The Misuse of Divine Grace

SPEAKER 03 : 0:04

Put Jesus first in your life.

SPEAKER 01 : 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.

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And so we need to listen to people. And we listen to people long enough until we hear, where’s your heartache? And now you’re prepared to give Jesus as the answer to that heartache. But we’ve been given, it says, and entrusted this message. How come? How come he’s trusted us with that message? For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They’re godless men who changed the grace of our God into a license for immorality and denied Jesus Christ as their only sovereign and Lord. Now, folks, that becomes a misunderstanding of the grace of God. When you turn the grace of God into a license for immorality, you’re denying Jesus Christ as your Lord. Because Christ Jesus lives in us, does he not? And so if Christ lives in us, is he there leading us into a life of immorality? No. So when you and I get engaged in immoral things, is that when we say, oh, well, praise God for God’s grace? Or do we say that I acted like a nitwit following my own desires instead of the desires of Christ Jesus who lives in me? You see, the grace of God is there. The grace of God is what provided Jesus to go to a cross to take away your and my sins. That cannot be denied. But you see, the fact that I sin and think that I can get forgiven or I sin and there is no such thing as forgiveness or Jesus took away my sin 2,000 years ago doesn’t stop you from sinning, does it? You see, what the Bible teaches is that Christ took away the sins of the entire world. There’s no sin that will cause any of you to ever go to hell. No man will ever go to hell because of his sins. None. Nobody will. There’s no sins that have not been placed upon Christ Jesus. Is that true or not? Or did he lie when he said it’s finished? Because you’ve got to answer that question. A person who thinks that you still get forgiveness is going to have to look in the face of Jesus and say, you are a liar when you cried out from the cross, it’s finished. That isn’t something that you argue with because the Baptists say this and the Presbyterians say that. I don’t care what Baptists say or Presbyterians. What does the Word say is what I’m interested in. And the Word said that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world unto Himself, not counting your sins against you. That is either true or false. If you think it’s false, you’re denying Jesus. You’re not playing Baptist or Presbyterian. You’re denying the Lord Jesus. And you’re looking straight in His face who hung on a cross and suffered and died and said, You didn’t do enough. You need to suffer a little more. You forgot one. Did He forget one? Did He forget any of your sins that you’ve ever committed? Well, I realize that He died for all my past sins, but what about my future sins? How many of your sins were in the future when Jesus died for them 2,000 years ago? I don’t think any of you are that old. There is no such thing as past and future. He just took them away. He took them away from the eyes of God so that he could give us what he called eternal life. Now, guys, how could someone say that eternal life is temporal life? You see, guys, we live in this day and age where everyone wants to be, well, everything’s relative. Isn’t that true? Nothing’s absolute. Guys, nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus absolutely took away your sins. He didn’t take away some of them. Or did he? Did he forget one? Was his memory bad that day? Or did he take them all away? Now, guys, which is it? He took them all. Now, if that is true, and why we’re so confused is no one spends any time to find out what he did. We’re just told what we ought to be doing. What good is it for you and me to know what we should be doing if we don’t know what he did? Now, if that is true, That Jesus Christ took away the sins of the entire world, which means he took away every sin that you and I have or do or will ever commit. Is that true or isn’t it? Get in our heads. Is it true or isn’t it? It is true. How do I know it’s true? The Bible says it’s true. He took away all of our sins. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not counting their sins against him. He not only died for our sins, but the sins of the whole world. If that’s true, then what is the only conclusion that you can make about you in regard to forgiveness of sins? What’s the only conclusion you can make from that? If he took away all your sins, what does that tell you about you? Only got a few voices. What’s it say? That we are what? Forgiven people. Does that in and of itself make you want to quit sinning? We all know that. Have any of you quit sinning? It’s going to take something more than knowing your forgiveness to deal with sin. He just cleared the deck for the divine action of now offering you his life. Jesus in you, your hope of glory. Now, if Jesus is alive living in me, is that a motivation enough? To live a life of righteousness. Because the righteous one lives in you. You see we’ve dealt only with sin. And so we come up with all this. The Jews have their day of atonement. Catholics have their confession booth. And we have our first John 1 nines. And we all have developed these little systems to what? Keep ourselves forgiven. Is that right or wrong? Right. And if I am keeping myself forgiven, that means I am doing something to cause God to react to me. We right or wrong? If I confess, then I’m the confessor and he now has got to respond to me. I’ve gone to the confession booth. Now he has got to respond to me. I went to the day of atonement. Now he, God, has got to respond to me. I want to ask you a question. Is God a responder or is he an initiator? If I can cause God to respond to me, I’m greater than God. I can cause God to do what I want him to do. I can cause him to respond to me anytime I want to. I just flash up my confession and he’s obligated to respond to me. Is that true? Is that true? No, it isn’t true. Is it taught? You better believe it. And we say, oh, well, it isn’t going to hurt anybody. It isn’t going to hurt anybody to keep asking God to forgive them. It makes you feel good. So, in other words, in order for you to feel good, you’re going to crucify Jesus on the cross again. Because if there was any further forgiveness to be executed on your behalf, what would Jesus have to do? He’d have to come die again. Is that what you want? Beat him half to death so that you’ll feel good? Well, how do you think it makes you feel to know that you’re already forgiven? I don’t know about you. That makes me feel plum good. But you see, that’s not just the issue. That was what prepared us for salvation. Get that into our heads. The cross prepared you for salvation. It is not in and of itself salvation. It prepared you for salvation. While we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His cross. What does that mean? What does it mean you are an enemy of God? It means you’re lost. Lost. When you were lost, you were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. That’s a past action done. Now, how much more, having been reconciled, shall you be saved by what? His life, His resurrected life. You’re not saved by the death of Christ. You’re saved by the life of Christ. Well, then why are we streaming people down aisles to get your sins forgiven? If I were to ask you right now, I want you to come forward and get your sins forgiven. What should you say to me? They’re already forgiven. Well, then, if you’re going to come forward, what are you going to come forward to get? Yeah, life. Come to Jesus. What did he say? Come unto my forgiveness, all ye who labor and heavy laden. Or did he say, come unto me? I’m the resurrection and the life, and whosoever believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes in me will never die. The promise of Jesus. And so, guys… That’s truth. If you want to argue with that, you’re going to have to argue with truth. And yet people will say, you’re teaching people to have a license. So in other words, teaching people truth is giving them a license to sin? I mean, guys, again, is what I just said to you truth or is it not truth? Truth. Be honest. If you don’t think it’s true, hold up your hand. Is it true or not? It’s true. Then how is truth going to cause you to live immoral? To give you a license. So you see, you’ve got to be pretty perverted to believe that. That the grace of God is wonderful. That’s what happened in Corinthians. This young man was having relations with his father’s wife. And it says they were proud about it. They were proud. You can just hear them. Isn’t the grace of God wonderful? I can just go out and do anything I want to do and the grace of God covers it.

