Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P431 (4-12-19)
Bob George answered calls from several believers who wanted clarification of truth. There are many things people hear from the church world today. Oftentimes what they hear is confusing and contrary to what they have been reading in God’s word. There is a tendency to trust what a pastor says over what can clearly be revealed from God’s word. Remember, the Holy Spirit is your teacher and He will guide you into all truth. Take heed to His word.
Michael was puzzled about these parents who take their kids to psychologists to get treated for behavioral issues like attention deficit disorder. Where does that all come from. Bob tells people to go to the manufacturer. Who created our bodies and knows how we are made? God. Then go to God and find out about how our mind, will and emotions work. Yet, oftentimes, the first person we see is a psychologist, and more often than not, he does not even know the Lord. Why go to the ungodly for counsel?
Another caller, Martha, had such a sweet spirit about her. Being a new believer she wanted to learn. She had been hearing on the radio about the New Covenant and wanted to know what that was all about. Bob shares from the book of Hebrews what the New Covenant is. It is a will, a covenant, a testament of God to people today. This will has gone into effect when Jesus died and has been given to all of us, and to us who are born again, we have everything we need for life and godliness. We can participate in the divine nature God has given us. Bob explains so much more from the scriptures. Being a new believer, Bob encouraged her to start reading the book of John to become persuaded of God’s unconditional love for you. From there, start reading the epistles of Paul.
Martha also asked about the Sabbath. Bob answered her question that it is every day of the week since we are now under a New Covenant and the Sabbath of the Old Covenant was a shadow of the reality that is in Christ. We can rest in Christ every day.
Steve asked about what all this is he heard about concerning crowns and rewards. Bob answered his question by explaining the parable Jesus shared in John 15. The work of God is this: to believe in the one who was sent. The works we do are not in the energy of the flesh but the works God told us to do and we let him live his life in us and through us. When we are focused on rewards then we are not thinking like God. We should simply be focusing on loving others with Christ’s love, since he loved us first, and esteem others better than ourselves.
The last caller, Andrew, asked about people who say they are the first lady or are an apostle or prophet. Bob essentially warned people to stay away from such deceivers. Now they may not be intentional, but intentional or not, we need to walk in truth. There is nothing biblical in any of those things for today.
Michael from Atlanta, GA
Michael called about why people talk about attention deficit disorder, psychological disorders and other behavioral disorders. Where does attention deficit disorder come from? Is it inherited? We all inherited things from Adam.
Bob jokingly said, “Attention deficit disorder probably comes from observing congregations on Sunday morning.” People say kids have ADD. What kid doesn’t? Kids throwing spitballs and other things can be called ADD. So people of the world, who do not know God, can only rely on their own understanding. He tries to figure out man without God. God said he created man and knows how man is made.
John 2:24
But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.
Colossians 1:15-16
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
Many Christians get caught up in this because they do not want to accept responsibility of their sinful nature. The lost come up with their own ideas of how man thinks and parents send their kid to psychologists. In their worldly wisdom, they give them drugs to numb their minds. Yet God knows man because he created man. So let us go ask God to find out how man thinks.
Michael shared his own thoughts, which were in agreement with Bob. I do not believe children have different personalities. To say it is inherited or a disease is concerning.
Bob does not see that in scripture either. Take kids off coke in the morning and you might find a difference in behavior. Change diet away from eating too much sugar. But that is as good as the world can come up with. Michael finds it concerning that these kids are on drugs to treat so-called disorders, just taking medication to numb it. You see kids slobbering all over themselves after taking a pill and they say it is helping him. What good did that really do? It is not in the bible. You cannot subscribe to truth when you cannot know it.
1 Corinthians 2:14
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
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Unnamed Caller
Bob then shared after having to hang up on a call from a person saying he was born of baptism.
Scripture is not confusing. Scripture explains itself. What gets confusing is someone interpreting something totally contrary to the context. You grab a hold of that interpretation and say “that’s it”, “my pastor told me so”, or “my denomination told me so.” So people refuse truth by grabbing a hold of an interpretation that has no bearing on the context of scripture. Jesus is talking about being born. You have to be born physically before you can be born spiritually. First comes the natual then comes the spiritual. Man has to be born first of water, a natural birth, then spiritual, that is a spiritual birth. Flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit.
