Classic Christianity – Call-In Bob George P403 (01-10-19)
Welcome to Classic Christianity with Bob George. Today we are pleased to present a special radio show, featuring call in listeners from Bob’s original People to People daily radio program that was on the air for over 30 years, offering real answers for real life problems, as he addresses common questions as well as the tough issues of today, directing callers to the centrality of Christ in you, your only hope of glory. We want to remind our listeners that Bob George Ministries needs your financial support to continue to have Classic Christianity radio on the air. Please visit “BobGeorge.net” to find out how you can support us financially. Let us listen to Bob as he offers practical biblical insights as he helps us grow in faith hope and love in Jesus Christ.
Francisco, from El Cerrito, CA, asked Bob three questions, concerning what memory we have in heaven concerning things of earth and about a Christian who has been delivered from serious stuff yet seemingly is unable to stop smoking. To the first question, in short, man will have no memory of things on earth when in heaven because flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God and there is no presence of sin in heaven, the memory of such things is no more. To the second question, the short answer is that he can stop smoking and he is believing a lie. He does not know the unconditional love of God otherwise he would not also stop reading and praying for he is thinking that God has turned His back on him.
D.W. from from Santana, CA asked questions in regards to sin and faith in a believer. In essence, why do Christians still sin and can they ever completely stop sinning? Why not? Bob explains God’s choice in creating man with free will, the indwelling sin in man, requiring a born again believer to depend on God. In short, man is to live by faith, not focusing on our failures but on Christ living in you. We are to rejoice in our weaknesses that Christ’s power may be manifest through us. Not until death shall we be swallowed up in victory and raised up in immortality. Flesh and bones do not inherit the kingdom of God. Man shall live by faith.
Debra from Los Angeles, CA asks for help in reaching out to a Mormon who claim she is a Christian. She is bothered he is at a loss of words to help her see truth to be born again. Bob explained the general nature of cults and explained some false teaching of Mormonism so contrary to salvation in Jesus Christ. Mormons believe in teachings from book of Mormon rather than scripture, do not believe in Trinity, believe Jesus became God and is Lucifer’s brother. Until a Mormon leaves behind such teaching then they will never come to Christ. Like most cults, they are trapped and ensnared and it will take a lot to pull them out. Will they listen to truth or continue to believe a lie?
Debra also asked Bob another question that was bothering her for years. She was believing that there is a war between God and Satan. And if the path to heaven is narrow and the path to hell is wide, then does that not mean that God is losing the war? Bob told her that God is not in a competition with Satan, as if God is in a game like Texas Rangers baseball. He is about offering life to man and is not willing any man should perish. He already provided for life for man by his death to take way sin, the cause of death, and His resurrection by which His life is offered. Bob explains the choice man has because God chose to make man with free will. There will be those who choose death, ultimately leading to eternal hell separated from God, and those who choose life in Christ Jesus, forever with God both now and in a new place called heaven.
Francisco asks:
Will Christians have their memory in tact when they go to heaven?
Isaiah 65:17
“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
Luke 6:22-23
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.
Bob answered by saying, “If we have memory of what we had down on earth, we would cease to be in heaven. Flesh and blood will not inherit kingdom of god. Glorified body that has nothing to do down here.”
1 Corinthians 15:50
I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Francisco asks:
What about your loved ones that go on with Lord. They will be in heaven. Will you will recognize them in heaven? Yes, you will know them in heaven.
Francisco continues sharing about a Christian friend of his. A friend who a is Christian, was into drugs and sensuality, delivered from those things. He said he could not give up cigarettes and so does not get into word or pray.
Bob answers by saying that he is not functioning under grace but under law. Bob can say without question that people might say they love God but he does not believe it. If you think God has turned His back on you because of your behavior then you don’t understand his unconditional love.
1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.
If you do not understand unconditional love of God, how then can you love Him back. To say you can’t quit smoking is nonsense. Bob said he smoked like a furnace before he was saved, and made up his mind he had enough and quit, and that without the Spirit of God. Yes, the first few days was difficult but after that not an issue anymore. Now as a born again believer, smoking is not a testimony of Christ. So what you are really saying is that you love cigarettes more than a solid testimony of Jesus. You cannot hide those types of things. If you are born again, you don’t need to be messing up the temple of the Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 6:16
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Would you walk into a church building, a man-made structure deemed a place of worship among men, and light up a cigarette? You are the church, not the man-made building of brick and mortar. You can get out of if you want to. Ask God to help you do what is necessary to get you out of that habit that is offensive both to the lost and the saved.
Does that mean you cannot read or study the bible? No, of course not. It means you have a bad habit you are having difficulty getting out of. The key question is this: “Do you want to?” If you follow a few steps, it is not that difficult. There will be difficulty for the first couple of days due to withdrawal symptoms and the pull of the flesh, but even with will power you can get out of it. How much more so with God’s power living in you, renewing your mind!
D.W. from Santana, CA asked Bob this question.
“If connected to Christ by faith, when we sin are we living by faith?”
Not at that moment. Sin is denying the truth of God and believing the lie. The root of all sin is not trusting Jesus. We do things, confessing and trying to get the fruit cleaned up, instead of going to the root of problem. So ask the Lord: “Lord, I don’t want to live in unbelief and in this area that is what I was doing.” So continue to renew your mind. A prison can stop your actions but will do nothing to change internal attitudes in the heart. Until attitude and attitude is changed, nothing is changed. So the Lord is saying to you, “Let us reason together.”
