Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P534 (05-08-20)
Synopsis
Listen as people call to get answers to their questions. Some people want help in how to witness, or get clarification on explaining the Trinity, because they get into these conversations with people who deny the Trinity. The Trinity is that there is one God but three persons all being God; that is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We may not be able to comprehend it but we can apprehend it because of what has been written down in the scriptures of what Jesus said. The key advice Bob shares is do not try to put flesh and blood on Spirit. That is where people get into trouble. Then Bob used an illustration of an egg to try to explain the concept of the Trinity. Egg white, egg yolk and an egg shell are all distinct characteristics of an egg, but each one individually is still an egg.
After explaining the concept of the Trinity from the scriptures, Bob addresses a caller who is getting tangled up in a conversation with those who deny the Trinity. Bob says, “I believe the denial of the Trinity is denying God. Denying the Trinity is denying who God is. It is the same as a Muslim denying who God is. Anyone who believes Jesus came over and dwelt here in America is not the Jesus of the bible.”
Then you have those callers who call and just ask straight up, “What must I do to be saved?” They doubt their salvation for various reasons. Listen as Bob guides a caller into the truth concerning what salvation is. He is in a position to nail that decision to receive the offer of new life in Christ Jesus. Bob senses in his Spirit that he has the right heart attitude, of someone who now understands his condition, after sorting through some of the confusion and error he had been believing. So he is ready for the truth so he can become a child of God. As this caller prays along with Bob, Bob encourages him that he is now a child of God and offers him support to help him grow in this new life in Christ Jesus.
For a thorough explanation of what salvation is, listen to the audio or read the transcript. You can also check out Be Born Free for an online walk through of several scriptures, explaining what Christ Jesus accomplished for you through his death, burial and resurrection. In one sentence, salvation is being saved from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is the resurrected life in Christ Jesus.
Transcript
Danny from Nashville, TN
Danny: In my line of work, I meet a lot of people, and when appropriate I witness. Do you believe the Trinity?
Bob: The word Trinity is not in the bible. Neither is the rapture. But the scripture explains the concept of both. There is one God yet declared as three different persons; God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit.
- 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)
Bob: He was not raised four times. It was just a different way of saying God raised him from the dead.
Bob: As a seminary professor once said, “If you deny the Trinity you lose your soul. If you try to understand the Trinity, you lose your mind.”
John 4:24
24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
Bob: What does Spirit look like? No one can see Spirit. People keep trying to put flesh and blood on Spirit. That is why people get confused in regards to the Trinity. God says He exists in the form of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We try to put flesh and blood on Spirit and we cannot. We are told to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28:19
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
Bob: Yet people are teaching this ‘Jesus only’ bit. I do not know why people are trying to cause division in the body of Christ on this. Is there anything wrong with being baptized in the name of Jesus? No, but do not deny the source from God the Father. The source of all truth is God the Father.
John 15:26
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father – the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father – he will testify about me.”
Bob: That wraps it all up in regards to the Trinity.
Danny then shared some scriptures.
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 1:1-3
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:14
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth.
Danny: So Jesus is God and God is Jesus.
Bob: So is the Holy Spirit God and so is the Father God.
Bob: I encourage people to quit putting flesh and blood on this. God is Spirit. If one reads in the scripture that Spirit is God, Father is God and Jesus is God, then you accept that as true. Who was Jesus talking to in the garden of Gethsemane? To himself? No, God the Father. Who lighted on Jesus like a dove when Jesus was being baptized by John in the Jordan river? The Spirit. Who spoke to him from heaven? The Father. This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.
Mark 14:32-36
32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Luke 3:21-22
21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Bob: We cannot totally comprehend that. We can apprehend that. It is like an egg. Egg is made of yolk, white and the shell. Which one is the egg? You have yolk of the egg, white of the egg and the shell of the egg, but you only have one egg.
Danny: They say that when Jesus was on cross, he said “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Genesis 1:1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Bob: God in Greek is the word “Elohim” Elohim is a plural word. Jewish rabbis scratch their head on that.
Genesis 1:26
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness
Genesis 11:7
7 “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Bob: Who is the our? It was in the Old Testament but was not made clear until Jesus came and explained it.
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.
Bob: These people doing this “Jesus only” are doing injustice. Much of what they teach is right on but this thing divides the body over an issue that is just not true.
Danny: Yes, you try to talk to them and they just do not get it. Should I just leave it alone?
Bob: Absolutely. Just leave it alone. Some people come along and think I know something they do not know. No you do not. I believe the denial of the Trinity is denying God. Denying the Trinity is denying who God is. It is the same as a Muslim denying who God is. Anyone who believes Jesus came over and dwelt here in America is not the Jesus of the bible.
