Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P589 (11-19-20)
Synopsis
As long as we live here on this earth in our flesh, we will face this conflict between what the flesh desires and what the Spirit desires. This is due to the sin-indwelling flesh we inherited in Adam that always wants to demand its own way. But we died to its control over us when we were born again. The Spirit of God took residence in us, and so we have a new identity as a child of God, learning to walk by faith, listening to the Spirit’s voice. The Spirit lives in us to teach us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions.
When we were born again, the flesh did not die but what did die is our identity as a sinner, from being a slave to sin to being set free in grace. We have been set free from the law of sin and death and have now been put under control of a new master. Sin still indwells our flesh but we don’ t have to be mastered by it. We have the choice to be under the Spirit’s control. We do so not because we have to, but because we want to.
We received a new pliable heart, the very heart of God, when we responded to God’s love for us. We love because He first loved us. As a new creation in cHrist, a child of God, we allow the Holy Spirit to teach us the meaning of His word. We do not concern ourselves with matters too great for us. As children there are things that we are not ready for yet. We do not worry about that, but simply rest in His tender care for us, that He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to endure, and trust that He will complete the work He began in us.
So it is in our new nature, God’s nature in us, working with our human spirit, to walk in His love. We have been given the privilege to participate in the divine nature but our mind is sometimes holding onto error or easily deceived by the flesh to act contrary to who we are, a child of God. That is why scripture instructs us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, to put to death the misdeeds of the body by walking in the new way of the Spirit. So we are instructed to walk in the Spirit so that when we do, we will not carry out the desires of the flesh.
When you are lost, the Spirit is at work to draw you unto Himself. There is no place where His voice has not been heard. God created mankind, not as a robot, but as someone who can choose whether we want His life or not. Although God desires no one to perish and all to come to repentance, sadly, and God knows this, not everyone will choose a new life in Christ Jesus. God does not choose certain people for heaven and certain people for hell, for that is not His nature to do so. His nature is for all men to be saved, and has done all the work possible that reconciled mankind unto Himself.
Many people are confused on what salvation is, and that is particularly true of those who believe in what is called Calvinism. Calvin’s premise was off, thinking that salvation is getting sins forgiven. No, that is preparation for salvation to be given. But if that is what you think salvation is, then your findings will be off, and so you know there is no such thing as universal salvation, so you come to the erroneous conclusion that God must decide in advance who goes to heaven and who does not. But that is serious error.
Until the cause of our death, which is sin, is taken away, then new life in Christ Jesus can not be given. And new life in Christ Jesus is what salvation is. Yes, His death on a cross was necessary for life to be given, but in and of itself it is not salvation. If we should sin again, then we would die again. So, He could not offer life until that problem was solved. We have to be out from under that law of sin and death. But for a law to have any meaning, there is a consequence or punishment to sin that must be met. We could not pay the price of death required for sin, so God paid the price for us in the person of Jesus Christ. Being God in the flesh, having no sin of His own, He paid the price for sin by shedding His own blood on a cross. That once and for all sacrifice was sufficient to take away the sins of the entire world, back to Adam and forward to eternity, for all mankind, from the eyes of God. That did not save us. That just prepared the way for life to be given.
Jesus, three days later, was raised from the dead. So now that He lives forever, and will not die again, and will no longer count men’s sins against them, then that frees God to offer eternal life as a gift to be received by faith. But that life must be received. When we come to Christ, we do not come just for what He did for us, but for Christ coming to live in us, and to free us from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life. We come alive in Christ. That forgiveness that was provided for us then is received in Him. That is only to those who come to Christ by faith. So salvation is receiving life, Christ’s resurrected life, the eternal life in Christ Jesus.
Transcript
Lucy from San Diego, CA
Lucy: I have a question about the flesh and indwelling sin. I know flesh is our way of self-sufficiency. Indwelling sin is what we have been left with in the body, although our sin nature is dead. Is there a correlation between flesh and indwelling sin?
