Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P507 (01-30-20)
Synopsis
So many people have been raised in some religion denomination, whether Judaism, Catholic or Baptist, and think they are saved by believing what they have been taught. The problem is that what they have been taught is words of men based on tradition. They do not understand what salvation is. They think salvation is getting sins forgiven. That is only a half gospel, and that is not even fully understood. A Jew goes back to the day of atonement, the shedding of the blood of a bull or goat, to get their sins forgiven. The Catholic goes to the confessional booth to confess his sins before a priest to get his sins forgiven. The Baptist or Protestant goes direct to God, quoting 1 John 1:9, keeping short accounts with God, to get his sins forgiven. But none of those things takes away sin. Indeed only the atonement was even recognized, under a temporary Old Covenant system, to cover sin. But even that was set aside by a New Covenant system when Jesus shed his blood on a cross.
In all theses cases, they do not understand the purpose of the cross nor the purpose of the resurrection. It is not about how bad you are or how good you about how dead you are. Yes, sins is what caused our spiritual death. That is precisely why Jesus came to die on a cross to take away the sins of the world from the eyes of God. So man’s problem is not so much sin, although it caused his death. Spiritual death is the bigger problem. Forgiveness of sins cannot bring life from the dead. Now, Jesus shed blood was necessary in order for life to be given, for if the cause of death was not eternally taken away, and there was a law that could impart life, then the next time man sinned he would die again.
So as important as the cross was, a necessary preparation for life to be given, it is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus that allows life to be given back to man. The life that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is able to raise you and me, who are dead, to be raised to new life in Him. In Him is redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So what Jesus did by shedding his blood over 2000 years ago on a cross, is what took away our sins. When we recognize our death with him, we die to the law of sin and death, and when he was raised, he offered eternal life to us, we too identify with his resurrection, and receive a new life of the Spirit living in us.
So you see the Spirit of God that left Adam and Eve because of sin. Therefore all men born since Adam were born without the Spirit of God. Seeing His fallen creation, God sent Jesus into this world to do something for us we could never do for ourselves. We could never do enough good things to satisfy the just requirement of death for sin nor could we raise ourselves from the dead. No other man, except Jesus, being God in the flesh, could accomplish for man what he really needed, the life of God, the Spirit of God to be placed back into man, to know and communicate with the living God. No other man has life in himself, being born dead spiritually. No other man had a life to lay down. No other man is without sin. Only Jesus, who is God, without sin of his own, could voluntarily take upon our sin and die in our place. Because he has no sin of his own, he could also be raised to new life. And being the eternal Spirit of God, He is an eternal sacrifice for all sins once and for all, and He lives forevermore. If you are in Him, you have forgiveness of sins. If He is in you, you have life forevermore.
Now that you have the mind of Christ, you have an insatiable desire to please God. If God provides clear instruction, which He does, that a woman is not to teach or have authority over a man in the church, then we obey such instructions, from the heart, for we know God always has the best in mind for us. We leave a church that has put a woman as a pastor, for that is not God’s way. When God tells us that the marriage bed should be honored, then we do what He says because the love of God is in our hearts and we trust Him. With the Spirit of God now living in us, we learn to walk by the Spirit. One characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit is patience. Patience is waiting for the right time and condition for the good things God wants for us.
Transcript
Billie from Denver, Colorado
Billie: I was talking to someone about the second coming of the Lord. He was trying to convince me the Lord already came back, and he came back in the Holy Spirit.
Bob: That is not true. In essence, he never left.
John 16:7
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.
Bob: It is good for you I am going away, for when I do I will be your body here on this earth. That is not the second coming of the Lord. That is Christ entering into his body, which we are the body of Christ. The second coming of the Lord is when Jesus Christ himself will come back to this earth in physical form.
Billie: That is what I thought. I got confused, though, when he said that the Holy Spirit came back, because of Trinity, God the Father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. I got confused when he said he is coming back. He never left, right?
Bob: Yes, in essence, he never left. At Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit came to live in a person. That is the first time where anybody was born again, as we are born again today, permanently being indwelt by the Spirit of God, as a result of the cross, where he took away the cause of spiritual death. That is not the second coming of Christ at all. When Jesus is coming back again, he is coming back in physical form. We are here in our body, the flesh form, with Christ living in us. But Christ Himself is going to come in his physical form. That is the second coming of Christ. That has nothing to do with His entering into believers.
Billie: Okay. I understand that.
Bob: Does that help, Billie?
Billie: Yes sir. Thank you very much.
Bob: Do not let people confuse you with that stuff.
Billie: Okay, I won’t.
Bob: Okay, brother. God bless you, Billie. Bye. Bye. Now.
Danny from El Paso, Texas
Danny: Hello, how are you?