The only time we will ever not sin is when we are dead. Have you ever stopped sinning? No. Is that not true of all of us? Yes, we will all struggle with sin in this body of death of ours, this immortal body with sin-indwelling flesh. It is true isn’t it? You and I and nobody has ever stopped sinning completely, even after becoming born again. Why is that? God took away sins from the eyes of God when Jesus died on the cross fully satisfying the just requirements of the law for us, paying the wages of sin, which is death, for us, and taking it away. God sees our sins no more since they were all placed on Christ. God is not dealing with you and me on the basis of sin anymore but on the basis of a new life in Him. The issue of sin is settled already with God. Now you are in a life long process, as a child of God, being trained in the renewing of your mind so as to be conformed to the image of God. Rejoice in your weakness for in your weakness God’s strength is manifest. If you and I never sinned, would we depend on Christ? When I realized my vulnerability and weakness, the pull of the flesh to sin, then I turn to Christ. What keeps us dependent on Christ? When I realize I can’t then I turn to the one who can. Is it not the sin-indwelling flesh in conflict with the spirit of God residing in us?
God could have saved us and eliminated the sin nature within. But he did not. The reason he did not is to keep us dependent on Him. So do not be preoccupied with failures. God knows us already. God wants to deal with you and me on the basis of a new life, His life in us. Everything permissible but not everything is profitable. So Bob shares this verse as the basis for our decision making process.
1 Corinthians 10:23
23 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.
Can I get drunk as a born again believer? Yes. Is it permissible? Yes, because I am not under law but under grace. Is it profitable? No, and it makes no sense knowing that I am a new creation in Christ!
Romans 6:1-4
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Romans 6:22-23
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
If it wasn’t permissible, then it would be the law and the power of sin is in the law, making you want to do it.
1 Corinthians 15:56
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
Romans 7:16-18
16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
D.W. asked: “When we regret our sin, not living in faith, but once regret is over then back in faith?”
Bob answered that you are never out of faith if you are in Christ Jesus. No such thing in being out of faith, just in a particular issue of life you started believing a lie of Satan and denying the truth of God. When you do that, the Holy Spirit God is instructing you about it: “Why did you do it? What is the root?” God forces us to reason together to admit I was believing a lie and living in the flesh. God then encourages you to reason together with Him. God does not come to condemn but to restore you so as to live a new life in you as He is in a loving relationship with you.
Debra from Los Angeles, CA asked Bob about a Mormon woman who said she is a Christian. She wanted help from Bob in how to help this woman come to true faith so she could be born again.
Debra shared that the Mormon woman says she is Christian. Debra is struggling in how to share with her and finds herself with a loss for words.
Bob says that some many in the religious world are desperately trying to make themselves acceptable to God. So often the religious are not intellectually honest and share words that would be acceptable to your ears but yet have different meaning than what you would discern or recognize, especially if you are not familiar with the deception. It is as if they want to hear you say to them : “You are Christian too.”
Mormons have a different Jesus. In their belief system, God was one like us and worked to become God. Is that true? No. If premise off in who God is, then premise is off in everything. Could it be possible person listening to teaching on T.V. about New Covenant, but then to go back to the Mormon church, and hear utter nonsense and so the truth they heard does not stick to their hearts because of the poison they have now returned to hear? For anyone to think someone had binoculars looking into Egyptian hieroglyphic plates and then the plates are lost, so nothing of which people claim can be verified, has to be a moron to believe that. Such is what the Mormons teach from, lost plates full of lies contrary to the word of God. The scriptures we read are the word of God, through eyewitness, prophets and Apostle,s those who have seen the risen Savior and who were eyewitnesses of events in the life of Jesus Christ.
Mormonism is not Christian in any shape of form. Jesus is not Lucifer’s brother. Ever doctrine basic to salvation is contrary. They do not believe the Trinity but three separate gods. Mormonism is all about the book Of Mormon. Any time anyone adds to the Bible, you subtract from it. Whenever deny the Trinity, deny who God is and who Christ is. It all boils down to the person of Christ. These people are brainwashed so much, with Satanically induced teaching like all cults, that have people trapped and ensnared. Can they come out of deception? Yes, nothing is impossible with God, but as long as they continue to listen to lies and remain, how then can the word of God take root in their hearts? It will take a lot to pull them out of it. But if they do not let go of the book of Mormon, how then will they ever hold onto truth. The teachings in the book of Mormon are in conflict with scriptures. If they do not forget the book of Mormon, how will they turn to or hold onto truth?
Debra asked Bob another question that was bothering her for years. She was believing that there is a war between God and Satan. And if the path to heaven is narrow and the path to hell is wide, then does that not mean that God is losing the war?
Bob answered her by explaining God’s choice in creating man with free will and that God is not at war with Satan. God is into salvation of men and has solved that problem and offers life to man. It is up to man, who has free will, to accept or reject that offer of new life in Him.
It is God’s will that no one should perish. When God gave man a will, it was a gamble in God’s creation. With free will, people can choose a different way than God’s way. God is not in a win-lose situation. Do not compare God’s way with a ball game. God is not in a ball game. God’s way is the cross, His death, burial and resurrection, where he died for all the sins of the world and offers eternal life to anyone who wants it and is willing to believe and accept His offer of new life.
It is man’s choice to accept or reject Him. Do not lead on your own understanding. Get win and lose out of your vocabulary for God is not in a competition. He is into salvation, an offer of salvation. God is not competing with Satan. If He was, who would win? God is calling out to men: “Here is my Son, here is salvation”. You and me are in a fallen race of people. No one else can give life to the dead. Man has the choice to reject salvation. You have to accept both, his death for sin and His life to be lived in you and through you. Accept what God says about me. That I am a sinner with consequence of faith. God took away sin, to care of the death issue, and was raised to new life, to take care of the life issue. Win and lose is not in the scriptures. God has a plan and He will carry that plan out. Man has the choice to accept that offer by faith or reject it. Those who reject the offer is because they do not want life and so chose to remain in death and will one day die in sin and be forever in a place called hell. And that by their choice.
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