Galatians 5:17
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
Bob: Indwelling sin lives in the flesh, Lucy. Again, I think indwelling sin is something we are indwelt with at the time of birth. Indwelling sin, that propensity that was passed on to us from Adam, that propensity to want to be God, to want to control things. That is in each and every one of us. That is what is called the flesh, the human part of us that is going to return to the grave.
Bob: In comparison to that, and again, my old nature did not die. My identity died. The old man, Bob George without the Spirit of God living in me, is no more, but that old flesh is still there and just as strong as it ever was. So, you are not going to eliminate the fact of humanity in your human nature. That is still there. I have a new identity and I have a single identity and that is called a child of the living God. That is the only identity I will have and will accept. On the other hand, as that is my identity as a child of God, who is this child of God? It is a child of God who is living in a body of flesh that contains indwelling sin. That is what is called the human part of us, or the human nature.
John 1:12
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Lucy: The old nature?
Bob: We get confused on this old nature and new nature stuff. The best way to handle that is identity. You have a new identity. You had an old identity, who you were before you became a child of God, is Lucy without the Spirit of God living in you. That person is dead. That person is no longer in existence and you will never be in existence in that condition. That is identity.
2 Peter 1:3-4
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Bob: But again, you have flesh and that is the human part of you. That is why it says to yield to the divine nature that lives within us. We have the privilege to yield to the divine nature that lives in us. That is His nature. If I did not have a nature of my own, how could I yield to it. So what it is saying is yield your flesh to the divine nature, which is called walking in the Spirit.
Galatians 5:16
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Bob: When walking in the Spirit, yielding to the divine nature who lives in you, who wants to control you, you will not be fulfilling the desires of this old yukky flesh. There has been too much made on this about two natures. I do not believe that. I have a human nature. I have flesh and blood, and the human part of Bob George that has the ability to yield myself to His divine nature, His nature who lives in me. Yield myself to the Spirit of God who lives in me. I can also yield this flesh of mine to Satan. That is a choice that we have as Christians, as to who am I going to allow to control me. That is why it says to be controlled by the Spirit. If I could not be controlled by the opposite of God, why does it say to be controlled by God. Again, I get back to the issue that my identity is one and single, and that is you and I are children of the living God.
Titus 2:11-13
11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope – the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ
Lucy: Okay. I was getting the indwelling sin and flesh as two different things.
Bob: Indwelling sin lives in your flesh.
Lucy: It sounds like it is an entity in itself.
Bob: Indwelling sin kind of is an entity. It came from Satan. That is where indwelling sin came from, from Satan and indwelt our humanity. That is when that humanity fell, when the Spirit of God departed from us, and our humanity fell. We were left with flesh with indwelling sin in it.
Lucy: That makes sense to me.
Bob: Does that make sense, Lucy?
Lucy: Yes. I was thinking flesh and indwelling sin were two separate issues. I know that in learning about how we can yield to the flesh, yielding to our old patterns of getting our needs met. So I thought indwelling sin was something separate from that.
Bob: Well, it is. Indwelling sin is that thing that lives in our flesh, that keeps saying, “Feed the flesh. Feed the flesh. Feed the flesh.”
Lucy: Well..
Bob: But again, these are things, Lucy, that we can spend way too much time on. What I have to realize about myself is I got something called yukky flesh but I also have the Spirit of God living in me. And I got a choice of who I am going to yield to.
Lucy: And Spirit cannot be corrupted.
Bob: Absolutely.
Lucy: I read a book, and I am sure you know the author. He wrote a book regarding the occult and people who had been at one time involved in the occult or had contact with the occult or family was involved in the occult, they had to be a little more diligent about renouncing that sort of thing. I am not sure how he put it, but you are more susceptible or not necessarily that yourself being open to it but your spirit would be or would be attacking you in that area.
