Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P635 (05-20-21)
Synopsis
There are many common questions relative new believers ask concerning the scripture. They are basic questions that can easily be answered from the scriptures but they are also questions they have in light of the teaching they have been so accustomed to hear on radio, television or from a denomination they grew up under or have been visiting or attending. As they read the scriptures for themselves, they are beginning to recognize that something is just not right, for what they had been taught all their lives just does not agree with what is revealed in scripture. So in either case, they call for clarification of what they have heard, and want Bob George’s thoughts on the subject.
So listen as Bob George answers various questions by callers on topics such as what did Jesus mean when he said my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and what does it mean to be unequally yoked with unbelievers or have I committed the unpardonable sin, does the Lord’s prayer apply today and what is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and what is this I hear about the doctrine of election, where God died for only the elect? In answering these questions, the proper understanding of the complete gospel clears up so much uncertainty or confusion that people have. Bob George explains from the scriptures in answering each of these questions, which you also can look up in the bible yourself, and I encourage you to do so, and if you have the Holy Spirit living in you, you too can discern what the truth is on such matters by the Holy Spirit, who lives in you, and who has promised to lead you and guide you into all truth.
Transcript
Andy from British Columbia
Andy: I was wondering in the gospels, when Jesus was saying to his followers to come to Him because His burden and yoke is light. What does He mean by that, particularly in regards to the New Covenant?
Matthew 11:29-30
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Bob: We do not know much about yokes over here. In that part of the world, you will see people out plowing fields. You will see animals in a yoke. They are plowing the fields and the animals themselves are the drivers of the plow. What He was giving a picture of is how they trained bulls in those yokes. The way they did that is they would always take a young bull and put it in a yoke with an older, experienced bull, who already knew where he was going. He had his nose down in a furrow and would not vary one way or the other. The young bull in the yoke with him, he wanted to go out and play with his friends. You would see him on that yoke. He is leaning out there. He wants to get out of that thing to go play with his buddies. Have you noticed the guy who walks along with a stick? He taps it on the back of the yoke. All of a sudden the young bull falls back in line again. After a while he sees some more buddies. So he taps a few more taps on the yoke. That tapping means to get back and become a learner from the old bull. Ultimately, in due time, the new bull becomes conformed to the actions of the old bull. So, in essence, that is the teaching method.
Bob: What Jesus is saying. We would hear the Great Commission, thinking about Jesus standing on a hill, and saying, “Bob, go into the world and I will see you soon.” But that is not the case. “Get yoked up with me and we will go into the world and make disciples.” It is really showing a relationship that God was getting ready to form with us, that we are going together on this trip we are taking. We are not alone. We are in the yoke with Christ Jesus. It was a great visible illustration.
Bob: So it does not mean work in any way? No. It is talking about getting in yoke with Christ Jesus, and letting Him take you on the trip, to show you how to live and how to think. Just like the young bull has to learn the work of the old bull, we have to learn how to think like Christ Jesus. Listen, Jesus is not afraid of work. This whole issue of being a Christian is not to be sitting around a bonfire. If Jesus lives in you, He is going to be doing what He did when He was here on this earth. He is going into the world and telling people about the love of God, and ministering to people. Coming to Christ is not sitting back and taking a vacation. It is allowing Him, however, to live His life in and through us, so we are not wasting our own energy, in the energy of our own flesh.
Andy: Thank you very much.
Bob: You are sure welcome, Andy. Thanks for your call.
Betsy from Richmond, VA
Betsy: My question today is if you are dating someone under the law, but you are under grace, but you know that person has enthusiasm for Jesus, and admits that he is his savior, do you believe those people are unequally yoked and the relationship is doomed from the start?
2 Corinthians 6:14-18
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”[Leviticus 26:12; Jeremiah 32:38; Ezekiel 37:27]
17 Therefore,
“Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”[Isaiah 52:11; Ezekiel 20:34,41]
18 And,
“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”[2 Samuel 7:14; 7:8]
Bob: I do not know whether it is doomed, but they are unequally yoked. That concept of a person saying “I am legalistic and I love the Lord is a lie.” You see a lot of people saying I just love Jesus. “No, you don’t, not according to scripture.”
1 John 4:10
19 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
And how can you love God if you are under the law? Every time you mess up, there is punishment connected with it. How can you be in love with someone like that? I believe it is a lie. People are just whistling dixie and talking out of both sides of the mouth. I do not believe that. If they are under the law, then they are under the condemnation of the law. Paul says you are under a curse. I do not think someone who is freed from the curse of the law and the one under the curse, is what you would call people being equally yoked.