Bob: Jesus said he does nothing unless the Father tells him to do it. Jesus also did not say anything until the Father tells him to say it and how to say it.
John 5:19
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
John 8:28
28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”
Bob: How can anybody think Jesus is talking to himself? How can that exist? You and I cannot even understand electricity. People try to be so smart, thinking they understand Trinity. How can we understand Trinity? So quit trying to put flesh and blood on it. Accept as true what can be understood by what has been revealed in the scriptures.
Larry from Merced, CA
Larry: I am not doing so well. I am having doubts about my salvation. I believe I gave my life to Christ when I was 22 years old. I felt the presence. I read the gospel but I did not join with the church and get into fellowship. I went back to my old sinful nature. I started drinking again. I am 45 years old now. I have been drinking for about 20 years. I am denying I am an alcoholic or had a problem with the drinking. I am also bipolar. Have you heard of that before?
Bob: Yes, but I do not believe in that, that any of that is true. Let us get to your problem. First, you will not find bipolar in the bible.
Matthew 15:11
11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.
Bob: You also do not have a drinking problem. You have a heart problem. You said you gave your heart to Jesus, and that certainly could be true. But the issue is, did He give Himself to you? If you came to Christ by recognizing the truth of something, you have to come to recognize your condition. You spelled out quite honestly about some things that identified your condition except when you get into all that psychological junk out there. The world of psychology gives a name to something so they can prescribe drugs to it. So that is why you have bipolar, anorexic or bolemic or whatever it is. If they cannot give it a name, they cannot medicate you. So they give a name to it instead of saying what God calls it, a preoccupation with self.
Larry: What about schizophrenic?
Bob: That is just double-minded. I will not give a drug to it by calling it double-minded. If I can call it a big fancy name, then I can put a drug on it. So all these companies, with drugs being subscribed to people, and then in a few short years discover that it has side effects that could even kill you, and so the drugs are taken off the market. God did not want us to alter our minds but to renew our minds. That is what we are going to talk about, renewing our mind.
Bob: The condition of a lost man is a sinner. If you are like me, then you would have no problem agreeing with that point at all. You must also understand there is a consequence of sin, which is called death, spiritual death. When Adam died he died spiritually. Death is the absence of life. The life of God departed from Adam, leaving him dead to God, but alive to the world. We are born in that condition. We are born dead spiritually. The only solution to death is life. The only life available to you, to a Mormon, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Catholic, a Protestant, and it does not matter who, you are dead. The only life available to you is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. That is why Jesus said he came that you might have life. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life”.
John 11:25-26
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?”
Bob: He is not talking about the sweet bye and bye, but right now. You need spiritual life. But why would you need spiritual life if you did not know you are dead spiritually? Those are the two things a man must come to grips with in his life. There is a reason I am doing what I am doing. I am either ignoring the life that is in me or I do not have that life. I have not truly yielded to the life He has given me. I am leaning on my own understanding and doing it my way. I want you to come into my heart to be my Lord and Savior and to give me your my life. I thank you for what you did at the cross. You took away my sins to never see them again. At the cross you took away the sins of the entire world. The sins of the world were placed on Christ Jesus. No one will go to hell because of their sins.
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.
Bob: The only question God will ever ask any human being on the face of the earth is what did you do with my Son? Did you ignore him and his sacrifice of his life for you? Did you accept him, acknowledging your sinfulness, his provision for you at the cross, and recognizing your condition of spiritual death and asking Him for His spiritual life? That is the only question God will ever ask.
Bob: As you are contemplating these things, do you know fully well that you were dead spiritually? Do you fully acknowledge the fact that the only life available to you is Christ Jesus? Did you really ask the Lord Jesus Christ to take residence in your life? Are you sure that took place?
Larry: I do not think that occurred.
Bob: I can tell by your heart you want that to take place. What I suggest to you is this. When you were dead in your sins, in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive. You agree with God and say, “Lord Jesus, if you say I am dead, then that is where I am. And you said to me that you came to give me life, I want your life. I recognize that what you said is my condition. I recognize what you said is your provision, which is your resurrected life”. So if you want, ask Him to come in and give you His resurrected life.
Bob: If that is your desire, we can settle that issue, thanking God that he has already taken away all your sins. He is not dealing with you on the sin issue today. The verdict is guilty, the punishment is death, and Jesus took it for you. The only thing we are left with is thanking Him for his provision at the cross, where he took away the cause of death, and now asking him to raise you from the dead spiritually. Larry, if that is your hearts desire, we can settle that issue today. Is that your desire?
Larry: I am now in a mental hospital. I go through depressions.
