deserve it. I do. Now, when you’re serving yourself, and when you’re serving in love, are you serving yourself when you are out indulging every aspect of your flesh? I mean, do you ever find satisfaction there? There is no satisfaction there, none at all. Remember the old ad Chesterfield satisfies. Remember that the old cigarette ad Chesterfield satisfies. I said, if that’s the case, you know, I need one. It doesn’t satisfy. There ain’t anything it satisfies. You and I have a hollow point in our heart that we are constantly searching until we find our rest in Him. And when we were in that lost condition, when our spirit was devoid of the Spirit of God living in us, because God in the man is indispensable to the humanity of the man. In those days, we were looking and looking and looking every place, and we were looking for what? What we what ultimately is the flesh looking for? Love. Were we made to look for love? We were made to be loved, weren’t we? And so that vacuum that’s there is wanting love. Now, what’s the problem with the lost person? Well, he’s looking for it in the wrong place. So it isn’t unusual the way we’re looking for it. I mean, no sense in you don’t criticize a dog for barking. Sometimes you do, yeah. But the issue is that’s the natural thing to do is to seek love in all the wrong places. And you may have gone a part in your life where you never did that, but just give it time. You would have. And then, as a child of God, all of a sudden you become fulfilled with Him, and the Spirit of God comes to live within you, and you’re now indwelt by Him. Now, what keeps us from being resting in Him?
Because those desires of the flesh are still there, and what we will study next week as we get together is how do you handle the desires of the flesh, and how do you learn to walk in the newness of life instead of indulging the flesh? And love is the answer to that. Serving one another in love, and I think there’s a passage of scripture that I think has been. Very helpful in my life, and that is that everything is permissible, but not all things are profitable. And I believe that the the greatest thing that you can use in this decision making is: is this profitable to me? Is it profitable? It’s permissible, but is it profitable? Would it be permissible for me to go out and get smashed out of my mind tonight? Go out and just drink a fifth of booze? Would that be permissible? Sure. Would God zap me? No. Alcohol would, but not God. Would it be profitable? Be stupid. I mean, why do I? Why would I want to? Why think about this, people? Why would I want to alter my mind on a dumb bottle of booze when I can get my mind renewed by the God of this universe. Now think about that. Why would I settle for an altering instead of a renewal? And that’s the choice we have. Is it permissible? Sure, it’s permissible. Is it profitable? No, it’s just plain not profitable. Are you serving yourself in love when you do that? No, you’re not serving yourself. You’re destroying yourself. If you don’t believe that lifestyle destroys you, look at W_____ N_____. It destroys you. It makes you look like you’re 180 years old. It destroys your life. It destroys your looks. It destroys your head. They say that alcohol eats up your brain cells. I don’t have any to lose. I can’t afford to lose any. You have to realize that, folks. That these are just things. These are just some temptations of the flesh. There’s all kinds of temptation. You’re not serving yourself in love when we’re doing things that are contrary to what God says. If we really want to serve ourselves in love, do what God says, and you’ll be serving yourself and your neighbor in love.
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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, and praise the Lord. Amen.