Galatians 3:10
10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
Betsy: No.
Bob: I would rather be married to a lost person than a person under the law.
Betsy: You can bring them around.
Bob: Yes, you can get along a lot better. There is nothing worse than trying to live under the law or to live with somebody who is legalistic. They will drive you crazy and they will drive themselves crazy. I think it is vitally important. First, I would say to a person, your pride is not okay. I would not want to be married to someone whose pride is as large as the Empire State building. Do not say it is grace when you say you have something to do with this. That pride will not get along well with a person who has come to the end of himself, realizing it is all Jesus and none of me and I do not add a single thing to what Jesus has given me. He has given me everything I need for life and godliness. Therefore, I have everything I need. I am not worrying about anything. Anything I am doing is because Jesus has already done it in my life/
Betsy: Alright. The thing that concerns me is spiritually it seems like they love Jesus. They just have that enthusiasm. Is this something I am missing? Is there something they are missing? Is there an avenue I can pursue and maybe we can change things together?
Bob: What the person loves is the fact that you think because I am so obedient and so obedient to God that He must just be so pleased with me that it is unbelievable. That makes you appear happy. But that is not the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is resting. He does not call you to a Sabbath rest so as to brag on how wonderful you are. He puts you in a Sabbath rest where you live in humility of the fact that it is all of Jesus and none of me, and wake up every day praising God for His mercy instead of how wonderful I am in being able to praise God in how wonderful He is.
Betsy: Alright. Got you. Thank you.
Bob: Alright. Bye Bye.
Charles from San Diego, CA
Charles: It is a pleasure to get through to you guys. I have to be fast because my batteries are low on my phone. I want to nail this down once and for all. I thought I dealt with it before. It concerns Matthew of the unpardonable sin, blasphemy of the Spirit. I thought it was the continual rejection of salvation and who He is. My situation is one of, I have been suffering with arthritis for 33 years. Unimaginable deforming pain. One night, I have been praying for years, and absolutely nothing happening. I got angry at God. I was lying in bed at three in the morning, just telling God where He could go. “This is not life more abundant. You can have it. I do not want it.” The next day I felt horrible. I just totally repented of it. I need to know. I need to have closure. Have I committed the unpardonable sin?
Bob: Have you accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, Charles?
Charles: Yes.
Then there is no way for you to commit the unpardonable sin. You already repented of that sin. The only sin attributable to man is the unbelief in Christ Jesus who provided your salvation for you. That is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the final testimony. The Father testified about Jesus to come. In the gospels, Jesus came and testified about Himself. Now it is the Holy Spirit’s job to testify about Jesus who came. When you blaspheme, or deny the truth of that, you denied the totality of the godhead.
Charles: In that moment of pain and suffering, which is beyond my description, I cannot even explain what rheumatoid arthritis is like. I took my bible and spit on it, threw it in the trash. That is how angry I was at God. But first thing in the morning I cleaned it up. That attitude.
Bob: Let us forget about what happened in the past, Charles. Right now, who do you think is in charge of giving arthritis or illness to people? God or Satan?
Charles: We live in a fallen world, so it surely isn’t God.
Bob: So you just got mad at the wrong person.
Charles: I certainly appreciate that. I thought I had closure a long time ago. Then I hear sermons on the radio that it will not be forgiven in this age or in the age to come.
Bob: The only sin that will not be forgiven, in this age or the one to come, is the sin of the rejection of the Son of God. Jesus said “The World’s sin is unbelief in me.”
John 16:9 (TLB)
9 The World’s sin is unbelief in me.
Charles: I appreciate that. When I said that you can have it, I do not want it if this is about. That is what led me to think. If you do not want it, I will take it back. But I keep hearing you say you cannot undo salvation. I appreciate your time.
Bob: You are sure welcome, Charles. Put that one behind you, brother. That is ridiculous thinking about that. If you are in Christ Jesus, then He is in you and He is in you forever, with the promise to never leave you nor forsake.
Hebrews 13:5
5 because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Charles: That is the only hope I got. Thank you. I appreciate that very much.
Raymond from San Carlos, CA
Raymond: How are you doing, Bob?
Bob: Doing good, Raymond. Thank you.
Raymond: I have not talked to you guys in a while. I used to live in Belmont. I work in Belmont, but I live pretty close.
Bob: Good to hear from you. What can we do to help you, today?
Raymond: I am a little concerned. Everything today is good Old Covenant. I know we discussed it a lot. I do not know why people are refusing what the New Covenant teaches. I know one minister. You know who he is, and he gives answers to people on radio. I heard him a few weeks ago. It irritated me. He says, “Most ministers are saying that the Lord’s prayer does not apply today. Yes, it does apply.” One man was telling him, “Do I have to ask for forgiveness?” He says, “Yes, you have to.”
