Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P461 (8-02-19)
Sherry and John both called to ask questions that are so common even in the world still today. Sherry say she tries hard through prayer and seeks God to get God’s mercy through whatever means, such as prayer, and she is stuck. John asked about passages in John 1:9 as to who it was written to and about a passage in Hebrews where so many teach that you can lose your salvation. He also asked, “Does the Holy Spirit convict you of sin when you do wrong?”
Sherry would not let her mind get off the past rejection or bad things that happened in her life and would not believe God’s word over the lies in her head she has heard from out in the world. She says she has known the Lord for over 30 years but struggles in allowing herself to have mercy and knowing the good news. She says she seeks these things. That is her source of error and Bob is so patient with her to help her see her faulty thinking. The truth is, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, then you are already accepted in Christ Jesus, you can leave your past behind and begin walking in the newness of life. This starts by simply trusting what God has provided and done for you and what he says is true concerning you. You allow the Holy Spirit to live in you and through. If you are not born again then you ask Jesus to come into you so that this becomes a reality for you. The root of all sin is the sin of unbelief. So you have a choice to believe what God has said about you or to believe the lies of Satan and the world. Do not listen to wacky Christian therapists or psychologists who teach you things contrary to God’s word. Either you will replace error with truth, and be set free, or remain in bondage to the error in your mind. You replace error with truth by letting the Holy Spirit renew your mind through His word.
John was raised in a denomination that emphasizes confessing of sins. Whether in a Catholic or Protestant denomination, both are in serious error on asking God for forgiveness when God already took away the sins of the entire world when he shed his blood on the cross. The Catholics go the confessional booth or a priest and Protestants go to a misunderstanding of 1 John 1:9 in order to keep short accounts with God so as to remain in fellowship with God.
So many people are incorrectly taught from 1 John 1:9 to confess your sins so you may be cleansed, as if there is a black mark in heaven that has to be erased from your slate. That is from a poor translation of 1 John 1:9 from the original Greek and also from not reading 1 John in its context. Bob clears this up by pointing out that a pastor had asked the apostle John for help in dealing with the heretical teaching of the gnostics. The gnostics believe they have no sin and only the Spirit matters and do not acknowledge Jesus as God in the flesh. So John writes a letter to the pastor to address the error, and states he has seen and heard the word of life, and if any Gnostic was willing to believe the truth, as the pastor reads the letter to his congregation, they would come to their senses. The reason we know John is referring to the gnostics is because he had referred to them as those in whom the truth is not in them. If the truth is not in them, then they are lost, as we know from reading 2 John. From reading John 2, if someone has the truth in them, then the truth will remain in them forever.
In Hebrews, Bob also addressed the most often quoted error in understanding that if you fall away you cannot come back to repentance, and therefore, many have incorrectly concluded that you can lose your salvation. What is really being said here is that they just tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord, were enlightened, but did not come to believe in the truth. This is the case of Judas Iscariot, who spent 3 years with Jesus, along with all the other disciples, but unlike the other disciples, he failed to come to Christ for life. That is why if they fall away, they cannot go back to where they have never been. They never came to Christ to Christ in the first place.
Why is it that people will formulate a strong belief in one verse in the bible, which they have not understood correctly, rather than trust any of the other numerous passages of scripture that clearly indicate you can never lose your salvation. Eternal life is what eternal life means, life that never ends, which is the resurrected life of Christ in you, who have believed. Jesus said, “I will never leave you or forsake you”. He also said, “as far as the as east is from the west, so far have I removed your sins from you”. He also said, no one can snatch you out of my Father’s hands.
In the case of the lost being referred to here in Hebrews, they never became born again in the first place. The Jews were going back to the day of atonement to get their sins forgiven. Today, people go back to the confessional booth or to quoting 1 John 1:9 to get their sins forgiven, and therefore, are denying the totality of the cross. Jesus did indeed die once and for all to take away the sins of the entire world before the eyes of God.
Transcript
Sherry from Weslake, CA
She calls to thank Bob so much for Bob’s program. She said that after 30 years of knowing the Lord, she admits that she does not know the good news. She has sought Lord in prayer and whatever means and finds herself in a bad place and is stuck. Peter was with Jesus for 3 years and denied him. She just got a newsletter and saw a book titled, “A Spiritual Journey to Discover the Grace of God“. She also said she has a hard time to allow herself to have mercy. She seeks for it. “I beg for it. I seek it.“, she said.
