The episode takes a close look at the implications of Jesus’ birth and how it challenged pre-existing notions of righteousness rooted in law and tradition. Bob tackles the themes of self-righteousness, explaining that neither Jew nor Gentile can find salvation through the law but only through the complete sufficiency of Jesus. The conversation extends to Herod’s insecurity over the birth of Christ, revealing the timeless truth that faith in Jesus often divides, separating believers from the world’s thinking.
Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. Through our Classic Christianity radio program and the books, Bible studies, CDs, and DVDs we have available for purchase online at bobgeorge.net, it is our desire and prayer at Bob George Ministries that you continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Let’s join Bob now as he gets started with today’s lesson.
SPEAKER 02 :
In chapter 2 of Luke, we talked about last week how the different appearances of an angelic being, Gabriel, came and announced first of all to Zechariah in regard to the birth of John the Baptist. An angel appeared to Joseph comforting him with the fact that the pregnancy of Mary was by the Holy Spirit of God. An angel also appeared to Mary announcing the fact that she was going to be with child and that child was to be called Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. We also had then the appearance of angelic beings, one of Gabriel, then a multitude of them who appeared to the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem looking down on that little city and again by warning them and telling them of the birth of the Christ child. After the birth of Christ, and we’re going to go down to verse 21 in chapter 2, Prior to that, in verse 20, it said how the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told. Now on the eighth day, and again we’re talking about the Jewish laws as to what was to occur in accordance with their laws at the birth of a child. On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. And when the time of purification, according to the law of Moses, had been completed, now that time of purification was 40 days from the birth. And that was a requirement where a woman was in seclusion for 40 days after the birth of a child. And during that period of time was a period of what they called purification. It said, “…at that time then Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of doves and two young pigeons.” Now it goes ahead to say that there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon who was a righteous and devout, and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him. Now again, look at the different areas of Revelation. You had angelic announcements, which we will see in a moment. You had dreams. And now you have the Holy Spirit who had revealed to Simeon all of this announcement of Christ Jesus. And it said that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. Now when the parents brought in the child to do for him what the custom of the law required, Simeon took him in his arms and he praised God, saying, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. In other words, he’s saying, I can now die in peace. This was a promise that was given to me that I would not die until I have seen the Lord’s Christ. And I have now seen Him and now I can die in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory to your people Israel. Now folks, again, we have discussed, have we not, on numerous occasions, and we have tapes and everything else on it, as to how impossible it was for a Jew to believe that the Gentile would come to salvation the same way they would. This was an impossibility. The Gentile world was totally heathenistic in practice. It was totally heathenistic in their religious practice. They had temple prostitution. They had idol worship all over the place. And they had no clue at all as to the one true God. And the only testimony on the face of the earth as we know it and as they knew it then in regard to the one true God was through Israel and through Judaism. And so we have to understand, again, this pronouncement that was coming from Simeon, again, quoting a scripture that probably was just read quickly in Old Testament teaching, that this is a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel. So in other words, in this revelation to this man, and in the quotation of the Scripture that he saw being fulfilled, you saw this Jesus as a Savior, not just to the Jew, but to the entirety of all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike. Now I ask you a question, was that understood? That was not understood at all. It’s like a lot of things that happen to us. We read words, but they just go over our heads. And we don’t stop, as Mary did when we talked last week, and ponder these things in your heart. What does this mean? How could this be? But the revelation, the Old Testament prophecy, which was quoted here and revealed to Simeon, was the fact that this Jesus was not only a Savior to Israel, but He was a Savior to the Gentile as well. And all of that, folks, was predestined. And that’s what predestination is. That’s what election is. It is not you’s and me’s. It is the Gentiles were predestined to become conformed to the image of