In this episode, we delve into the profound relationship between faith and the knowledge of truth. Discover why walking by faith isn’t just about adherence to religious doctrine but an active participation in the reality of God’s completed works. Through exploration of biblical narratives, such as Noah’s diligent ark-building, we learn why human interpretation falls short of divine instruction and how faith is the linchpin of our spiritual lives.
of the book of Hebrews, beginning at verse 37. We’ve been talking about this subject of deliberately sinning against the knowledge of truth. God has given us the knowledge of truth, and we have the option of either believing it, walking by faith in it, or ignoring it. Some people come to church and either sit and sleep or look around, but never listen to what’s being said, never hear what’s being said because they have no intention of ever applying it by faith. They just listen and let it go in one ear and out the other, and then go on in their daily life without any inclination at all that they should be walking by faith. It’s interesting that when God told people different things, that he told them to walk totally by faith. As an example, when he told Noah to build an ark, he told him exactly how to build the ark. He told him how to construct it. Now, he could have taken the idea, well, I’m just going to do it 90% of the way. God doesn’t particularly know how to build arcs. I mean, after all, he’s God, but he’s not a carpenter. And so I’m just going to do it my way. And I want to tell you something, folks, he would have never survived. You remember the story about the sheep bleaking, where he told the Israelites to go in and to wipe out everything. And so the man went back. He said, you wipe out everything? Yeah, sure did. And behind him, here’s sheep bleaking. He said, what’s that? Well, that’s a cute little sheep. I mean, surely you didn’t mean for us to kill that, that cute little sheep. He said, yes, I did. You didn’t do it my way. The building of the Ark of the Covenant and the moving of the Ark of the Covenant was done God’s way or God’s When it started to fall and the man touched it, he died. God didn’t mean for us to do things partially his way and partially our way. He meant for us to do it his way. It’s kind of, I did it my way, is God’s song, not ours. And so we come to the things that God has told us in Scripture. And what we were studying is don’t deliberately keep on sinning against the knowledge of truth. He’s told us what he came to do. And in regard to our forgiveness, he said it is finished. Now, folks, I wonder sometimes and I’m not saying it is or not. I’m saying I cannot help from wondering in my own life or in the life of others. how I could have said that I placed my faith in the cross of Christ and then continued to add my 1 John 1-9s to what he said that he did. And it makes me wonder sometimes how many people are like the people who didn’t move the ark the way God said to, who didn’t build the ark, rather, the way God said to, if they had not done it, didn’t move the ark of the covenant the way he said to do. And I wonder sometimes how many of us have said, well, God, yes, you took away sins, but I’m going to keep short accounts with God. I’m going to keep my slate clean. And I wonder if you can be saved with that kind of a mindset. Because in the Old Testament, they were wiped out for that kind of thing. And I wonder sometimes how in a world we walk thinking that we’re walking so much by faith when we have never even placed our faith in what we could have stood and seen Jesus do. Take away the sins of the world. Now, faith says, thank you. Faith doesn’t say, thank you, God, for what you are going to do. Is it not true that when God completed this earth, he said, it’s finished? He didn’t add anything. When he created you and me, he said, it’s finished. Very good. He didn’t add anything. There isn’t anybody that I know being born with three ears and nine noses. You’re born just like you were back then. He said, it’s finished. When he brought salvation to this earth, he said, from the cross, we didn’t have to listen to God’s voice, invisible voice, but from the cross, the man, Jesus, cried out, what? It is finished. What did he mean? He meant it’s finished. And guys, I’m getting to the point where I don’t care how theologically sound that you think you are, and I don’t care how many… seminaries you’ve gone to or cemeteries, and I don’t care how educated you think that you are in biblical truths, I’m saying that if you are continually sinning against the knowledge of truth, you cannot say, I’m walking by faith. And the knowledge of truth in regard to the forgiveness of sins is, it is finished. And if you’re going to walk by faith in that truth, you’re going to have to