There is your problem. You cannot seek what God has already given you. You are trying instead of trusting. That is like seeking forgiveness. How can you seek forgiveness when you already have forgiveness? How can you seek eternal life, when in Him, you already have eternal life?
Ephesians 1:7
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
John 3:36
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life
Sherry then continues. I agree with you theologically.
Bob responds. It is not theological. It is reality. God is not theological. God is God and he came to do something for you. You either accept this by faith or deny it
Sherry then asks, “What happens if you cannot accept it?”
Bob replies, “You can accept it”.
Sherry then continues. “How can you accept it when all your life was complete rejection?”
Bob responds. The rejection of people should be why you are wide open to accept the mercy of God today.
Sherry replies, “I was very grateful.
Bob continues. If you were then you are capable of being again. You allowed your mind to go back into worldly thinking.
Romans 12:2
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
John 8:31-32
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Sherry, instead of renewing your mind on truth, you are renewing your mind on error. Error puts you in bondage and truth sets you free.
Sherry then said, “You sound like Mary Becker Eddie?
Bob replied, “No, I don’t. Mary Becker Eddie is no one I would follow. That has nothing at all to do with teaching error.
Sherry justifies herself and says, “I read books and know where you come from, but about one who has experienced rejection and so you have to fight really hard to believe real hard to accept that you are a child of God.
Bob responds. You are not equating truth here. All of us have experienced rejection in our lives, some more than others. That is not the issue. The issue is, have you accepted the acceptance in the beloved, in Jesus Christ. Now Satan comes along and says you are rejected as a child. Well, you agree with him. Yes, you have been rejected as a child. Big deal. But I have been accepted by God. What is more important, acceptance from man or acceptance with God?
Sherry then asks, “But Jesus said you will know them by their fruits and if you do not have any fruit?”
Bob replies. It is obvious you do not have any fruit, Sherry. You are abiding in your flesh instead of in the Spirit. If you are abiding in being preoccupied with what happened to you as a kid then get over it. What happened to you as a kid is gone. That is why Paul says forget what lies behind and press on to the high calling of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us have had rejection. All of us have had bad things happen to us in our life. We need to get over it. How we get over it is to refuse to think about it. Satan will always try to bring that stuff back into your head. It is over. There is not a thing you can do about what has happened to you as a child. Not a thing in the world. All that stupid psychological stuff tries to get you to dig up your past. What for? God says forget your past. You have an option as to whom you are going to believe? Are you going to believe Satan, who keeps saying to you to dig up your past, or are you going to believe what the apostle Paul said through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who says leave your past behind?
Sherry says she clings to Colossians 3, where it is written, “My life is hidden with Christ in God.” She says she has a real hard time connecting with God in a state of love. She said, “I am sure I am not the only one who struggles with that?”
Bob continues to try to help her grab a hold of truth, which she is rationalizing and failing to accept simple truth. “No, Satan is going to ensure people do not have that love. Again, it depends on who you want to listen to. You can continue to rationalize your situation if you care to do so or you can finally get over it and decide not to keep listening to this voice that keeps digging up what has happened in your past.”
Sherry is still not receiving truth. She says, “Who I am according to what people told me that I am.”
Bob continues. Again, do you want your self image predicated on what others say you are or what God says you are?
Sherry says, “I wish I had your confidence, Bob.”
Bob replies. I do not have a lot of confidence, Sherry. I just have a big God. I do not need great confidence to believe what God has said about me. He told me that I am a child of God. He has redeemed me. He has taken away my sins. He told me to forget the past, I cannot do anything about it, do not get over into the future, for that is God’s country and live a day at a time. I do not have to be a rocket scientist to believe that and walk in it. It is not difficult to do. It is that you refuse to do it. You either have the choice to believe what God is telling you or to continue hanging on to your past and hanging on to past thinking or hanging on to what others have said, which is absolutely meaningless what others say, and whether or not you are going to believe God or not. It is the garden of Eden all over again. Are you going to believe Satan or are you going to believe God? That is your choice in life, Sherry.