SPEAKER 01 : 12:08

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SPEAKER 02 : 12:50

Well, I want to ask you a question. Can you go out, if you were truly born again, can you go out and do anything you want to do and the grace of God covers it? Is that true? Is that a motivation for going and doing anything you want to do? Why? Because it says that anything you give into is going to dominate you. It’s going to control you. It’s going to be your master. Who do you want to be mastered by? God or your sin? And so these are godless men who teach in essence that the grace of our Lord is a license for immortality and deny Christ as our sovereign and our Lord. These were men of the Gnostic persuasion, and we just have variations of that who believe that what we do in the flesh is irrelevant because the flesh is matter and matter is evil. And therefore, with Jesus, he couldn’t have come in the flesh because Jesus couldn’t be evil. So he was a phantom. He was an illusion. That’s what the Gnostics taught. But you see, we don’t teach that, but we do do variations of that. And so it doesn’t make any difference what we do in the flesh. Grace covers it. And so go live it up. Well, you see, in the scriptures it says, if Jesus isn’t real in his resurrection, then eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. That’s the mindset you would have if you didn’t believe in Jesus. But when you believe in Jesus and you have Christ living in you as your Lord and Savior… To think that that’s a license for immorality is other nonsense, isn’t it? But that’s what was being taught back in those days and even to this day. Though you already know this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not continue to believe. Remember, they were in the desert for 40 years, wandering in that desert. The angels who did not keep their position of authority but abandoned their own home. These he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day. In other words, the angels that fell and came to this earth, he says he’s kept them in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day. So God sees sin and God judges sin. But who took the judgment for our sin? And where was our sin judged? At the cross. And what was the verdict? Guilty. And who took the punishment? Jesus. How much of it did he take? All of it. How much is left for us? None of it. In a similar way Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and to perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. In other words God says that if you’re saved those things should not be a part of your lifestyle. If you’re not saved it is a part of your lifestyle. It’s a part of it. If you are saved, it shouldn’t be a part of it. In the very same way these dreamers pollute their own bodies, we see that taking place today of people polluting their own bodies. We’re not satisfied with the way it looks. We’ve got to add to it. We pollute our bodies. Reject authority and slander celestial beings. How many have heard where we go down and you hear people coming and say, I command you, Satan. Isn’t that right? I know how to take care of Satan. Just chest puffed out, just like a peacock, just a cocky walking around. And I got the ability to just cast him out. well what it says here about that even the Archangel Michael when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses did not dare bring a slanderous accusation against him but he said the Lord rebuke you how many of us hear the Lord rebuke you or do we rebuke him so again does Satan ever attack you does he I mean is he kind of alive and well I think so. And he attacks you like crazy. Now, if you want the attack to start or to stop, are you a match for Satan? Am I a match for Satan? You’ve got to be kidding. But God is. So what should our verbiage and attitude be? The Lord rebuked you. Why? Because I belong to the Lord. And I am a child of the living God and the Lord whom I worship rebuke you. Now you might get some action. But if you think we’re going to go up against Satan, we got another thing coming, don’t we? We’re no match for him. The Lord rebuke you. And yet, it says these men speak abusively against what they do not understand. They just do not understand the fact that Satan is stronger than all of us. And what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals, these are the very things that destroy them. Guys, isn’t it strange? When you stop to think of life, I don’t know about you, but the older that I get, the sadder… life becomes you think to yourself with all of the things that we have available to us that God has given us everything we need for life and for godliness God provides for us everything that we see he’s provided why do you make chickens so we can have eggs everything is provided for us And we have everything that we need for life and for godliness. And for some reason, there’s something in this thing called the old flesh, the sin nature that lives in us, where we want to go out and destroy ourselves. We carve up our bodies. We stick things in them. We want to get into booze and get drunk. get into drugs and get bombed out of her mind. You say, what’s