Bob: I understand all that. Do not avoid the issue. I do not care if you are in a mental hospital or not. You cannot tell the difference between that and what you see on television. You are talking very logically so you are not insane. Why you are in there only God knows. All I told you is scripture. Are you willing to acknowledge what God said? You cannot sin against the truth. If what I said to you is true, and all I shared with you is scripture, and if Jesus is God, and He says scripture is true, then scripture is true. If you recognize what scripture has said about your condition, then forget about all this other stuff you are going through.
Bob: Your basic condition is spiritual death and the only solution to that is the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. If you are able to recognize that, Larry, then invite Jesus into your heart as Lord and Savior. Then you will be born again, having the life of God living in you. You will have the mind of Christ living in you. Then you can start renewing your mind on truth and letting that truth set you free. Like two girls in Louisville, KY, taking shock treatments in a mental hospital, who got a hold of this truth and walked out of that hospital in two months. Now they have a ministry talking to many people with this truth, to have the person of God living in you, leading and guiding you in the paths of righteousness. Do you want to do that tonight, Larry?
Larry: I so want to but something inside me compares myself to Pharaoh, the hardening of his heart. I feel like my heart is hardened.
Bob: The same sun that melts wax hardens clay. It is not the fault of the sun. It depends on what it falls on. What pride will do is harden on your heart. All pride says, “I do not need this. I can do it on my own”. Here you are stuck in a mental hospital, with all kinds of evidence that you cannot do it on your own. That ought to tell you that you cannot do it on your own, Larry. Pride is what keeps you. Pride is what hardens your heart.
Larry: I am a very proud person.
Bob: Then, get rid of that pride. You ought to realize that it has not been doing you much good. How can you be proud when you are in the shape and condition you are in? You ought to be saying, “I have been acting like an idiot. I am not a big deal. I want to be guided by someone other than myself. I have not been doing too good trusting myself.” Do you agree with this Larry?
Larry: I have not been doing very well. I am drinking and throwing my life away.
Bob: Give Jesus a try.
Larry: The facts are there. I am 45 years old. I am throwing my life away.
Bob: You have not done too well on your own and that is understandable, Larry. Nobody can do well leaning on their own understanding. God in the man is indispensable to the humanity of the man just like electricity in a light bulb is indispensable to the functioning of the light bulb. It is a fine instrument but it will not function apart from electricity. God designed you to not function apart from God living in you. And what do we do? We go out and give it a try. You tell God, “I will give it a whack for awhile”. God says, “okay” and follows you around, waiting for you to come to your senses. Right now you ought to be in a situation where it is obvious to you that you cannot do it. You have proven to yourself that following your own inclinations has not worked.
Larry: I am also stuck on this ‘elect’, this chosen of God”.
Bob: The chosen of God was Jew and Gentile and has nothing to do with you’s and me’s. That is a theology that has no biblical bearing at all. He chose the Jews for salvation and He chose the Gentiles for salvation. Some Jews refused and some Gentiles refused. Do not get hung up on that. God is speaking to you tonight and He is asking you to let Him live in you to give you peace to your heart. God is asking you, “Are you willing to come unto me and let me bring peace to your heart”.
Larry: Yes, I am.
Bob: If that is your desire, and I believe it is, and if so, then let us pray together. I will say a prayer, and you repeat after me, but you are not talking to me, you are talking to God.
Bob with Larry repeating: “Lord Jesus, I need you. I thank you for taking all my sins away at the cross, never to see them again, so that you could now offer me your life. I am now asking you to come into my heart, to be my Lord, my Savior and my best friend. In Jesus name, amen.”
Bob: Larry, based on the word of God, to as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become a child of God. You just received Him, so what have you become?
Larry: A child of God.
Bob: I too am a child of God, so what does that make us?
Larry: Family.
Bob: Correct, we are brothers. I got a new brother in Christ. I am rejoicing with you. It says in the scriptures that the angels in heaven are rejoicing. You are now able to enter into a new realm of life. You are now able to be plugged into the word of God and to grow in His absolute love and grace for you.
Larry: I truly believe that.
Bob: Do you have a bible to read?
Larry: Yes
Bob: Do you have the ability in the hospital there to receive literature? I want to seed you some literature. Do you like to read? Are you able to concentrate?
Larry: Sometimes, but it is hard to concentrate with all that goes on here.
Bob: I believe you do not belong there. Call me any time. Do not think you can over-call us. Call me with any question you have because I want to see you grow and want you to return to normalcy.
Bob: God bless you Larry.
Larry: God bless you, Bob.
Bob: Now hang onto the line so I can get contact information from you, so I can send you some literature.
