Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P564 (08-21-20)
Synopsis
What an opportunity to hear truth from like-minded believers, sharing truth from God’s word, asking good questions to learn from the Lord through His word, with humble and gracious hearts. There is nothing so moving, encouraging and touching than to hear a believer tell her story of how truth was revealed to her, and how her life, and that of her family, was changed as a result. You can hear their enthusiasm and gratitude of heart. It encourages the body of Christ to hear such things.
There are things that you read from these scriptures that you just do not always have answers to, those non-essential things such as when you die, when will you get your new body, immediately after you die or at the time of the rapture, spoken about in 2 Thessalonians 4. If you have already died, you meet the Lord first in the air, and meet Him along with all those who are still alive.
One of the keys to learning from the Lord is that when we have a firm passage of scripture, we do not go to the obscure to interpret the obvious. The obvious passage is that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God. We also know that when you are absent from the body, you are present with the Lord. Why would we not think that just as Jesus’ body was transformed in some way, he certainly was not with blood hanging all over him and beaten up as no man. So why would we not think that God would give us a new glorified body immediately when we die and reward us for our faith?
As believers are growing in the Lord, common questions are often asked, things that people might refer to as the milk of the word. And if that is where you are, then that is what food you need. All of us start the same way, as mere infants in Christ. A common question asked is about baptism, such as why did John the Baptist baptize with water? When we read the passages in scripture, you will be amazed how clear the scriptures explain things. John the Baptist specifically tells us why he baptized in John 1:29-34. The Holy Spirit revealed to him that the one on whom the Spirit lights on like a dove is the promised Messiah. Jesus was baptized by John so that He might be revealed to Israel as the long-awaited Messiah they have been or should have been looking for.
Then, as you read more scriptures you realize the importance of spiritual baptism, not one of water, but of the Spirit as of fire, as John the Baptist described it, and how water baptism symbolizes what transpired when someone is born again of the Spirit, a second birth just like there was also a physical birth, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3. As you search through the scriptures where baptism is used, you cannot help come across scriptures like Romans 6.
Romans 6:3-5
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.5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Sadly, it is so difficult to grow in Christ in what is called the modern church today, where so much error is taught. I could spend a lot of time on this, but errors such as “If you are not tithing, you are not getting God’s blessings.” or this meeting of men to be in accountability groups, which is nowhere taught in scripture. For a good portion of someone’s life, people are walking under the law, even though they have been given everything they need for life and godliness in Christ Jesus. But they have not grasped the truth, and are trying to work for God, and are experiencing what is called burn out. Why is that? Because they are like the Galatians that the apostle Paul had to firmly correct.
Galatians 3:1-3
1 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?
But then your heart is stirred when the truth comes alive to you, as the word of the Lord is revealed to you. Praise God for those teachers, gifts really to the body of Christ, who explain spiritual truth from what the Lord has revealed to them, pointing people to that same truth clearly revealed in the scriptures; the finality of the cross, of being made complete in Christ, of grace we are under in the New Covenant, of the just shall live by faith. Oh, such truth that sets men free. Be sure to listen to the testimony of Rana, the last caller on this program. What excitement she shares. What gratitude of heart she has! What freedom she shares of what she experienced in grasping truth that set her free.
Transcript
Jan from Oakland, CA
Jan: Once again, I appreciate your ministry. I mentioned to you that I heard more people come to Christ by listening to your program than any other. I listen to quite a few. So I really appreciate that.
Bob: That is one of the privileges we have being on live radio, Jan, that came into being about twenty years ago, where satellites were put up. We were really the first real true biblical counseling organization that was on the air. We have been on the longest of anyone. It has been a real privilege for all of us involved in this ministry, to be doing what we are doing and have the privilege of leading people to a knowledge of Christ. I appreciate you appreciating me.
Jan: I was not aware of that. My question is a non-essential one. I have heard you talk about being absent from the body and present with the Lord. I certainly cannot disagree with what Paul said, and I won’t disagree with it. Tell me if you think my thinking is off here. When I look at two other verses, John 6:39 and 1 Corinthians 6:14, it seems to me that when one dies in the Lord, we go to the Lord. It looks like from these verses that our resurrected body will somehow be unified with the spirit that has gone to the Lord. I heard you talk about being present with the Lord. Quite frankly, I am not aware of your view on this resurrected body. It seems those scriptures are clear that the body will be resurrected. Whether we are asleep or not, I do not agree with that either.
1 Corinthians 15:50
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.
