Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P456 (7-18-19)
Synopsis
Bob received calls from several callers, asking common questions asked in the world still today. Danny asked, “Do you believe in the Trinity?” John asked, “What does Romans 8:17 mean that ‘we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory’?” Sam essentially asked, “What about the person who has never had the opportunity to hear the gospel message?” You may have heard a similar question, “What about the heathen in Africa?” From the scriptures, Bob explains the Trinity, that God is the Father, God is the Son and God is the Holy Spirit but there is only one God; about the sufferings of Christians, that we do not look for suffering but sufferings will inevitably come, and that there is no person who has not heard but even if there was, we leave that decision to God, who will do what is right in accordance with who He is, a perfectly loving and just God.
Sam also asked a more specific question about the Muslim who has never heard, since he was just raised Muslim all his life. Bob shares the truth of the gospel message that cuts through all religious belief systems and puts the emphasis on where salvation is, Jesus Christ. A terrific amount of revelation was shared in those nations up until the time Mohamed came along and forced everyone to be Muslim. The disciples from Jesus went everywhere and spread the gospel, and that area included Saudi Arabia. It is not an issue of whether person is a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic or Christian or whatever. Jesus did not come to convert people to a Christian religion any more than to a Muslim religion. He came to convert people to Himself as the only means of enabling a person to go into the presence of God alive spiritually. In order to do that, he came to die on a cross to take upon himself the sins of the entire world. Whether a person is Catholic, Muslim or Christian is irrelevant. The issue is that you are a person and that you are born into this world dead spiritually. That has nothing to do with religion. That is a condition you are born into this world as a result of Adam‘s fall. Death has to be corrected. He did not have to correct it but he chose to restore man to true humanity, and that is all mankind from all parts of the world. He came to restore to humanity, to restore to us that which was lost in Adam, and that is the Spirit of God in him, that left when Adam sinned. Man is born dead and in need of life. The only life available to us is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. In order for him to raise us to life, he had to deal eternally with the cause of spiritual death, which is sin. The eternal consequences of the cross is what enabled him to offer eternal life to us. Having believed the message, we become alive spiritually. The only thing you and I have to go by is the truth revealed to us in scripture.
Danny from Nashville, TN
Danny asked, “Do you believe in the Trinity?”
Danny, as you well know, the word Trinity is not used in the scripture and neither is rapture. We are told there is one God but declared in three different persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In different parts of scripture, each one is declared as God.
- In one place, Jesus said I will raise myself from the dead (John 10:18)
- In another place, the Father raised him from the dead (Galatians 1:1, Romans 6:4)
- In another place, the Holy Spirit raised him from the dead (Romans 8:11)
- In another place, God raised him from the dead (Acts 2:24)
Was he raised four times? No, he was raised once. The whole godhead was in action. The whole godhead lives in submission to the instruction of the Father. He was not raised four times. It is just a different way of saying the same thing.
John 4:24
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
Now no one can see Spirit yet man tries to put flesh on it. God says he exists in the form of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Trinity is what we are instructed to be baptized in, to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28:19
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
There are some people who go into this “Jesus only” bit, and Bob says he does not know why they are trying to cause division in the body of Christ. It is ludicrous. Jesus certainly was not talking to himself in the garden of Gethsemane or on the cross. The issue is they are talking about being baptized. Is there anything wrong about being baptized in the name of Jesus? Absolutely not. Everything God wanted us to know about Himself is in Jesus, but do not deny the source of all truth, which is God the Father. Jesus says he did not say anything unless the Father told him to say it. The source of all truth is from God the Father.
John 12:50
I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.
That is why we do believe in the Trinity.
Danny then shared some scripture passages.
Revelation 1:8
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God
John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
Danny commented, “That is saying God is Jesus.”
So is the Father and so is the Holy Spirit. If God’s word says that the Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, then believe what he has said. Let us not complicate this. Who became flesh? God and God the Father. We just have to accept that. We cannot totally comprehend that but we can apprehend that. It is like an egg and an egg is made of yolk, white and shell, but which is the egg? You only have one egg.
Luke 23:34
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots
There is one God.
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The word for God used here is ‘Elohim’. Elohim is a plural word.
Genesis 11:7
“Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Who is the ‘us’?
Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness”
Who is the ‘our’?
This was not comprehended until Jesus made it clear.
1 Corinthians 15:27
For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.
All things put under his feet and that does not mean God himself.
These “Jesus only” people are doing a great injustice even though they are right about other teaching. It is another way to divide a body over an issue of something that is just not true. Just leave it alone. The pride of man comes in saying, “”I have knowledge that you do not have”. That is where pride comes in. A man who denies the Trinity denies who God is. I would just leave the topic alone until they come to their senses. It is no use trying to reason with those kinds of people.
John 12:50
“So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
How can someone be talking about himself?
Jesus is God? Yes, God the Son. It is because of Spirit. You and I cannot even figure out electricity so why do we try to comprehend Trinity?
John from Creswell, OR
In Romans 8:17, you read that we are children of God and a joint heir with Christ. He has been hearing strange teaching on that. Peter wrote on this also. He understands that the inheritance is our glorified body. When you read, “if so be you suffer with Christ”, does that mean the sufferings of tribulation in this life?