Bob: Let me tell you something about Hank Haanagraft. Hank does not even believe in the indwelling Christ. He has openly said that he believes Christ in you is like your wife going on a trip and saying I will be with you in spirit. That is his illustration, not mine. I like Hank as a person, but he is deeply confused due to his intellect. I think that he has allowed himself to become so infatuated with his so-called pseudo-intellectualism, that he has lost his ability to depend on the Spirit of God who lives in him to reveal truth to him. To not know the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is ridiculous. I have seen him quote, as an example, in regard to asking for forgiveness. He will say it is all through the scripture. “Look at James, confess your sins.” He knows what that passage says because of great memory. But it says “one to another.” It is not talking about confessing sins to God, but he uses it in the context of confessing sins to God.
James 5:15-16
15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Bob: He then refers to the Lord’s prayer. He knows it does not stop where we have put a period. If we do not forgive our brother here on earth, then your father in heaven will not forgive you. That is not devoid of his knowledge. He probably has memorized what it says. Then why does he not quote it? Then why not equate that to the New Covenant, where it says, “That God was in Christ, not counting our sins against Him.”
Matthew 6:14-15
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them.
Bob: Do not tell me you can bring those two together. You cannot. To teach Old and New the same is ludicrous. He is someone who has an agenda other than digging into the scriptures, and instead of trying to memorize words, but to ask God to reveal the meaning of it to you. It drives me crazy, too, Raymond. So we will go nuts together.
Raymond: Sometimes he says certain things that he is right on. But when it comes to topics like that, he is way off. Then in Revelation, he thinks the two witnesses are like an illustration. How can you be witnesses if you are not being raised from the dead? Is that symbolism? Come on?
Bob: When he studied that, he memorized that, like the book of Revelation, and because he did that, he thinks he knows what it means. As I have told people for years, Raymond, do not believe what I am saying. Check it out in scripture. If you can find those things in scripture, fine. If not, you might as well leave it alone.
Raymond: If I cannot find some of those, I might as well throw my hands in the air. For I do not have a clue what to do then.
Bob: Absolutely, brother. I hope that helps, brother?
Raymond: Yes. It did. I appreciate your message.
Bob: You are sure welcome, Raymond.
James from Nashville, TN
James: It is good to get your call. You share so much it is hard to remember what your question is. Was the bible written, old and new, to lost people, or was it written to saved people?
Bob: James, the New Testament, would have been written to a born again pastor, who was to read that to his congregation, made up, many times, of the same kinds of congregations we have today, people there saved, and a whole bunch of them lost as can be, and if the shoe fits, then you wear it. If scripture was only written to Christians, then you ought to have a Christian check at the door at every church, to make sure you are born before you come in, if you are going to teach out of the bible, because it wasn’t written to you if you were not.
James: It is written to the Christian?
Bob: So it was written to a pastor.
James: I am not talking about exhortation.
Bob: It was written to a pastor of a church, who was there to read that to his congregation, and if the shoe fits, you wear it. That is exactly, as an example, of 1 John. In the congregation, probably in Ephesus, you had Gnostics, who were lost as can be, called antichrists, and you had saved people.
James: Let me ask my question a different way. In essence, God’s chosen people, as in Jews and Gentiles together or what?
Bob: It makes no difference, James. The issue is, if the shoe fits, you wear it.
James: I do not see that in the bible about the shoe fits, you wear it. You will have to …
Bob: But I do not see anything in the bible that you are saying.
James: There is no difference between Jew and the Greek? Is that not in the bible?
Bob: What do you mean there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek?
(In the audio, James keeps interrupting Bob, and his attitude does sound cocky to me also.)
James: That is what I said.
Bob: James, hold on a minute. If you are in here to get in with that attitude.
James: No. No.
Bob: I am going to cut you off in a minute. I am not going to argue. I am not going to play that game. If you want to have a nice discussion.
James: You are inviting people to call. Do not cut them off.
Bob: I can do anything I want to. It is not your program. It is mine. The issue is if you want to have a nice conversation, let us have one. But let us not come up with your cocky attitude, okay.