Bob: Flesh and blood will never inherit the kingdom of God. So there is nothing in this flesh and blood that we have that will go into the presence of God. The resurrection will be a spiritual resurrection and our body will be a spiritual body. That is why in Corinthians we read that you have a natural body and you will have a spiritual body. I do not have a spiritual body right now. I have a physical body that will one day become worm food. So people get all hung up on whether cremated or not. It makes no difference when you die. That body is gone.
Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Job 34:15
15 all humanity would perish together and mankind would return to the dust.
Ecclesiastes 12:7
7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Bob: You came from the dust and you will return to the dust. But you will be given a glorified body that is brand new. That is something given to you by God, just as a spiritual birth was given to us by God. A lot of people do not realize that truth.
Bob: They ignore that passage, in the same context that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God. That means our body will not go. It will go to the grace where it belongs. We will get a new glorified body. That to me, at my age and the condition of my body, is good news. It, basically, to me, is clear as the nose on our face that flesh and blood is not going to inherit this kingdom of God. We keep thinking that people talk about the final last days, God is going to come along with a spiritual vacuum and suck up all these bodies all over the place. That cannot be true because this flesh and blood is not going to go into the presence of God.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
1 Thessalonians 3:11-13
11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. 12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
Bob: That is why I believe strongly now, but not in my early days. The more I study it and understand the context of Paul’s teaching in Corinthians, what I see what is going to take place is not what we have been taught, that you are absent from the body and present with the Lord in Spirit but your body will be raised in the rapture. When you read that and hear that, it is talking about we who remain and are left behind will go to meet them in the air. The dead in Christ will be the first to rise. We look at that and think about a second. Why would you say something that is going to happen shorter than a split second, how are you going to put a timeline that you go first and I go second. To me, the dead in Christ are the first to rise, answering the question that the people would have been asking Paul, when talking to the rapture, what about people who died before the rapture comes. The most logical answer is that they are the first to rise. I believe the moment that I close my eyes and die, that is when I go into the presence of God with my glorified body. I do not think I get one at the rapture. I think I already got one because it says he is coming with the saints. And we who are left behind will go to meet them in the air. So I believe that those are the things that happen to saints that are in existence at the time when Christ comes for us. But for us who are dead, we are already there.
Jan: I am in agreement with you. I know that the glorified body cannot be flesh and blood. I am glad to hear what you said about that. So maybe I got a hold on that.
Bob: If you put those two together. Some people think that people go to soul sleep. If I am asleep, then He has to be asleep. That, to me, is nonsense. I do not think it makes any sense at all. He is in us and we are in Him. Where is that Spirit going to go to sleep? Your body is dead, and probably eaten by worms or whales if your body is in the ocean. So where is that Spirit going to reside during that period of time? It says absent from the body and present with the Lord. That does not mean at the time of the rapture. It means right then. Jesus was raised from the dead right then. As Jesus was raised from the dead, we will also be raised from the dead.
1 Corinthians 6:14
14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.
Bob: He was raised bodily. We wonder sometimes, Jan, if the Lord, his body, that maybe it did not need to be glorified. We do not know these things. It still had the holes in the hands. Those who did not recognize him before since he was beaten beyond recognition, certainly recognized after he rose from the dead. They did not see him in that beaten up form. They saw him in a pure form. Something took place where God did something to his body, miraculously, for he was back in the shape he was before he was beaten on the cross.
Isaiah 52:13-15
13 See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him –
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness –
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Matthew 28:8-10
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
John 20:24-29
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Bob: We have to understand that we do not know all the answers to these things. But when we have a firm passage of scripture, we do not go to the obscure to interpret the obvious. The obvious passage is that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God. We also know that when you are absent from the body, you are present with the Lord. Why would we not think that just as Jesus’ body was transformed in some way, he certainly was not with blood hanging all over him and beaten up as no man. So why would we not think that God would give us and reward us.
John 14:2-4
2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Bob: Jesus said, “where I go I want you to be with me. I prepare a place for you.” He is going to prepare a place. Why would we not think that God would not take our soul and join that with our heavenly body at the time we die? That is exactly what I believe takes place.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
This passage in Thessalonians has confused people. Then Christ is first to rise. Well, that is the rapture? No, absent from the body and present with the Lord. Your body is going to go at that time? Why would that glorified body not be around for two or three thousand years? Right now my Spirit has a body, but when I die I am homeless? It just does not make any sense.
Jan: I can appreciate that. I tell you that I am really struggling with what you said. The part I struggle with is what Jesus says in John 6:39. I think it is possible, but I could be off on this. I think we do not know what it means what it means to be present with the Lord.
John 6:39
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
Bob: I am present with the Lord right now, and so are you, if you are in Christ. So the issue is we go and see Him face to face and see Him as He is.