Romans 8:17
17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Some people try to find things to make them suffer for Christ, which is nonsense. The issue is, all of us, one time or another, will go through different types of suffering but we do not go out and look for suffering. I have no fear of death but being maimed I am not real fond of. Jesus was not looking for suffering. Suffering is a by-product of what man did to him. All of us are subject to that type of thing. Our lives are not over yet. We may live in a country where people have to suffer for Christ. We do not run into that in this country yet. If we do, then we will be prepared for it. But in some areas, a Jewish person comes to Christ, and many times they are disowned by their family. Much mental turmoil in that. So also can happen with those raised by atheist parents. Madalyn Murray O’Hare, when came to Christ, was disowned by her family. That has been replaced with the beauty of fellowship with believers. Are we going to go through that? Possibly, but we are not going to go out looking for it. What did Christ do when he went through suffering? Trust the Lord. What are we to do when we face suffering? Trust the Lord. Some think the only way of serving God is to cause themselves to suffer. You do not go out and look for suffering. The sufferings I went though is small in comparison to what others in other countries go through or the martyrs or what Paul went through.
John said, “John was also thinking that suffering could be about Paul‘s struggle in the flesh.”
Romans 7:15-20
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
John said, “I thought that was the suffering he was talking about.”
Well, that is part of it, but also the suffering that Paul had to go through in sharing the message of the gospel, a type of suffering I cannot even enter into.
Sam from San Demus, CA
Sam asked, “Suppose a Muslim who has been living in Saudi Arabia all his life, having not heard the message of the gospel, and then such a person dies, where will he go?”
A terrific amount of revelation was shared in those nations up until the time Mohamed came along and forced everyone to be Muslim. The disciples of Jesus went everywhere and spread the gospel, and that area included Saudi Arabia. It is not an issue of whether person is a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic or Christian or whatever. Jesus did not come to convert people to a Christian religion any more than to a Muslim religion. He came to convert people to Himself as the only means of enabling a person to go into the presence of God alive spiritually. In order to do that, he came to die on a cross to take upon himself the sins of the entire world. Whether a person is Catholic, Muslim or Christian is irrelevant. The issue is that you are a person and that you are born into this world dead spiritually. That has nothing to do with religion. That is a condition you are born into this world as a result of Adam‘s fall. Death has to be corrected. He did not have to correct it but he chose to restore man to true humanity, and that is all mankind from all parts of the world. He came to restore to humanity, to restore to us that which was lost in Adam, and that is the Spirit of God in him, that left when he sinned. Man is born dead and in need of life. The only life available to us is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. In order for him to raise us to life, he had to deal eternally with the cause of spiritual death, which is sin. The eternal consequences of the cross is what enabled him to offer eternal life to us.
Ephesians 1:7
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God‘s grace
Having believed the message, we become alive spiritually. The only thing you and I have to go by is the truth revealed to us in scripture.
John 17:17
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
1 John 5:12
Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
There is no Allah in the new or old testament. It is just the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Elohim, or Jehovah. There are many names to God but they are all the same God. But you cannot make up a god and put a name to him and say you are going to hell because of that. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob we worship is the God who sent His Son to die and rise again and to tell us how to be saved. It is the rejection of the Son that will cause people to experience spiritual death and cause people to go to hell.
Matthew 22:32
‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
Sam asked, “Suppose this is a person who never had the opportunity to accept Christ?”
I do not believe that. The Muslims talk about Jesus but just deny his deity. The Jehovah Witnesses here in America talk about Jesus but deny his deity. The Mormons have certainly heard the gospel but deny Jesus is the one true God. Whether life in America with a TV set in every home or whether live over there, everyone has the opportunity to hear about Jesus. It is a rejection of Jesus. Everyone has had the opportunity to hear about Jesus. The Jews too teach about Jesus in their schools but teach him as a prophet. They will not teach him as the promised Messiah who came to take away the sins of the world and to give life to the dead. If there is any other way to escape the consequences of hell, the bible does not speak of it. The bible says there is no other name but Jesus by which men might be saved.
Acts 4:12
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
If there is any other way, then God would have to pull that off. God has not told us about any other way. That is not what He has revealed to us. Indeed, he tells us He is the only way.
John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
We are obligated to share what God has revealed to us in his word. If there is any exception to that, then that person goes into the hands of a perfectly loving and just God, and he will make that decision, if there is any other way.
Sam asked, “How about somebody who is not Muslim, but has not heard the gospel, but lives in a remote place, and such a person who does not believe God?”
Anyone who sincerely wants to know him, then Christ will be revealed to him. There is no person like that on the face of the earth who sincerely wants to know God but they may want to know a god of their own making. God has promised that if there is any such person on an entire continent, God will make himself known to him.
Romans 3:11
there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.
Jeremiah 29:13
13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Bob shared about an encounter with a man named Joshua in an evangelistic conference. The most often asked question was, “What about the heathen in Africa?” Bob overheard a man named Joshua there at the conference who was from Africa, so he was curious and asked him his testimony. Joshua said, “We worshiped idols in our village. My father would make an idol. As a young man I would think, ‘That is not God’. What I want to know is, ‘Who made the tree?’ My father made the idol, but who made the tree? While I was in a remote village asking God to reveal truth to me, God was putting it on the heart of a missionary in New York City to come visit our village. He did and shared the gospel of Jesus with me. I accepted the message and then led the whole village to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now I am trying to share the gospel to the heathen in Los Angelos, CA.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Psalm 19:1-2
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
Acts 17:26-27
26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
If there is an exception, and I do not believe there is, we put that decision in the hands of a perfectly loving and just God. The real issue is, “What about the people who have heard and reject the truth?”