1 Corinthians 10:13
13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Bob: I think, that any time we have opened ourselves to anything, Lucy, I think of a person who has opened themselves up to homosexuality, they are always able to be tempted in that. If a person had an affair with somebody, then you might be more tempted with that than someone who hasn’t. To someone exposed to drugs, they are certainly more tempted, when after they come to Christ, to be tempted to go back to drugs than someone who has never been. That is just a normal process that we go through. If you have been involved in the occult you have been subject to being deceived. It is like any other thing.
Lucy: It is just like any other thing.
Bob: Absolutely. It is just like any other thing but sometimes those things can be very, very strong. Especially if you have been deceived believing something contrary to what scripture says even though scripture says it.
Bob: For example, a person who was involved in occult activity but close to it, but a legalist in her belief system, thinking there is no hell. Well, the bible teaches us there is eternal punishment. This lady I dealt with not too long ago was bent on the fact that there is no eternal punishment. She came up with all kinds of Old Testament passages out of context for why that was the case. No matter what you said to her, she would not change her mind even though squarely expressed in regard to eternal punishment.
2 Thessalonians 1:8
8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
Her deal was that she could not believe there is a God that would do that. Well, it does not matter whether you can believe in a God like that, but the issue is the bible says there is something that is called eternal punishment. A person is determining where they want to live eternally. That is just an example of how a person can get so steeped in a specific doctrine that has nothing to do with biblical truth and yet hang onto that tenaciously because they had their mind opened up to be deceived. They got deceived again and will not let themselves be undeceived.
Lucy: Since I have been studying with you, there were four people, some famous writers, I think I have discovered whether true or not or speculation, but they usually have some bent to a burden or downtrodden or family member who will not turn to God. It seems to be a real common thread, that universal salvation sense.
Bob: Again, I just say to people like that, your theology is just an indicator of how unbelievably prideful you are. You would not be concerned if that was my father who did not come to Christ. You are just concerned because it is yours. To be real honest, they do not care a bit about someone else’s father who did not come to the Lord. It was my mom and my dad, and my God did not send them to eternal punishment. They would not say that about my mom or dad. That just shows how prideful they are.
Lucy: People have an agenda about that that stems from pride.
Lucy: I will not take any more of your time. It is good to talk to you. I hope you are well. God bless your day. Thank you so much.
Bob: You are sure welcome.
Sarah from Atlanta, GA
Sarah: My question is about the parable of the prodigal son. I listen to your ministry, I heard this story numerous times in Sunday school. From what I gather it is like the older brother that he was no better than the one who left? His heart was far from his father too.
(Refer to Luke 15:11-32 for the full account of the parable of the prodigal son, as told by Jesus.)
Bob: What you have an example of is two things there, Sarah. You have self righteousness and you had just a person who had rebelled and gone out in his own way. It is a picture of a person who is just a blatant sinner and then a person who is self-righteous that they do everything wonderful. Both of them are lost. Both deceived. Both of them have to come back to truth. The prodigal son came back to truth. He recognized that even his father’s servants lived better than he did. He recognized the error of his way and turned around and came back home. He came back home because he was a son. The older son was home because he is a son. He was irritated because he felt he was better than the other one. “I did not squander my inheritance on prostitutes and drinking and everything else. I have been a good boy.” If that is true, nothing wrong with that, then do not judge a sinner who has turned back to the father. You have self-righteousness and you have no righteousness. It is a great example there. Quite frankly, I have more compassion for the guy out in the trenches and came home than I do for the self-righteous guy thinking everything is okay.
Sarah: I think of the son who stayed home as worse off because he is not getting it.
Bob: People like that are harder to reach with the gospel, too, Sarah.