John 3:5-8
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
No one has the spirit before the natural. In Mormon teaching, you live spiritually in heaven and that is why they say we have all these babies down here of the spirit to dwell. That is the opposite of what the word of God teaches. There is no such thing as spiritual apart from the natural. You have to be born physically before being born spiritually.
Do not get confused on these passages. Read the scriptures yourself and quit just accepting man’s word for it. Look at what it says and look at the context. Verse 6 clearly explains in detail verse 5.
Martha from Pittsburg, PA
What is the law of the New Covenant all about? She has heard about it on the radio.
The New Covenant is in comparison to the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant of law was replaced by the New covenant of grace. The New Covenant went into effect on the day Jesus died. Hebrews 9 talks about covenant and will.
Hebrews 9:15
15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance — now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
You have an old testament or will and you have a new testament or will. Will and testament are interchangeable. You have an old covenant will and a new covenant will. All words are interchangable.
The New Covenant went into effect at the death of Christ Jesus. Just like a natural will, people in a will are not to be recipients of what you are leaving them until you die. In the same way, that will that you have will not go into effect until you die. Until Christ died, His will did not go into effect.
Hebrews 9:16-22
16 In the case of a will,[Same Greek word as covenant; also in verse 17] it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19 When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20 He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.”[e] 21 In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Jesus fulfilled the old covenant of the law. No man could ever live up to the demands of the law.
Galatians 3:10
For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
Jesus Christ had to be the one who fulfilled the law for us. God gave the law and therefore had to be fulfilled.
Matthew 5:17
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Luke 24:44
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
Romans 13:8
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:10
Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
The only person to fulfill the law is Jesus. After having fulfilled the law, through his life, walking on this earth in perfect love, and love being the fulfillment of the law, he then upheld the law. For under the law, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). In order for the law to be upheld he literally had to become sin for us and suffer the consequences of sin for us, being death.
2 Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Hebrews 2:16-18
16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
He entered into spiritual death with us so being raised from the dead we could enter into his resurrection with him.
Romans 6:5
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection
1 Corinthians 5:21
For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
All that is all part of the new covenant. In Hebrews, the major essence is this.
Hebrews 10:16-18
16 “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”[Jer. 31:33]
17 Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”[Jer. 31:34]
18 And where these have been forgiven, there is no more sacrifice for sin.
Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). There is no more shedding of blood. That is the final human sacrifice of mankind. No more sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:18). If there is no more sacrifice, then there is no more forgiveness. Forgiveness from God was totally placed on Christ Jesus. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only our sins, but the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).
1 John 2:2
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Why he cried out from the cross, “it is finished” (John 19:30) is because there is no more forgiveness to be executed on the behalf of God for you and me. It is done. It is finished. We can walk in the fact that we are in Christ, having come to him for his life, his resurrection.
Ephesians 1:7
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
Forgiveness is not something we get but something we have. You are, Martha, a forgiven person. We do not get forgiven. It is something we are. You are a forgiven person. You are resting in Him.
Martha then asked, “Every one is saying that the Sabbath is on Saturday. Is the Sabbath on Saturday?”
No, the Sabbath is every day. Sabbath in the Old Covenant system is a day of the week. Again, we are under a New Covenant. Under a New Covenant, the Old Covenant Sabbath is a foreshadowing of the Sabbath rest that we now live in today because of Christ Jesus.
Colossians 2:16-18
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
Hebrews 4:9-11
9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works,[a] just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.
We are resting from our works just as he did from his. What does it mean by resting from our works? Nothing we can do to add and nothing we can do to subtract from what Jesus accomplished for us. We are complete so that is part of that rest we are talking about. Now the Sabbath rest is every day of the week. Now to the Jews, they remained in the desert for 40 years. Only two people entered that Sabbath rest. It is unbelievable that out of about 1.1 million people who entered the desert from bondage in Egypt that only two entered the Sabbath rest. Therefore scripture warns, “Be sure no one falls short from entering that Sabbath rest.(Hebrews 4:1)” God’s goal for us is not for us to build a church in the desert but to be resting in Him. Quit asking God for what he has already accomplished. Quit asking God for what you already have. If you are a forgiven person, how much sense does it make to ask God for forgiveness? That is not faith is it? It is not faith to ask for what you already have. It is not faith to keep asking God for eternal life? If you are saved, you already have eternal life. That is what it means to rest. Nothing I can do to get more forgiven or less forgiven. Nothing I can do to get more of his life, or less of his life, living in me. I have been made complete in Christ.