wrong with us? What is there? In men especially, we are really dodo’s. I mean, you stop to think. You see these guys flipping around on motorcycles and doing all this stuff. You don’t see women doing that. Oh, maybe a few, but not many. But for some reason, we guys, of course, this is where the sin comes from, is from us. If it came from women, Mary would have passed on a sin nature. They all come from us. And, I mean, I stopped to think about that. What is in us where we want to destroy each other and destroy ourselves intentionally? And I said, I don’t know. It’s a mystery, isn’t it? But he says that we don’t understand things. The things that we’re just like dumb animals. Now, woe to them, he said. They have taken the way of Cain and they’ve rushed for profit into Balaam’s error. They have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. And these men are blemishes at your love feasts. Eating with you without slightest qualms. Shepherds who feed only themselves. clouds without rain, blown among by the wind, autumn trees without fruit, and uprooted twice dead. Turn with me for a moment back to 1 Corinthians. And guys, we have the Lord’s Supper, but I’m just going to go over again. What was taking place in Corinth? That ties into these people coming into our assemblies. Men are blemishes at your love feast, eating without you, without the slightest qualm. Now let’s see what’s taking place in the Lord’s Supper in Corinth. Because they had crept into the assemblies by then. The following directives, he says, I have no praise for you, for your meetings. I’m sorry, I’m in chapter 11 and beginning in verse 17. I’m sorry, I forgot to give that to you. In the following directives, I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than do good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. When you come together, is it not the Lord’s Supper you eat? For as you eat, each one goes ahead without waiting on anybody else. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? It says one remains hungry and another gets drunk. Kind of annihilates the idea of grape juice, doesn’t it? Be not drunk on grape juice, where it is excessed. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in, or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not. Well, that’s what was taking place in Jude that we’re talking about. These men are blemishes at your love feast. They’re not coming in to be involved in the big picture of the love feast. They were coming in to gorge themselves on food and to drink up all the wine before the rest of the body got there. And that was the sin of Corinth. And so he says they do that without even the slightest qualm at all. Think nothing of that. Now it says, verse 27, Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, and that is precisely what they were doing. And what was the unworthy manner in which they were taking the Lord’s Supper? Eating up all the food, drinking up all the wine before the rest of the body got there. Missing the picture. They’re guilty of sinning against the body of Christ and the blood of the Lord. Now again, if you came in for the Lord’s Supper and this group over here got here before this group did and you came in and everything was gone and all the food had been consumed and all the wine had been consumed and they were sitting over here fat, dumb, and happy, you’re sinning against the body of Christ, aren’t you? In other words, you’re not considering the body of Christ. You’ve just moved in and said, I’m going to get all that I can, and who cares about the rest of them? And so he’s saying to them that you’re doing that in an unworthy manner. So he says, a man ought to examine himself before he eats the bread and drinks the cup. Examine himself, what? Dim the lights? Play the organ? No. Get into introspection. Ask God to forgive your sins. Be sure you don’t have any unconfessed sin in your life. Is that what that means? No, it means to examine yourself. Did I come in here and eat up all the bread and drink up all the wine before the rest of the body got here? Am I being a glutton? Am I looking out for the body? Or am I just looking out for me? That’s what it means to examine yourself. And it tells us, for… Anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. Judgment from who? From the body. You think if you came in here and they’re sitting over here, some of them passed out from drinking too much and eating too much. Do you think you’d sit there and say, praise Jesus? Look at our dear brothers in Christ. Or do you think you’d judge them? You’re going to judge them, rightfully so. This is why many of you are weak and sick and a number of you have passed out or fallen asleep. What do you do when you eat too much and drink too much? Go to sleep. Some of you probably had a little too much to eat and drink this morning. I’ve seen you. But if we judged ourselves, in other words, am I looking out after the body or just my own interest, you would not come under judgment from who? The rest of the body.

SPEAKER 01 : 26:57

Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.

SPEAKER 03 : 27:26

Put Jesus first in your life and turn your