Bob: What I am saying to you is very clear. The bible is not written to Christians or non-Christians. It is written to people. It is written to a pastor to read to people. Some of those people are saved and some of them are lost. You want to bring up Jew and Gentile. It does not make a difference if they are a lost Jew or a lost Gentile. The issue is not whether you are Jew or Gentile. The issue is you are lost. Then you have a saved Jew and a saved Gentile. The issue is not whether you are a Jew or a Gentile. The issue is are you saved or are you lost. The bible was written to be read to people, to the lost person listening to what is being said or written, they are going to see that I am lost and hopefully become saved. To the saved person, they will say, praise God but I need to keep renewing my mind. That is the purpose of the bible. It is not directed to Jew, Gentile, slave or free because it is directed to all mankind, and to wherever you are in that whole equation, wherever you are, if the shoe fits, wear it. Again, you will not find the shoe fit wearing it in the bible. That is quite obvious that he is not talking about shoes in the bible, maybe sandals but not shoes, but I think you know what I am talking about.
Fred from Indianapolis, IN
Fred: Hi, Bob. Thanks for taking my call. I just want to say how much I appreciate the work you are doing on your program.
Bob: Thanks, Fred.
Fred: I have a lot of questions, but I will try to keep it brief to a few or two. My wife and children have been doing a bible study and having a discussion on the doctrine of eternal security. I was wondering what your thoughts are on that? How can you really know you are a Christian? What does that look like? What does it feel like? How does that fit into what some other people have been calling the life of a carnal Christian? That does not seem to fit.
Bob: The reason it does not fit is because there is nothing in the bible about being a carnal Christian. You are a person who is thinking carnally, or worldly, But if anyone is in Christ, you are a new creation. It is old, then new.
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Bob: There is no such a thing. That is an identity, Fred. I am a child of God. I am not a carnal Christian or a spiritual Christian. I am a child of the living God who chose to walk in the Spirit, to walk in dependency upon Christ and sometimes choose not to. That is a lifestyle that we are basically going to be in as long as we are in this flesh of ours. This idea of carnal Christian, I used to believe that because that is what I was taught in my early Christian life. But the more I studied scripture it is just not there.
Bob: As far as eternal security, Fred, there is divine logic behind this. If I were to ask you, “Do you believe Jesus died for your sins at the cross, would you say yes?”
Fred: Yes.
Bob: How many did He die for?
Fred: All of them.
Bob: How many sins of the whole world did He die for?
Fred: For all of them. Another question I had is in terms of the doctrine of election.
Bob: The doctrine of election is ridiculous. That is the most ridiculous theology, in my opinion, on the face of the earth. He did not die for the elect. He died for the world. You cannot spin that. The reason that that came about is because people think that getting your sins forgiven is salvation. So if that is true, then because of what you have been taught, there is a bit of hesitancy in answering those questions.
Bob: When someone asks me how many sins Jesus died for, He died for all of them, back to Adam forward to eternity. He took away the sins of the entire world from the eyes of God, eternally. If He had not taken them away eternally, I could not have been given eternal life. The only thing that can cause this life He has given me, this resurrection life, which is what salvation is, being saved from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life. Forgiving someone does not bring life from the dead. Life brings life from the dead. That is why you are not saved through His cross. You are saved through His resurrection. But the cross is what enables you and me to have eternal life because of the eternal consequence of the cross. If Jesus had forgotten one sin at the cross and then gave you life, and you sinned, what would happen to you? The wages of sin is still death. So because of the eternal consequence of the cross, Romans are able to say there is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. What is the condemnation of God for sin? It is not out of fellowship. It is not taking you out to the woodshed. It is death. There is nothing left for you and me. We have been freed. We have been freed from the consequence of sin being death by the gift of God which is eternal life.
Bob: Do you see the divine logic behind this? The reason I know I have life called eternal life is because of the eternal consequence of the cross. For me to deny that is to spit in the face of Jesus. It would be saying to God, “You lied when you said you died for the sins of the whole world.” This ridiculous theology you are talking about comes from people who believe that your sins being forgiven is what brings salvation. If that is the case, then that is universal salvation because he died for the sins of the whole world. So the person says that cannot be. I agree. It cannot be. So we are going to have to spin this and come up with the concept that he just died for the elect. No, leave it alone. He died for the sins of the whole world, but that is not salvation. That is where he took away the sins of the world and prepared us for salvation. Salvation is looking at the resurrection and saying Jesus was raised from the dead so that that life that raised him from the dead can raise me from the dead. “Jesus, if I am dead, I want life” and so you ask Jesus to come in, thanking Him for the forgiveness that enabled you to have eternal life and asking Him to come in to give you that life. Because of misunderstanding that is how people come up with this theology on election.
Bob: Election is Jew and Gentile. Read the book of Ephesians in light of Jew and Gentile and it will be clear to you. Alright. Okay, Fred?
Fred: Yes. Thank you very much.
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