Christ the same way that the Jew was. And just as the Jew has been justified, so also the Gentile is justified by faith. And this whole subject of predestination and election and foreknowledge is not around, I like Ray, but I don’t like Bill. It’s around Jew and Gentile. That the Jew was preordained, and so was the Gentile preordained for salvation. And that’s what this passage is dealing with, letting people know that even though the gospel is going first to the Jew, it is also going to the Gentile. And the Gentile will be saved exactly the way the Jew is saved. To the Jew, they thought their salvation was through their inheritance of being a Jew and through their obedience to the law. What did Jesus do at the cross? Took away the law so that no man could ever say, I’m going to go to heaven because of my obedience to the law. Jesus said, I nailed the law to the cross. And so it neutralized everyone. It said to the Jew, you’re never going to go to heaven through obedience to the law. And to the Gentile, you never had the law to begin with. And so you’re as lost as a goose. And so both of you are in the same category, and both of you are going to go to heaven identically the same way, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. And so to the Jew, the self-righteous Jew, the self-righteous Christian, self-righteous religionist, It doesn’t make any difference how you paint self-righteousness or what you package it in or wrap it in. It’s still self-righteousness. You can wrap it in Jewish paper. You can wrap it in Gentile paper. You can wrap it up in anything you want to. But the fact of the matter is it’s self-righteousness and self-righteousness will never go into the kingdom of God. Until a man comes to see his total depravity, why in the world would he ever turn to Christ for his total sufficiency? I had a lady the other day I was talking to, and she said, oh, I could never murder anyone. And I said, well, let’s just, you know, there’s about a thousand things I could mention, but let’s just put that in the category of the ten. So if thou should not commit murder and you say I could never murder someone, then all you need is a 90% Jesus. You don’t need a 100% Jesus, only 90%. You’re 10% okay. And if on top of that you could not murder and you couldn’t commit adultery, well then all you need is an 80% Jesus. And you could probably just keep going about all you need is about 10% of it. Just a little dab will do you. Just a little dab will do you. And folks, until we see there’s not one thing on the face of this earth that we’re incapable of doing, we have a propensity and an ability to do anything. Do we not? And for people to sit around and feel guilty because they’ve blown it is ridiculous because we’ve all blown it. And we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. And that’s why he said, there’s none righteous, no, not one. And until we see our unrighteousness, why would we ever turn to him for his righteousness? So we don’t have any of our own, do we? And so the Jew had to understand that, and so did the Gentile. And so how do we turn to Christ? We don’t need a 90% Jesus. As a matter of fact, there isn’t a 90% Jesus. He doesn’t exist. We don’t need an 80% Jesus. We need a 100% Jesus. I have to see there is nothing in me worthy of going into the presence of God. Nothing. Not a little bit. Nothing. And until we see that, now I’m ready to receive everything. I don’t need a little bit, I need everything. That’s why we’re told in the Scripture, when we have Christ, we have been given what? Everything we need for life and godliness, which means you have nothing for life and godliness. You have nothing within yourself to produce life or godliness, and that’s why in Him I have everything that I need for life and godliness. Let’s go on. He said, The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. And then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel. Well, what’s he talking about there? This child is going to bring a sword. He’s going to draw a line down the floor and say, Over here is saved and over here is lost. And in so doing, He’s going to cause a falling of many people and a rising of many people. He’s going to have people who are lost and people who are saved. In Christ Jesus, when you come to Christ, you have been separated from the thinking of the world. You’re not like the world in your thinking. If you are, you haven’t learned much about His thinking. Because when you grab a hold of His wisdom, you find out that your wisdom and the wisdom of the world, you’re just on two opposite ends of the spectrum, aren’t you? And so He said, this son of yours is going to cause the rising of some and the falling of others. He’s destined for that. And to be a sign that will be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. A sword will pierce your own soul too. And what was he talking about there? Talking about the fact that her own son is going to be crucified. This is something, guys, that we have to understand. That Jesus said, I didn’t come to bring peace, I came to bring a sword. And of course he’s not talking about that there’s no peace to those of us who possess the Prince of Peace, but there is a sword that divides lost from saved, the sheep from the goats. And we just have to