Bob: I am doing fine. Thank you.
Danny: I have a question. This has been going on for about eight years. This pastor at this church, the house of God. A lot of people and a lot of worshipers. He died and he passed on. His wife, who is not a pastor, not even close to knowing the word of God, while he was preaching, she took his place as a pastor. She has been baptizing people in water for their sins. Is it valid?
Bob: It is not valid for her to be a pastor.
Danny: Yes, I understand. What happens to all those people?
Bob: Find another church or get another pastor. If the bible says a woman is not supposed to be in authority over a man, and the position of a pastor is a position of authority, and I was in the church, and they decided to bring the woman in to be a pastor of the church, you would see me at the back door. I would be gone and that would be the end of it.
1 Timothy 2:11-13
11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
Danny: We know this because some pastor has spoken about her. She was only doing it for the money.
Bob: It does not make any difference what she was doing it for. Who is more stupid, her or the people sitting there listening to her. There comes a point where you are going to say, “Am I going to follow what scripture says or am I not? The scripture talks about the woman is not supposed to be in a position of leadership over a man. She is not supposed to be a pastor. She can be a teacher, but not a pastor, because that is a position of authority over a man. If somebody in the church does that, it is just like in the Episcopal church, where they have a bishop who is walking and talking homosexual. I would not be in that church for five minutes because that is not biblical. If it is not biblical there, then what else are they going to compromise on? The issue is, is it biblical what she is doing? No, it is not. What is your decision? Get out of there or get the church to remove her from being pastor.
Danny: I understand that. All those people who go there. We live on a border city. All people who go to her church go there from Mexico. When I heard this, I did go to one of her sessions, what she called her sessions. I even told her, “Do you have a certificate for pastoring?”
Bob: Well, that is not biblical either. Danny, we have talked about this all we can. The issue is, if you are not going there, you are not doing anything wrong. If you are asking if people should be going there, the answer is no. If they do, then there is nothing you can do about it. All you can do is wait on the Lord on whatever He is going to do to clear the deck there.
Danny: Yes.
Bob: Okay, brother?
Danny: Thank you brother and God bless.
Bob: You are welcome, Danny.
Darrell from Decatur, Georgia
Bob: He called concerning Hebrews 6:1-8. I am going to help him understand that.
Hebrews 6:4
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift,
Bob: Watch the words that the author of Hebrews used. You have been enlightened to information. You have been exposed to it. You have tasted but never swallowed. You shared but have never been a partaker.
Hebrews 6:4-5
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
Bob: That would certainly be the case of the people that followed Jesus and of the one who tried to murder Jesus, wouldn’t it? Have they tasted, been enlightened like Judas, but then fell away?
Hebrews 6:5
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.
Bob: That is the same thing being talked about in the tenth chapter of Hebrews. Once you have been enlightened to the finality of cross, once you have been enlightened to the fact Jesus meant what he said when he died on a cross, crying out “paid in full”, and since having been enlightened to the teachings of the apostles, that Christ died for your sins once and for all, how can you repent when you never did?
Hebrews 10:10
10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Hebrews 10:14
14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever [not temporary] those who are being made holy.
Bob: Once you have been enlightened to those truths, and you have tasted the Holy Spirit, it says you cannot fall away because you never repented. The reason that you cannot be brought back to repentance is because you never repented. Have you ever figured out how hard it is to come back to where you have never been? This is because of people who tasted and heard, but have never changed their mind. They continue to go back to their sacrificial system to get forgiveness. They continue to go back to their confession both to get forgiveness. They continue to go back to 1 John 1:9’ing, thinking that will bring out forgiveness. They never changed their mind that their is nothing they can do to bring about God’s forgiveness. He has done it all. The only sin of man is the sin of rejection of that truth. That is sin that cannot be forgiven, that has to be repented of. There are many, many people, that went out among us because they were never a part of us.
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.
In the Greek, the verbiage used is Aorist past tense with a future effect, and if translated in proper tense, 1 John 1:9 would be better translated as this. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to have forgiven us and to have purified us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 2:19
19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
Bob: That is the problem with people who say you can lose salvation: “I knew this guy, and boy, he was one Christian dude, and he walked away”. He was not a Christian dude or he would not have walked away. That is what scripture says in 1 John 2:19. They went out from among us because they were never a part of us. They acted like they were. They talked like they were. Even their deeds looked like they were, but they were not. That is why they walked out from among us. They were never a part of us. When you are a son, you cannot cease to be a son. The prodigal son did not lose his sonship when he squandered his money on prostitutes, that even the pigs had a better life. He never lost his sonship. He just came to his senses. He never lost his sonship. He just came home. Why did the pigs stay there? Because they are pigs.