Ron from Utica, NY
Ron: I got a question. Today I just had a real difficult time reading the word. Every so often it seems to happen. I hear you say let the Spirit teach you truth. I pray to God every time when I open up scriptures. Lord, help me to open up my mind and understand the word of God. But today I was full of anxiety about it. I just wanted to know, when you say let the Spirit teach you, what do you mean by that? I do not want to be one of those guys, who just doesn’t get it. Sometimes you can miss the simplest things and I do not want to overcomplicate things.
Psalm 131:1-2
1 My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
Bob: Well, again Ron, if you are born again and the Spirit of God is living in you, then one of the purposes is to teach you all truth, to lead you into all truth, to take things of the Lord Jesus Christ and make them known to you.
John 16:12-15
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Bob: Only the Spirit of God can reveal the meaning of the word of God to you.
1 Corinthians 2:9-10
9 However, as it is written:“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[Isaiah 64:4] –
the things God has prepared for those who love him –10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
Bob: Once again, if He already taught you the meaning of the word of God on certain passages of scripture, He is not going to teach you the meaning again. He might deepen it or amplify it. You have been taught by God and you move on from there. There are times in your life where you are bogged down with sometimes problems of the world and your concentration is not particularly what it ought to be. Therefore, you are probably going to squelch the ability of the Spirit of God to teach you the meaning. I do not know. I have not run into that personally so it is a little difficult for me to answer that question. So I do not worry about it. If I sit down to read the scriptures and things are not clicking, I am basically what Jesus said. “My little child there is much more I want to tell you but you are not ready for it yet.” So I figure I am not ready for it so I put my bible down and wait until I am. So I do not worry about those things
Ron: I guess maybe I try too hard. I am trying to squeeze something and maybe I am not ready for it. I am striving for something that I should not be striving for.
Bob: Yes, that is exactly right. When there is something there that you just cannot get, and seems like there is no revelation, put a checkmark there, and move on.
Bob: I told people, “I have enough trouble trying to live in dependency on what I do know rather than trying to figure out what I do not know.” I put a checkmark there. It may be a year. In my early days, a year later, reading through scriptures and all of a sudden there is the answer to something way back in the gospels I did not understand. I go back and now I have my answer to it. That is what makes the bible exciting. So do not think you have to get everything at every time. That is not true. God reveals that to you.
Bob: There are things that can block revelation. Trials and tribulations in life and your concentration. You are thinking about other things. You are not necessarily prepared to be taught at that particular moment. You can get away and pray and get your mind on something else, and then come back to the scriptures. It is no big deal. Do not look at it as something you have to strive for.
Ron: Thanks for your advice and I will do that.
Bob: Does that help?
Ron: Yes, it does help, brother.
Bob: Thanks, pal. You are welcome. God bless you, pal.
Ron: God bless you.
Scott from Denver, CO
Scott: I enjoy your show. I am a first time caller. I recently have been studying Calvinism, the five points of Calvinism. Limited atonement. Do you believe Jesus died for everyone or for the elect?
Bob: I believe what the bible says. There is no such thing as dying for the elect. There is no such thing as limited atonement. One of the problems, Scott, that you ran into is that Calvin did not understand salvation for life. He understood forgiveness of sins but he equated forgiveness of sins with salvation. When you do that, then you cannot believe that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, which it says.
1 John 2:2 (NASB)
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Bob: So you have to come up with something else because if He died for the sins of the entire world then that would mean universal salvation and we know that is not true, so you have to come up with a solution, or what I call a hair-brained idea of who He died for. But the issue is Jesus took away the sins of the entire world. Then He was prepared to deal with the consequence of sin. There is a difference between sin and consequence to sin. Sin is what caused our death. The only solution to death is life. That is why in Romans we read.
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: You are not saved by the death of Christ. You are saved by the life of Christ. Many, many people are walking around thinking they are saved because they came to Jesus for what He did instead of coming to Jesus for who He is and receiving His life, the resurrected life in Christ Jesus. Many times, Scott, I asked people, “What is the meaning of the cross?”, and they will all say that is where He died for sin, but when I ask about the meaning of the resurrection they stare at you. The issue is resurrection is the focal point of Christianity. That is why Paul said without the resurrection, we are to be pitied of all people and are still in our sins.