1 John 3:2
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Jan: That does not mean that there could not be the spiritual glorified body that we are united with. I do not know what you can do with John 6:39?
Bob: I do not think you do anything with it. The last days. It is not saying these last days. He is talking at the the last day. What is the last day for you?
Jan: When I die.
Bob: That is when you die. Raise Him up at the last day.
Jan: Oh, I see.
Bob: At other times it says at the last days. This is talking about the last day. My last day is when I close my eyes and wake up in Jesus.
Jan: Oh, that is great.
Bob: You see that repeated all the way through that. At the last day. The last day for you and me is when I die.
Jan: Thank you so much. You are very patient.
Bob: These are good calls and good questions. I appreciate your patience with us.
Jan: Thank you, sir.
Bob: God bless you, my friend.
Unknown Caller, who had to hang up
Caller: Why was Jesus baptized?
Bob: John the Baptist said the reason he came to baptize was because the one who told him to baptize, and the one on whom the dove descends is the Messiah.
John 1:29-34
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”
Bob: John the Baptist was baptizing to identify the Messiah to Israel. Why did Jesus allow himself to be baptized? So he could be identified by John the Baptist to Israel. He certainly was not there to get his sins confessed and cleansed. He was baptized for identification. Quite frankly, people who are baptized after their salvation is kind of a visual aid. It is in order to say that I have died to the law because you are born into this world under the law, dead spiritually. You die. You leave the law in grace and you are raised to live in the newness of life, married to another, and that is Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:3-5
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.5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Bob: We have to understand that there is nothing we do that causes God to do something. He has done it all. We enter into that by faith and by faith alone. Without faith it is impossible. Without faith everything is impossible. We are to walk by faith in what He has done, and not by faith in what I do in order to get Him to do something.
Hebrews 11:6
6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Phil from Olatha, KS
Phil: Your ministry has meant so much to me over the years. My question has something to with the pushing of accountability groups. I am not saying they are not a good idea, but I was wondering what the biblical basis of it is. All I heard was something about David and Nathan. Is that something people are supposed to do? It seems it is pushed to men and not so much to women. It seems to be a lot of double-standards. You have Woman of Faith and Promise Keepers. I thought Promise Keepers was beating people over the head. What is your take on accountability groups?
Bob: Probably identical to yours. Where do you find it in the scripture? What do you need an accountability group for? Would it not be great to come home to your sweetie, and say I want to tell you I was in an accountability group so I was good. I think she is going to be thrilled, don’t you? If you cannot be accountable to God, how do you think you are going to be accountable to man?
John 2:23-25
23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 25 He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
Bob: That is where we run into these things. If you make a promise to God, and you are not going to keep that, then I guarantee you are not going to keep it with me. These things put you in a situation where you are gutting it out for Jesus instead of letting Jesus to live His life in and through you. If you are walking by faith in Him, then why do we need to sit around and be accountable to each other? How honest are we, anyway, in our accountability groups? I have seen those things where people are lying through their teeth.
Bob: If guys want to get together, I do not want to get together to be accountable to you. I want to get together to pray with you, and get together to study scripture with you and fellowship with you because I love you in the Lord. But to sit down to hold me accountable to my promises, you are not in a position to hold me accountable. I am not in a position to hold you accountable. You are accountable to God, not to me.
Romans 3:19
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
1 Corinthians 4:2-4
2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
Phil: I have friends at work, and very close friends, that I could trust enough. I felt close enough to share things with them. Maybe that was something of my own choice to talk about a problem or something like that.
Bob: I have a pastor friend in California who got into these accountability groups. So he shared in an accountability group, that a number of years prior to that, that he had a real infatuation with one of the ladies in the church. He was just sharing how that could happen, even to a pastor. They never did anything. They never got together. He was just tempted. He really was turned on by her. So he shared that. A couple of years later, those people came back and got him fired from his wonderful church. He was a fantastic teacher of the bible. He got kicked off of the radio and everything else as they brought that in the open. Now accusing him of having an affair with somebody.
Phil: I heard something like that before.
Bob: It is like prayer chains and gossip chains. Like God says, if you want to pray, you can pray with each other. But why would you want to sit around in a group, to think you are accountable to them or they are accountable to you? I do not know how that got popular because it is not in scripture.
Phil: I think it came out from men having infidelity and sex problems.
Bob: I think so too.
Phil: But then have double standards, where women do not have such issues, but have women of faith groups. I am waiting for them to start men of faith groups. I will be the first one to show up at the door.
Bob: Yes.