walk by faith in the fact that it is finished. Not just that he hung on a cross, because we’ve played games with that. But what he did at the cross was take upon himself the sins of the whole world. Going back to Adam and forward to eternity and wipe the slate clean from the eyes of God. Have we put our faith in that? Or are we still playing religion? And still playing church. And still playing Episcopal. And still playing Baptist. And still playing Presbyterian and Catholic. Instead of looking to the one who provided it for us. Who is named is Jesus. It’s not any of our names. We weren’t included in it. And I just wonder. Don’t you? Why when you hear songs like white as snow. And I watched those words, white as snow, white as snow. Do you know what? We weren’t included in that song, Richard. There wasn’t anything about white as snow that I caught my sins confessed and now I’m white as snow. It’s all about Jesus. Why did that guy catch it and we don’t? Why do we, as a ministry, get kicked off of radio stations for teaching that Jesus meant what he said when he said, it’s finished? Why do we have these so-called theologians, educated beyond their intelligence, who do not want to talk because we’re wrong. We have not parsed the verbs accurately. I want to tell you something. This book wasn’t written to parse verbs. It was written to put into practice. If you got a love letter from your fiance, you don’t sit there and wonder what the Greek said. You got a love letter. Read it and put it by faith. Now, the Bible says to us, he who is coming will not delay, but my righteous one will live by what? By faith. And literally, it says, by righteous, the righteous ones. Now, again, by faith, who are the righteous ones? Who are they? You are. How come there’s only, does anyone over here? No, we got the center section. The center section’s okay. Who are the righteous ones? You are. If you’re in Christ, he made you righteous. Right? Now, I want to ask you a question. Did you have to feel that? Did you have to see it? Did you have to smell it? Did you have to taste it? It bypassed the five senses. You take that by faith. And when you shrink back from what you know to be true by faith, he says, I’m not pleased with that. Why? Because the only thing that pleases God is what? Faith. Faith. Faith. Not all of our dumb activities that we get involved in and are so proud of. But faith in him instead of faith in us. You see people so proud. My business is flourishing. God must just love me to death. You know, golly, I just go to him and just love myself and love him. You want to know something? He doesn’t give a flip about your business. He cares about you. He’s interested in you. And he’s interested in you following him. Now, if you follow him in business, you’re going to do well. And he’s going to reward hard work. It says that in the Bible. We get people who think because my business is successful, boy, I must be it. Uh-uh. No, no, no, no. No, there’s a lot of really lost people who are extremely successful in business. My righteous one will live by faith. And when he shrinks back, I’m not going to be pleased with him. You came to Christ by saying, Jesus died for my sins. Don’t shrink back from that. Don’t shrink back from that. Don’t be a billy goat Christian and put a but on that. But, but, but. But, if I keep my sins confessed, he’ll forgive them. Is that faith, guys? That’s an annihilation of what Jesus did at the cross. Yes. And I believe that is precisely why this book of Hebrews is as adamant as it is, saying that people who keep on sinning against the knowledge of truth, once they have received the fact, the truth, that Jesus took away your sins eternally, and you keep going back to some other system to keep yourself forgiven, are going to hell. Now, we love to point our finger, you keep on sinning and you’re going to hell. The sin he’s talking about is the sin of refusing to believe that Jesus took away that sin. Not that you’re still doing it. So is there any one of us in this room that doesn’t continue to sin? Am I right or did anyone have a sinless day just so far today? Don’t have to wait for yesterday, just today, just getting to church. But the issue is, did you sin against Jesus? Did you get down and say, oh, I don’t believe Jesus forgave my sins. I don’t think I’m a forgiven person. That’s sin. That’s the biggest atrocity to the eyes of God is providing his son to do what he did for us and us saying, no, no, my system’s better. I like to go to my priest to get forgiveness. I like to go to the Day of Atonement and get forgiveness. I like to first, oh, it makes me feel so good. It makes me feel forgiven. Well, bless your heart. I don’t care what it makes you feel. God didn’t come to deal with your feelings. He came for you to walk by faith.