Bob: That is why we have to understand the truth of these passages, that you cannot come back to where you have never been. There are many, many people who think they have repented of their unbelief. They have not. They are still carrying on their traditions. Oh, they say, “I came to Jesus. Now I am going to go to my confession booth to get my forgiveness”. Then you did not come to Jesus, who came to take away your sins. You came to an imaginary Jesus. The Jesus of the bible is the one who suffered and died and went to a cross to take away the sins of the entire world. He did not leave any. That is why there is no more forgiveness to be executed. He took them all and when he cried out on the cross he said, “paid in full”, not in part, but in full. You are still not believing it. You are still going back to your tradition to keep yourself forgiven. These people who think they keep short accounts with God. I was told that. You are not told that in the bible but I was told that by man. So you keep on doing it. So you never repented. You never changed your mind that Jesus took away your sins. You still think there is more to be forgiven. In that particular case, read what he says in Hebrews 10.
Hebrews 10:26-27
26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
Bob: This is not an issue to be toyed with. When God says, “I took it away”, faith says, “I believe it and, God, I will never deny it ever, ever again”.
Jay from Fresno, California
Jay: Hi Bob. Thanks for taking my call.
Bob: Thank you, Jay.
Jay: I am a long time listener. I value your opinion above everybody else’s. It changed my own walk with the Lord, just by your teaching. About thirteen years I have been listening to you now. It is quite an honor to be a part of your teaching. It is unfortunate there are not more people who teach the way you do.
Bob: Thank you, Jay. I appreciate that.
Jay: Your welcome.
Jay: My question has to do with a moral dilemma. I had this guy, a contact from my church, that said he could help me with a crew of guys on a construction project. After the third or fourth day, we have been working along, I overheard him talking today that he is paying his guys now, his crew. He is bringing them over, buying their lunch, taking them home. He is paying them, one $30 per day and another $40 per day. I do not think too highly of this brother. How should I approach this? You have been in business before. If you think someone is not being treated right, what do I do?
Matthew 20:1-16
1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Bob: You have that situation in the scriptures. A person came and worked for an hour. So you have got that kind of thing there. You have contracted with him to pay him a certain amount of money for these workers. What he does with them and what agreement he has made with them is between him and them. I do not think I would basically be involved in that type of thing at all. You are not contracting with his workers. They are not yours. They are his. I would just leave it there.
Bob: If you felt there was some injustice being done, or felt that as a Christian. I do not know if who you are talking to is a Christian or fellow involved is a Christian?
Jay: The whole crew is all Christian from the same church.
Bob: You might just ask him, “I overheard this thing, is that right?” If he says, “yes it is”, then you can ask, “Do you think that is a fair way to go? It is not going to have do with what you are paying them, because that is a separate contract.” If you feel like bringing it up, otherwise just leave it with the Lord.
Bob: Maybe by just bringing this up, one guy being payed this and the other that, it might put a certain degree of guilt where he is doing right, and he can correct that. I think I would not get involved any further than that.
Bob: Does that help, brother?
Jay: Yes, it does. Once again, right to the scriptures. Yes. I forgot about that one scripture. Thanks again, Bob.
Lee from Rockdale, Texas
Lee: How are you doing?
Bob: Doing good, Lee. Thank you.
Lee: I have questions about various things about marriage. My girlfriend and I have been together a real long time now. We are both in college. We have been talking about marriage for a long time. We are getting close to stop talking and start doing, I guess. I have a lot of questions. Premarital sex? She says it is wrong. We try to refrain from it and all. Are there any bible verses on that? What does the bible say about marriage? I am looking for biblical advice.
Bob: Lee, do you study the bible at all?
Lee: No. I have in the past a lot. I was waking up in five in the morning. But the past month, I fell off on that one.
Bob: When did you come to Christ, as your personal Lord and Savior?
Lee: When I was a child, about twelve years old.
Bob: What is your understanding of the gospel then? And what is your understanding of the gospel now?
Lee: Christ died on the cross for my sins, and rose again on the third day, and we put faith in him, and when we pass away we go to heaven.
Bob: I am assuming that you know what the purpose of the cross was. That is where our sins were taken away. I have to question to whether you really believed in the totality of that or if you are still asking him for forgiveness. If you are, then you have never come to grips with the truth, that he took away yours sins, unlike the atonement where the blood of a bull and a goat covered sin. Jesus did something greater than that. He came to take away sin, never to see them again. The only sin attributable to man is the sin of unbelief in the finished work of Jesus. What is your understanding of the resurrection? What is the meaning of the resurrection, Lee?
Lee: Why he rose from the grave?
Bob: Yes.
Lee: I will be honest. I do not know.
Bob: Most people do not, Lee. That is why I am going over this with you.