Phil: When I saw through Promise Keepers, it was just a bunch of people pounding over your head, telling you are a horrible sinner, drop your knees, shed your tears, and repent all over the floor.
p>Bob: The only promise keeper I know is Jesus.
Phil: Good point.
Bob: That is the only one I know who ever kept His promises. All the rest of us are kidding ourselves.
Phil: I recognize that there are good intentions.
Bob: Cults use those kinds of groups and build themselves on it. To me, I have never been a part of it and never will.
Phil: I appreciate that. Thank you. God bless.
Bob: You are welcome, my brother. Bye. Bye.
Rana from Denver, CO
Rana: Thank you. My mom learned about the exchanged life right after she got saved. It made no sense to me. I thought she was nuts when she became a believer. She got saved right before I got confirmed. She would say, “You cannot do this.” This is not right.” I would say, “What are you talking about?” We had this big family journey. I had a brother who went to prison. I got pregnant out of wedlock. All these excruciating painful things. My mom never let go of the Lord. I just thought, “there must be something to this, but that is her thing.” It is kind of interesting but you know, I will go ahead and do my thing. Years later and much of being slapped to the pavement by the Holy Spirit, trying to wake me up.
Rana: I just really did not get this thing. I became saved when I was 21. Now I have Jesus, a husband and a baby and that makes my life great? No. It made my life worse. I have been married over 7 years this Friday. It has been a grueling, excruciating time in my whole entire life. I seriously thought I was going to die. I just wanted to die. Now I have three children. Now I have these babies, and now my life is utter chaos. I am doing the church thing. I am an Awana commander. Everyone looks at this cute Christian family. We had a good front. We had serious burnout, like you say in Classic Christianity. That is the best analogy ever when you said that. I was kind of getting bored with the book, but when you said that, I said “Huh.” Someone is speaking my language. Someone is being for real. I was just floored by the truth. I could not even grasp what I was reading. Have you ever read something that I think I know what this is saying but it cannot possibly be what it is saying.
Rana: My mom started going to Aaron’ fellowship in Denver. She wanted us to try it out. My husband will never go for this because we church hopped so many times that he will just not do it. We went the first Sunday and my husband was floored. My life was in complete and total shambles. On the outside it looked the way it should. You did not have to go very far into my husband and my life to see the truth. It seems like nowadays in Christian circles, people do not look past the surface. They see what they want to see, for that is comfortable. But if you get into people’s lives then that takes something out of you. People are really not interested in people’s lives. Yes, there are people who are interested, but sadly, a lot of them do not know the truth themselves, just bad theology and mistruths taught to people. When you have problems, you are told that you are not praying hard enough. “You are not reading your bible hard enough.” “How many scriptures have you memorized?” “How much are you tithing?”
Rana: If you are not tithing, you are not getting God’s blessings. Those are the lies you are told. I believed this crud for many years. “I am just never going to be good enough.” “I am never going to add up. It is just never going to happen.”
So my mom wanted us to find grace. So we said whatever. But my husband and I are just floored. We have a bible study in our house that Aaron teaches, which is a God thing. The people who come to the study, it is just amazing. When you are not doing the work. When you are just hands, mouth, legs and feet, what God can do! Yet, we are put into this tiny little box because we think we have to do the work. And God is kind of like the drill sergeant, saying “do this and do this.” That is not how it works. That is why people fail miserably in the Christian walk because they are doing it. It is just amazing. From Aaron, I really heard and grasped truth.
Rana: I did some horrible things in my past life, and things I just could not emotionally and mentally get over. Stuff I thought was so terrible and wondered how anyone could understand. If my own biological father cannot love me and forgive me, how can God? He is not going to forgive you. He already has forgiven you. It is already done. When you realize the finality of the cross, it doesn’t matter what you have done, because everything did to Him was in the future. You have not done anything yet and He already forgave you.
Bob: It is good news, Rana.
Rana: It is amazing. People will say that when you get older you will understand the truth. I am only 27 and I get it. I am thrilled and want to tell everyone I know about it. Bob, thank you very much for your ministry. If it was not for Aaron, I do not know where my family would be right now. Your ministry played the biggest role in my life. Thank you so much. Aaron, we loved him in Denver. We do. He is wonderful. I want to thank you, Bob. Through your obedience to the Lord, Bob, you saved many families. I can only explain me. I have got a 3 year old, a 5 year old and a 7 year old who will grow up in a home and be taught the truth. Hopefully, they will be used by the Lord. I will be used of the Lord in His time. I am so thankful that I can rest in Christ.
Bob: You are so welcome. I appreciate your call. God bless you for your enthusiasm. We are all blessed by your story, Rana. Thanks for calling.