1 Corinthians 15:17-19
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Bob: He certainly understood the cross took place but also understood that apart from the resurrected life that forgiveness provided at the cross is not received. It is only received in Him.
Ephesians 1:7
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
Bob: So where that limited atonement is off and Calvinism is off is because Calvin is off. Where he was off was not understanding that salvation is life instead of salvation is merely getting your sins forgiven. Christ died and took away the sins of the entire world, back to Adam and forward to eternity.
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them.
Bob: Then having accomplished that He is now able to offer you and me eternal life because once He gave us life, Scott, the only thing that could cause that life to depart from us would be sin. That is why we have eternal life because of the eternal consequence of the cross. Had He not taken away the cause of death, sin, He could have never given us eternal life. That is also why Jesus said the world’s sin, singular, is unbelief in Me.
John 16:9 (TLB)
9 The world’s sin is unbelief in me;
Bob: So when we come to Christ not just for what He did for us, but for Christ coming to live in us, and to free us from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life, we come alive in Christ. That forgiveness that was provided for us is received. That is only to those who come to Christ by faith.
Bob: That is where it is, to me, I take great exception to Calvinistic teaching. I think what took place there. I know there are a lot of dear people in that movement but what took place is the premise was off and when the premise is off, the findings will be off. The premise is that you are saved by getting sins forgiven. So you cannot accept forgiveness as the totality of sin which would be universal salvation but that could not be.
Colossians 1:20 (TLB)
20 It was through what his Son did that God cleared a path for everything to come to him – all things in heaven and on earth – for Christ’s death on the cross has made peace with God for all by his blood.
2 Peter 1:3-4
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Bob: So he cleared the deck for the divine action of giving life to the dead.
Scott: So do you believe that people choose Jesus or Jesus chooses His people?
2 Peter 3:9
9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Bob: It was God’s will that none should perish and all should come to repentance. That means every person ever placed on this earth, it was God’s will that they will come to repentance. But that does not mean they are going to. That goes into that sovereignty deal. The sovereignty of God was that He gave man a will. That is part of the sovereignty of God that I do not want to make people a bunch of robots. “I created people who can think and choose.” So He created mankind with the ability to think and choose. So meanwhile I will use my influence but with the reality that some will accept and some will not. Even though it is my will that all will accept, some will not. It was his choice. He chose to reach out to each and every one of us. There is not a single person on earth He has not reached out to. The issue is are we going to respond or not. That is determined by whether we are going to respond or not.
John 1:12
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
Some people are so stubborn. Scott, I have seen things, as an example, with the homeless here in Dallas. I saw that not too long ago being broadcast. People down there are freezing to death, sleeping under a bridge in boxes. Someone came along and offered shelter to them. There is a salvation army over there who has food and beds for you. “No, not me. They got rules over there. I would rather sleep in my box.” There are people so strong in rebellion that they would rather sleep in a box and freeze to death rather than go over there in a nice bed because they might have to listen to Jesus and obey some rules. So rebellion in man is strong.
Bob: Scott, I appreciate your call on that. I have studied what you studied as well. That is where I saw the loophole there. I think if you look at the book of Ephesians, especially, and in light of Jew and Gentile, then you will see predestination and election and all those other terms that are so used in Calvinism. It is around Jew and Gentile. It has nothing to do with you’s and me’s but has to do with Jew and Gentile. I challenge you to read that and get back with us if you have any further questions.
Bob George provided scriptures that address this topic more thoroughly. Go to Predestination, Free Will, Election & Foreknowledge>. Take the time to read Ephesians and Romans, paying special attention to the context of who Paul is writing to and addressing.
Scott: I will do that. Thank you for your opinion.
Bob: You are sure welcome, my brother. You are welcome. Bye now.