Lee: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Bob: You are not saved by getting your sins forgiven. That is a shock to some people.
Romans 5:10
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Bob: Your sins were reconciled when you were an enemy. That means lost. You were born reconciled. How much more, having been reconciled, shall you be saved by his life. You are not saved by the death of Christ. You are saved by the life of Christ. In order to give you eternal life, which is what salvation is, being saved from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life, Jesus said “I came that you might have life”.
John 11:24-26
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
1 John 5:11-12
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Bob: The whole issue of salvation is being saved from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life eternal. The reason you have eternal life is because of the eternal consequences of the cross. Sin is what caused death.
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Bob: By taking away what caused death, he was able to give you eternal life. That is why we have eternal life, not temporal life. When you do not understand that truth, Lee, is that what you have is a half gospel. You very honestly admitted that you did not understand, which means you never really came to Christ for what he came to do. His resurrection is far more than an intellectual acknowledgment of truth. He was raised for a purpose. I am the reason he was raised so He could give me eternal life, to raise me from my condition of spiritual death.
Bob: So if you do not understand that, Lee, and all you understand about salvation is forgiveness, so you keep asking, thinking that will keep you holy. Or did you accept what he did for you and recognize you have been imputed with his righteousness, but there is nothing there about life. So you are trying to grunt and groan life in the energy of the flesh, and you cannot do it, or accomplish that. That is when you have the Holy Spirit of God living in you, there is an insatiable desire within you to learn more about this God who came to free you from the wages of sin, which is death, to free you from that, to enable you to walk free as a human being, to be led internally by the Spirit of God. That is where you, Lee, you and your fiance, have got to start. Otherwise you will never make it just being a church goer. You will make it as both of you, individually, have come to the point in your life where you realize there is nothing in this world I can do or accomplish to receive eternal life or righteousness. It is all of Jesus and none of me. He died for me then and raised from the dead so He can live in me now. I am going to accept that life of Christ and learn to walk by faith in Him who lives in me, because if you do not, Lee, what you have is “this is a man thing, honey”. “This is a feed me thing, honey”. Jesus comes in and says “this is a Jesus thing, honies”.
Bob: You have no point of reference in your marriage because this is the way we do it. She says this is the way we do it. And God comes along, when we have Him, and He says “this is how I say you do it”. This will keep your marriage strong and your life strong. It has to start not with a half gospel. You have to get away from that half gospel. You have to say “Lord Jesus, I did not realize the point of the resurrection for me. But now I do. Today, I want to receive you, your life living in me, as my hope of glory. After doing that, I am going back to my fiance to make sure she understands the meaning of the resurrection”.
Lee: Yes sir.
Bob: Do you want to do that today? Or, do you think you already have?
Lee: I have been raised in a Baptist church.
Bob: That does not mean a thing. They are the worst, and I am not saying that judgmentally. I will tell you why. They talk too much cross and not enough resurrection. I have been an evangelism director of the largest evangelistic organization in America, so I know what I am talking about. Evangelism has been taught to get your sins forgiven. That is not evangelism. It is not where you have been, but have you come to realize, which you said you didn’t, that you were dead spiritually and have need of the resurrected life, otherwise you would have known the meaning of the resurrection, Lee, wouldn’t you?
John 1:12-13
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
Bob: Whether you are or not, is not for me to determine, but in the event it has not been clear to you, I want you to make it clear today, because I think your heart is sincere, and that is what you want to do. Drive the stake today. “Lord Jesus, in the event I have never truly understood the meaning of your resurrection, that you were raised from the dead, that you could raise me from my state of death. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). I am born dead. I was not born alive. You came to give me life. In the event I have not accepted it, I am accepting it right now.”
Lee: I can definitely say that.
Bob: Is that the desire of your heart, Lee?
Lee: Yes
Bob: Do you want to pray with me now?
Lee: Sure.
Bob: Why don’t you repeat after me.
Bob with Lee repeating: Lord Jesus, I need you. Thank you that you took away my sins at the cross, never to see them again. Now you are offering me your life eternal. I accept your resurrected life to come and live in me and to guide me and direct me and to love me eternally. In Jesus name. Amen.
Galatians 5:22-25
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Bob: Now Lee, whether that is a new awareness or not, you nailed it down. I would be sure that your fiance gets it nailed down. The reason I said this is because you say about the sexual thing. If you are truly led internally by the Spirit of God, one of the fruit of the Spirit is patience. And patience says you wait.
Lee: Yes, sir.
Hebrews 13:4
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure
Bob: That is what patience says. She is right in what she is saying. Keep your marriage bed pure if you can, if you have not disturbed it already. If you love this girl enough to go to bed with, then you certainly love her enough to marry you. You are doing the right thing and heading in the right direction.