understand that’s a truth. Now you see what religion tries to do is let’s just get everybody together. And then you’ve got your organizations that say let’s just all get together. And now if we’re going to get everybody together so we’ll all have unity and peace with each other, you’re going to have to water down what truth is. There’s no other way to get that kind of unity. If you’re out to get unity, you’re going to have to water down everything to get unity. Because when you believe something to be true, you’re going to separate yourself from the rest of the world. And that’s just the way it is. And you’re going to, therefore, have some people who hate you because of your relationship with Christ Jesus. When you young people go to school and you represent Christ, you’re going to have some kids that hate you for that. And one of the things that you run into is we have a tendency to want to be accepted, don’t we? But the issue is there’s only one person that will accept you, that will meet that need for acceptance, and that’s Christ Jesus, not the peers. They’ll just drag you into trouble. But the acceptance of Christ will keep you on the right pathway.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
And so we have to understand what he’s dealing with here. And that is that your hearts are going to be revealed. You know, you can go to people and talk about God all day long, but you mention Jesus and you’ve got a division on your hands. Have you ever noticed that? I know how easy it is for people to talk about God or the big boy upstairs or the good Lord. We’ve got all kinds of expressions, but talk about Jesus. Say Jesus and see how easy that is if you don’t know Jesus. And see how accepted that is to people that you’re mentioning Jesus to. So folks, we have to understand that Jesus becomes a divider of mankind and you cannot compromise that. There is no compromise in the gospel. Jesus is God or He isn’t God. If you don’t think He is, join the rest of the world. But if you believe He’s who He is and that is God and you believe He’s the Savior of the world and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He has come to save you, you are by that very nature going to be controversial and you are by that very nature going to be separate from the rest of the world. So he says that this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. Guys, what does the thoughts of God do to your and my heart? It reveals what we’re thinking, doesn’t it? Isn’t that fun? But you know, that’s what the Spirit of God living in you is for. He shows us when we got stinking thinking, doesn’t he? He points that out to us. And there’s where the Holy Spirit of God lives. He lives to renew your mind on truth and and set you free from the error on truth. The only thing that will separate me from the error of the world that’s constantly bombarding my mind, I don’t know about yours, is the truth of the Word of God. Now that gives us a plumb line. And it gives us something that we can gauge whether this is proper thinking or improper thinking, is the Word of God. And you can’t compromise that. So when the word of God is in you and you’ve internalized this word, you have something and someone inside of you that is constantly in the process of renewing my mind, teaching me truth, and setting me free from the error that keeps me in bondage. Now that’s important, isn’t it? And that’s what Jesus said. When I go away, I’m going to send my counselor to you. Well, what’s a counselor? Someone they’re supposed to give advice. Do we need advice? I would think so. We all need advice. And folks, incidentally, that’s what discipline is. Discipline isn’t going out and beating the daylights out of somebody. When it says that we are disciplined by the Lord, everybody shudders. No, discipline’s wonderful. Discipline is discipleship. That’s where the word discipline comes from, discipling someone. So what is this Word of God continually doing to you and me? Discipling us, disciplining our minds by teaching us truth up against what we’re trying to hang on to as truth, which is nothing but error. Do we understand that? It’s not a bad word. Nor is discipline something that comes upon you. Discipline is something that remains upon you. You and I are continually, if the Spirit of God is alive living in us, are under the discipline of the Lord. He doesn’t sleep. He’s always there. And He is always teaching your and my mind truth that is setting us free against the air of that is also bombarding our mind, because I don’t think Satan’s sleeping either. It says there was also a prophetess, Anna, and the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, and she was very old, and she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was 84. She never left the temple, but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying.” Now coming up to them at that moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption in Jerusalem. Now, guys, let’s go from there over to Matthew. In the second chapter of Matthew. Because we have to pick up at that moment. Now at this particular juncture, before you go over there, hang on to where we were for a moment in verse 39 of Luke. It said, When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong and was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Now in these gospels, in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you’re going to see that only in Matthew and Mark is it now picked up these particular events. Excuse me, in the book of Matthew are these next events picked up. And that is what took place in between the time that Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the law, Jesus had been born, went back to Nazareth. We know, and we’ll cover this in a moment, we know that there is now a two-year period that we’re going to deal with here, approximately a two-year period. It was customary for the Jews to return back to Jerusalem on a yearly basis. And I’m assuming, this is an assumption, that this would have been about a year later when Joseph and Mary would have gone back to Jerusalem and probably stayed in Bethlehem which is just outside of Jerusalem. Bethlehem and Jerusalem are just neighbors. And so this is a possibility that this was a year later. But whenever it was, it was at a later period after the birth of Christ. And so let’s pick up in chapter 2 in Matthew. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. So they were inquiring of people in regard to where is this one who has been born king of the Jews? Now, guys, another thing that we have to see is there’s no place in the Scripture talking about there being three wise men. Now, we sing, we three kings of Orient are, but that’s tradition because there’s nothing in the Scripture talking about how many magi were there. It could have been three. It could have been 13. We have not a clue how many were there. We’ve just kind of made it up. But the fact is, we don’t know how many were there. But we do know that the wise men or the magi were there. How many? We don’t know. Really not very important. And I want to talk to you guys. They call him Herod the Great. He was the most vicious man, probably one of them, that has ever lived. If you ever wanted to try to pick an antichrist, this would have been the one. He was a horrible, mean, detestable, vicious human being. And so he heard this and he was disturbed. He was also a maniac. And all of Jerusalem with him. Now when he had called together all of the people’s chief priests, so he said, I’m going to get together these Jews and find out about this thing. So he pulled together their chief priests and their teachers of the law. And he asked them where the Christ was to be born. Well, their answer was in Bethlehem in Judea, they replied. For this is what the prophet… has written. Now there again, guys, do you think the people who lived in Israel at that time were familiar with the Scriptures? They knew what it said, didn’t they? And did they believe the Scriptures were reliable? Absolutely. They quoted. They said, where is this Messiah going to be? They didn’t go to the Reader’s Digest to find that out or Life Magazine articles. they went to where it told where the Messiah was going to be. And that was in the Old Testament. And so they quoted to Herod out of the Scriptures, But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd over my people Israel. Now was that good news to Herod? This egomaniac sitting there saying, some kind of a king’s going to come and replace me. Guys, do you remember when we talked about what is it to kill Jesus? Job security. Job security. They said, if we allow this man to continue, before long, everyone’s going to follow him and we are going to lose our place and our position. So in other words, if this man Jesus, if we let him go on, we’re going to lose our position. Number one, their position was teachers of the law. He’s teaching grace. If he’s teaching grace, who needs a law teacher? So if we let this grace teaching go on, we’re going to lose our jobs because I’m not going to teach grace and don’t know anything about it. Besides that, in order to enter into grace, you’ve got to humble yourself. You’ve got to be willing to put aside your education. And as Paul said, to consider all things dung in comparison to that of knowing Christ. And I’m not about to do that. I got my Ph.D. from Jerusalem U. And I know the Scriptures. And I’m going to act on those. Don’t tell me that’s dung. I’m proud of those degrees. Now what you’re dealing with there is the fact that job security is much stronger than what you and I think. And in these particular cases, these were religious rulers that were saying, if we allow Jesus to continue, we’re going to lose our place. And now Herod is saying, if there’s supposed to be a king and it’s prophesied in the scripture, then that means I’m not going to be king. And if anyone thinks they’re going to take their kingship away from me, even God. And that’s in essence what he’s saying. If this God of these Jews think that that God is going to remove me from office, he’s got another thing coming. And so he developed a plan. And here was his plan. He said, Herod called the Magi secretly. That’s the way people like that always deal, secretly. and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem. He said, Go and make a careful search for this child, and as soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him. What a hypocrite. Go find him so I too can worship him. You just see him saying that.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