Sherry continues rationalizing. “Christian therapists tell you that you should go back and…”
Bob addresses that statement Sherry made. A Christian therapist who tells you that is an idiot. Anybody can call himself a Christian. He is in total contrast to what God says. God calls him a fool and that is what I would call him. There is no place in the bible of going back and digging up your past. God says our problem is sin. He does not say it is because you had a mother or you were pottie trained too early or that you were rejected as a child. All of that is over. Our problem is sin. What is the root of sin? Unbelief, just not believing that God has taken care of those things regardless of what we have had in our past. That is over. I have had very unpleasant things happen to me in my past. It is over. I am not going to be a moron and sit around digging it up. It makes me feel bad. Why would I want to sit around and intentionally make myself feel bad by thinking about bad things that have happened to me when I can sit around and be thinking about the wonderful thing that happened to me, and that is the day I came to know Christ?
Sherry continues. So you speak a lot more about the good news of the gospel than most people because most people are prophesying about all of these major things. Like you said in the newsletter, we need to learn how to cling to the foundation.
Bob comments. If we do not cling to the truth of what Christ communicated to us we have nothing to cling to except the error that has been put in our minds by the world, Sherry? And that is where the conflict is. The conflict is in the mind. You are going to believe error and be in bondage or you are going to believe truth and be set free. The bible says the truth will set you free, and when you are not free, then you are in error.
Sherry asked, “What do you think about the false teachers and televangelists out there?”
Sherry, I am not going to get into that. You have heard me talk on those things before.
Sherry then said, “I wish I knew the basic good news. Glory be to God.”
Bob continues. I do not know how to help you, Sherry. If you are truly born again, and I do not know if you are, then you have the Spirit of God in you to interpret scripture for you. If you are not born again, then the solution is to become born again and to come by faith in the fact that what Jesus has done for you. Get your mind off of yourself and onto Jesus. Keep your mind on Jesus and that is what the bible tells us, and that is, “I do not need to sit around worrying about me and what has happened to me and what hasn’t happened to me. Whenever I do that it is bad news. Instead, keep focused on Jesus Christ and what he has provided for you and who he has made me into, a new creation in Christ, and to walk in the newness of life that is in Christ Jesus.” Keep listening and put your trust in the Lord.
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John from Platt, Minnesota
He calls to ask about confessing sin as a believer. John said, “In 1 John 1:9, the person is written to believers.”
That is where you are in error. With that premise is wrong, everything is wrong. It was written to a believing pastor who was bogged down in false teaching of the gnostics infiltrating his church. The pastor called the apostle John, asking for help. There are two basic doctrines in gnosticism. The gnostic did not believe Jesus came in the flesh. They believed he was just an illusion. They also thought man did not have a sinful nature, and that does not matter anyhow, because they thought it only matters what was done in the Spirit anyhow. That is why he starts by writing of what he saw and heard concerning the word of life.
1 John 1:1
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
We have seen him. He has appeared. Why did they write that? To correct heretical teaching of the gnostics. In order to correct heretical teaching that you do not have a sin nature, you have 1 John 1:8.
1 John 1:8
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Then so many deceived people go into a Christian bar of soap, as if to apply that soap to cleanse themselves of unrighteousness when they sin, which prevents a life of ever to rest in His forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 is in answer to 1 John 1:8.
1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
This scripture reveals the reason these scriptures are not written to believers. Who is the truth? Jesus. Jesus is full of grace and truth. If you are making a claim that you are without sin then Jesus is not in you. To prove that, go to 2 John.
2 John 1-3
1 The elder, To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth – and not I only, but also all who know the truth – 2 because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:3 Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.
So what does he say about truth? If it is in you, it will be in you forever. Now back to 1 John 1:8-9.
1 John 1:8-9
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
If the truth is not in you is because it has never had been in you. For if it was in you, then it cannot leave you. That is how we know for sure we are talking to a lost gnostic. Let us look at the Greek of that. The construct on “if” is no place else to be found in the New Testament.
Look at the use of “if” in this scripture.
Matthew 4:3
3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
The phrase, “if you are the son of God”, it is not that I do not know that Jesus is God. It means in light of the fact that he is the son of God, turn these stones to bread.
Then there is an “if” construct indicating cause and effect. Consider this simple sentence.
- If it is raining outside, then you are going to get wet
- This “if” in 1 John 1:9 is an “if” with a question.