2 Peter 1:3
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
So I can sit back and rest, praising God for what he has done. Praise God. Anyone who is born again can only say, “Praise God and thank you”.
Martha then said she was a new believer and that it is hard for her to read the word of God. Bob encouraged her to start in the New Testament. Start first with the book of John to learn about the love of God until you can agree with Paul that there is nothing that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Then read Paul’s writings and learn more about the New Covenant. You are in the New Covenant of grace and nothing can separate you from the love of God.
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ed from Hercules, CA
Ed asked what it means in Luke 9:23 to take up your cross daily. For me, he has already taken up the cross.
Luke 9:23
23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
If you read the entire context from Luke 9:21-27, Jesus is predicting his soon death.
Luke 9:21-27
21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. 22 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” 23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? 26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
He said he will suffer many things, be rejected by men, be killed and then on the third day he will be raised to new life. If anyone comes after me, he must deny himself. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it and whoever wants to keep his life shall lose it. So what is he saying?
It is basically an attitude of being willing to lay your life down for the gospel as Jesus Christ did. It is merely saying to have an attitude of not holding onto previous life in order to have eternal life. The phrase “take up your cross daily” means being in the mindset necessary to be willing to lay down your life for the gospel. E said, “For me it means to carry his cross that he already did.” Bob continues. He is giving an analogy that I am going to be killed and die for the forgiveness of your sins. So if you want to follow me, then have the same attitude of willing to die to be a true follower. If you are not willing to lay down your life to be my disciple then you are not worthy to be called my disciple. We could be a Peter on this and say we will never do this and then turn around and deny him three times. But the attitude of willingness is there.
Steve from Atlanta, GA
Steve asked, “Since we have the righteousness of Christ, what then are these rewards and crowns in heaven about?
At the point of the rapture and death, whichever occurs for you, you are absent from the body and present with the Lord. We will be rewarded for our works. What are those works?
Those works are things we allowed Jesus Christ to live in us and through us. The work of ministry is to believe in me. The work of a prophet is to persuade men to believe in the Messiah. The work of a pastor/teacher is to teach people to believe in Jesus. That is the work of ministry. Those things we allowed Jesus to do in us and through us that we have not done in the energy of the flesh. We did those works because Jesus wanted us to do that through us and we let him. What those rewards look like Bob does not have a clue. We just don’t know.
But what we do know about works is from the parable Jesus shared in John 15. In John 15, Jesus used an illustration of vine and branches to show us how his life is to be produced in us and through us.
John 15:1-5
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Steve commented, “When get to heaven we will throw crowns at Jesus feet.” Bob said it could be true. We do not necessarily need to know it though. The only passage I found about rewards and crowns was in Revelation but not much detail provided.
Revelation 4:9-11
9 Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
When people are thinking about rewards then they are not thinking about the ways of God. If you are thinking about getting rewards down here we will not get rewarded. When you get the praise of man you are not going to get the praise of God.
Matthew 6:1-3
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
We know we will get rewarded for those things Jesus allowed to do in and through us. That will be rewarded. Instead of thinking on rewards we should be thinking about making our bodies available to the living Christ to live his life in and through us. Steve commented, “Seems like people try to get us focused on rewards so as to get us to do this to get a reward.” Bob responded. That is work. No grace in working to get a reward. We should just think about doing things out of love and to esteem others better than yourselves.
Andrew
He has heard people refer themselves as the first ladies or the first family or even apostles or prophets today.
Bob shared that Apostles were only those people who were with Jesus and through whom the canon of scripture came to be written down. Prophets were used to communicate verbally what has not yet been written down in what we hold in our hands today. Now that all scriptures have been written down, with the canon now closed today, the offices of Apostle and Prophet do not exist today. Everything you named is non-biblical.
How should we relate to people who do that?
I would not be involved with people like that because they are deceivers, whether intentional or not. If any group is calling people Apostles or Prophets today, then they are deceivers and no one should be listening to or being involved with them. And, to his more vague question on first family, implying that certain people are put ahead of others, Bob said it was really non-sensical. It makes just as much sense as calling Bob George the first family of People to People. Find another outfit to be involved with. He was not involved with them but has heard these things and wanted Bob’s feedback.