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So, we’re not those, he says, who shrink back. We shouldn’t be. And are destroyed. Because you’re going to get destroyed by that. What it means by destroyed? It means it’s going to destroy your faith. Because your faith is going to shift from what he did onto what you’re doing. And your faith is going to be predicated on what I am doing to gain God’s acceptance. It’s a faith in the fact that God has already accepted me, so therefore go do. It’s going to destroy your faith in who? In him. Won’t destroy your faith in you. You still got a big bunch of faith in you. But it’s going to destroy your faith in who God said is the object of your faith, who is him and not us. Are we together? Now, faith is being sure. Now going into the 11th chapter. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. And this is what the ancients were commended for. So let’s take a look at this, guys. You have the five senses of man. Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Let’s just analyze these for a moment. You have the sight of something. I can see something. And when you see something, it’s going to trigger your emotions. Remember, we’ve talked about that. There are emotions predictably are going to respond to whatever you’re thinking. If you’re thinking depressing thoughts, you’re going to be depressed. Period. No way to escape it. God made you that way. If you’re thinking anxious thoughts, you’re going to feel anxiety. Can’t escape it. You’re made that way. And so the issue is that when you’re dealing with sight and sound, the difference between sight and sound and the other senses that we have is that I can create pictures in my mind And I can create sounds in my mind that I’ve never seen or heard before, can’t you? That’s what’s called fantasizing. How many of you have ever dreamed? What are you doing when you’re dreaming? What’s going on? You’re seeing things in your head, aren’t you? And sometimes you can hear things, can’t you? Are you really hearing things? No, but are you in your head? Because you have the ability… to create pictures and sounds in your head that can create an emotion precisely as if it was going on. Am I right or wrong? That’s why you can go to a movie theater and get the daylight scared out of you, knowing full well where you are, but you’re looking at a scary scene and you’re listening to scary sounds and your emotions begin to predictably respond to whatever you’re looking at and hearing. Does faith deal with that? No, it goes around it. It just gets you to think. Faith is being certain of what we hope for and don’t see. So you say, I’m not dealing with your five senses. This is a spiritual deal that I’m dealing with. Your five senses is how you get along out here. I’m dealing with something that goes on down here. I’m dealing with something different than your senses. You and I can get down and say, oh, yeah, but I want to see. I want to see it. I want to hear it. Give me a sign. Give me a wonder. Give me something I can see. Well, what did God have to say about that? Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 5, verse 7. Turn with me there for a moment. 2 Corinthians 5, 7. Y’all got it? We live by faith. Not by sight. Don’t live by sight. We’re confident, I say, and I would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him whether at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the beam of seat of Christ. And each one receive what is due to him while done in the body, whether good or bad. So we don’t live by sight. You live by what? By faith. Not by sight. So he bypasses. That sense, the sense of sight, bypasses that. You don’t live by feelings. That’s a repudiation of faith. Now, guys, there is a huge population of people who call themselves Christians who live strictly by feelings. And if I don’t feel it, it’s not real. Well, guys, I can conjure up all kinds of feelings in you, can’t you? I mean, you can get all kinds of feelings that aren’t real. When you’re teenagers, you can get a feeling that I’m just madly in love with somebody. And you can just get all kinds of ooshy-gooshy feelings that have no credibility at all in life. And so it has nothing to do with feelings. God aims at our spirit. God is spirit, right? And you must worship him in what? spirit and in truth so god is is ministering to my spirit bypassing all of these senses and going right directly into my spirit and my spirit then is teaching my senses teaching my head and as i’m taught in my head i’m going to end up feeling but that’s not faith what’s faith is what he teaches you in your spirit and so guys when we’re studying the scripture And we’re studying these books together. It’s not just something to come every now and then and say, oh, well, that was nice today. Thank you very much for the nice message, Bob. This isn’t a message. This is the truth of God that if you don’t get in your heart and I don’t get in my heart, we’re going to walk around like a bunch of spiritual dummies. And all we’ve got is a bunch in our head that we’ve seen and heard. And God has never touched our spirit. That’s why I don’t want bits and pieces of this book. I want the whole book. I don’t want to study it this week and five weeks later study. I want to know the whole book. Because I want to tell you something. This book of Hebrews will change your life. This book of Hebrews has changed our lives. Because it’s teaching us truth. And the truth that it’s teaching us is, I want you to learn to walk by faith. Now, you see, when we’ve reversed that and said, well, yeah, I walk by faith, Lord. Didn’t you see what I did last week? He said, and guys, turn with me again to Matthew 7. It’s a great passage. Matthew 7, 721. If I can find 7, there it is. Look at this, guys. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Now, what is the will of the Father? It’s God’s will that we should do what? Walk by what? Faith. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. So what is God’s will for you? To walk by faith. What is God’s purpose for you? To walk by faith. You see, we get into the purpose-driven life. I’ll tell you what the purpose-driven life is, to walk by faith. Don’t need a book for that, just one little sentence, walk by faith. That’s what you’re here for, is to walk by faith in Him who wants to direct your lives. Lord, Lord, will never enter the kingdom of God, but only Him who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. It’s God’s will that we should walk by faith. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, In essence, didn’t you see what I did? Weren’t you observing me when I was doing all these things? Didn’t you see me prophesy in your name? Well, I prophesied. In fact, I named myself a prophet. Now, you didn’t name me a prophet. That’s okay. The people think you did. I named myself a prophet. There aren’t any prophets today. People walk around thinking they’re prophets, telling people they’re prophets. There aren’t any prophets today. What do you need prophesied? You already got the Bible. What new information do you need? That’s why you have what? Latter-day Saint prophets who wrote their own Bible. Prophets. Self-made prophets. Didn’t you see me prophesying your name? And did you see me drive out demons and perform miracles? Man, you can drive out a demon. You must be holy. And do you see me perform all these miracles? And I’m going to tell them plainly, I never knew you. I don’t know who you are. Get away from me, you what? You evil doing exorcist? You evil doing miracle man? Amen. You evil doing prophet? Yeah, that’s what he said. Depart from me, you evil doer. Claiming what you’re doing instead of walking by faith in what I’m doing. For it is all him and it is none of us. There’s two lines of thought in regard more than that. But when you get to evangelical Christianity… You’ve got the idea that it all ties around the Holy Spirit. You’ve got one idea where people believe in the Holy Spirit, but believe that the Holy Spirit comes along beside you to help you or in Texas to help you to lead a good life. You also have another group that says that the role of the Holy Spirit is to come along beside and to help you to obey the law. Both of those are dead wrong. Because number one, he isn’t there to help you obey the law. He said to be dead to the law. So how could he be helping you to do what he said to die to? Think that one through. He didn’t come along to help you to live the Christian life. And I’m going to show you the truth of that. You had the apostles. Number one, you had, as I said, 4,000 years of God dealing with man in the Old Testament, showing them there’s not a way in the world that you can ever gain acceptance in my sight any way except by one way. What was it? Faith. That’s what the 11th chapter is all about. We’ll get to that next year. Faith. And so there’s only one way to please God, and that’s through faith, isn’t it? So he’s saying to us, you had that. And then Jesus appeared. And these men walked with Jesus for some three or four years. They saw everything that Jesus did. They walked hand in hand with the most marvelous human being that ever stepped upon this planet. The most loving man. human being that was ever here by far. Walked with him. Talked with him. Heard what Jesus said. He discipled them, did he not? He discipled them with words and he discipled them with actions, did he not? They saw it all. You couldn’t have gotten a better discipler than Jesus. He is the best. He went through his death. He showed them in advance what that was all about, where I’m going to take away the sins of the world. They didn’t understand a chance. He was raised from the dead. Oh, that got their attention. Raised from the dead. Now I’ve seen it all. I’ve walked with Jesus. I’ve talked with Jesus. I’ve heard everything that he had to say. I’ve watched him model this life. And now I’ve seen him die for my sins. I’ve seen him raised from the dead, which was proof to me that he was God, and so that he said something about a Holy Spirit coming later. I don’t know for sure what that’s all about, but I’ve seen it all. Now, I’ve seen everything necessary in the gospel. I’ve lived with him, and I’ve seen his death, burial, and resurrection. I’ve seen everything I need to know. Wouldn’t you think that would be enough for you to go out and live a good life? I mean, if you had walked with Jesus, had the best teacher there was on the face of the earth, wouldn’t that say that that ought to be enough for you to follow him and walk in his life? Wouldn’t it or not? To me, I’d think, yeah, wow, that’s pretty good. Was it? No. And that’s why I think those 50 days following the resurrection of Christ were there. He said, I’ve given you 4,000 years to show you you can’t do it. Now you’ve seen everything I came to do, and I’m going to show you you still can’t do it. There is not a way in the world, even if you had walked with Jesus for all those years, seen everything he did, heard everything he said, there’s no way in the world you can live a Christian life. He said, the day of Pentecost is the day that I’m going to send my spirit To live in you. Not to walk beside you and teach you. But to live in you and to be your life. And when Christ is your life.
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Appears. You’ll appear with him. 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.