- I do not know if you will ever come to your senses, but when you do, and I do not believe you ever will, but if you do, then he is faithful and just to have forgiven you (not will or hope to, but have forgiven)
- The verbs are in the aorist tense here. It is past action with a continual effect. It is what is described in the Greek study as a snapshot. It is not a movie camera. It is once and for all and forever. In as much as we know it was written in 95 A.D. and Christ died on the cross in 33 A.D. and we do not have to wonder when this occurred. Therefore there is no other way to intelligently translate that except the fact that he is faithful and just to have forgiven our sins and to have cleansed you from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:8-10
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.So you are not talking to believers but to a believing pastor who has a congregation. So the letter comes back and the pastor would read the letter, to those there, if the shoe fits you wear it. If you are sitting there as a gnostic and you believe John or the apostle Paul as having authority in sharing truth, then you say, “I have been believing wrong”. If you are an egotistic gnostic, then you say, “who cares what he said”. Yet the gnostic thinks he has special knowledge from God, which is what gnostic means, so he would probably be so egotistic that he would not believe anyway.
1 John 2:1
1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.He is the one who turns away God’s wrath, not only ours, but the sins of the entire world.
Romans 5:9
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!What Christ did on the cross is final, for all sins.
John said that he grew up in a denomination that teaches you have to confess sins. He said, “We receive the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ in us, when we became saved. Does the Holy Spirit convict of sins as believers?”
John 16:7-11
7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.Let us think about it. The average Christian, and the reason he is hung up on these things, is because we have never been taught what Jesus did. In so many denominations, when you first become a Christian, you sit there for months hearing what you have to do. Here is tithing and nevertheless, you are also told to press on and sick them for Jesus. You have to go to visitation and you have to go to church three times on Sunday and then a prayer meeting. No one gets the opportunity to sit back and think what God did.
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.If that is true, then every sin that every man committed is placed on Christ Jesus.
2 Corinthians 5:21
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.John 16:9
The world’s sin is unbelief in me;The only sin attributable to man is the sin of the rejection of Christ Jesus. The sins of the world were taken away. If they are not taken away then the next time you sin then you would die again. That is the reason I know I have eternal life is because of the eternal consequence of the cross. Now if that is true, then when I sin, what should my first thought should be to God? “What did he do with that sin?” He took it away. He suffered and died to take it away. So my response can only be to thank Him for His mercy to me. What is the root of all sin? Unbelief.
I come to agree with God, “The reason I did what I am doing, or in my attitude, is because I stopped trusting you. I stopped believing you, God.” God responds, “Renew your mind with truth.” Keep your focus on Jesus Christ on His truth and His grace. Get up and move on. So people envision this black mark that has been created in heaven and think they have to get rid of it. We are taught we are out of relationship or out of fellowship. If I am out relationship or out of fellowship then that means God is mad at me. He is not mad at us. He loves us. He took away sins never to see them again so we can walk in newness of life. We are not walking under law but under grace that most churches have us under.
John then asked, “Why is it so hard to live?”
We all have difficulty at times with that. The law is useless to us because no man can be declared righteous by obedience to the law.
Romans 3:20
20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.If that is true, then the law has to fade away and soon disappear. It is obsolete. It can be sold in an antique store. It is aging and should soon disappear. We have grown up with so many barnacles. Now it has to age and disappear and that takes time.
Bob, what about Hebrew where it seems to say you can lose salvation?
Hebrews 6:4-6
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.They were enlightened but not converted.
John commented. “You mentioned the difference as one who has repented and one has not. How does a person who is enlightened fall away?”
Judas was enlightened. Being around Jesus you were enlightened to what truth but you did not give your heart to it. It is the same as the parable of the soils where the seed is sewn but it never takes root. How many times have you tasted something but never ate it. So you hate broccoli and your mother says, “just taste it? Just taste it?” And you say, “I still do not want to eat it”. These words, “tasted” and “shared”, Judas was involved in all these things. It says if you fall away you cannot be brought back to repentance is because you have never repented. To your loss, you are crucifying the son f man all over again. How are you doing that? By claiming that he did forgive the sins of the entire world but then going back to the sacrificial system of sacrificing bulls and goats or going back to the confessional booth or going back to thinking that quoting 1 John 1:9 is going to keep myself forgiven. It does not matter which one you are doing for they are all a denial of the finality of the cross.
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- I do not know if you will ever come to your senses, but when you do, and I do not believe you ever will, but if you do, then he is faithful and just to have forgiven you (not will or hope to, but have forgiven)