Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P547 (06-25-20)
Synopsis
If you are a parent, and you are a believer, how would you relate to your adult son who comes home to visit, says he is a homosexual, that he is born that way and he wants you to accept him? These are the kinds of questions that we hear today. First, of all you do love him dearly, not for what he does, but because he is your son. You know such behavior is perversion, and you do not have to be a believer to know that. And you know that in order for your son to come alive in Christ, to walk free from that, he needs to be told the truth.
You never want to get to the point of calling something other than what God calls it. If God calls it sin, it is sin. How can someone repent of being a sinner and know to come to Christ for life, if he first does not even acknowledge what sin is? He is believing a lie. Anyone who is in that lifestyle is not happy no matter what he looks like on the outside. He has believed a lie that he is born that way. No one is born that way. We are all born in Adam with a propensity to sin and get involved in all kinds of sinful behavior. But that is not how God originally created man. Man is trapped in deception and in bondage to sin in all kinds of ways. So, the most loving thing is to tell him the truth about what is behavior is, and to point him to the solution in Christ Jesus.
What is the solution in Christ Jesus? The fact is, whether you committed the sin of fornication, or lied or stolen or thought about or committed a homosexual act, the wage of sin is death. That means all of us were born into this world spiritually dead. God sent His Son Jesus into this world to do something for us we could not do for ourselves. See, He reconciled the world unto Himself by dying to take the price of death for sin for us. That does not mean everyone is saved just because God did that. That was preparation to rescue us. Salvation is not getting your sins forgiven in and of itself. That is what God did in order for life to be given.
When a person is a sinner, and all of us are born a sinner. A person who has not come to Christ Jesus for life is still dead in his sins. The sin is not the real problem, but it is the cause of his problem. The real problem is death, being dead to God, dead spiritually. Until a person recognizes himself as a sinner, then what would the cross mean to him? Nothing. Until he knows what sin is, and then identifies himself as a sinner, would he ever see his need of life? No. So, when you define what sin is, as to what God calls it, you are helping someone see their need of life, the resurrected life of Christ. It is in Him, the receiving of Him, that the forgiveness of sin that was provided when Jesus shed his blood on a cross, is received. When you receive Him, you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, and you have everything that is in Him, life eternal and His righteousness. That is received as a gift by repenting of what you can do and placing your faith in what He alone has provided for you.
God is love. God did not send His son into this world to condemn the world, but to save it. We are condemned already. Why? Because we have not believed in God’s only Son. See, God wants us to come to our senses, so we can have life. In Him, you have the things you are looking for, true joy and peace. You are experiencing false love and a temporary happiness that is fleeting, by your sinful lifestyle, which ultimately brings heartache and pain, although currently you may be in denial of that. And if you are, you are in denial, and want people to accept your sinful lifestyle so you do not have to face the fact you are dead before God. Exchange that for something that is permanent and forever, a living person, the creator of all that is, so you may experience true joy and peace that does not depend on circumstances of this life. Think about. The God who created you knows how you are designed to function. So, why not trust Him? He knows what is best for you. He loves you unconditionally and wants to lavish His grace on you. Come to Him for life. Let Him renew your mind.
So you say, what about those charlatans, those who preach name it and claim it, that prosperity gospel? Well, the truth is not in them. They are teaching godliness as a means for financial gain. The truth is God, who is Christ Jesus, and Jesus has made that known to us. We, who are in Christ Jesus, have His word to test and affirm what any man says is true. We do so because we have the Spirit of God who is living in us. We have the mind of Christ. In 1 Timothy 6, we can say that such a person is of corrupt mind, conceited, envious, involved in strife, involved in controversies and quarrels, is conceited, and understands nothing.
When you come to Christ and are growing in grace and knowledge, you will find that when you visit this or that church, you will encounter so much false teaching, and it seems it is everywhere. In one church, they will have women pastors, in another they teach the tithe is for today, in others they teach a false concept of election, and in another they teach that you must keep short accounts with God, through a false understanding of 1 John 1:9. In many others you will hear a false way to get closer to God, as if you can get more of God than you already have, through some prayer technique. In others, you will observe people being slain in the spirit, falling on the ground, or rolling around in laughter. Still others will say that you have to baptized by their pastor in their waters in order to be saved.
So where do you turn for truth? Truth, after all, is what sets you free. You look to God and His word. You rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to you. You test everything, and do not simply believe something because somebody graduated with a seminary degree or is influential or is highly regarded among men or is an eloquent speaker. You lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways you acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. You learn about law and grace and the New Covenant, of what you are under today, grace, and you learn to ask good questions of the scripture and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to you.
Transcript
Chad from New Orleans, LA
Chad: I have a question out of the book of John, in particular John 12:47-48.
John 12:47-48
47 “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them on the last day.
Chad: Is that talking about two different people?
Bob: Here is what he is talking about. When a man believes in me he does not believe in me only but the one who sent me. In other words, if you believe in Christ, you also have to believe in the Father.
John 12:44-48
44 Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. 45 The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. 47 “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them on the last day.
So, he will be condemned by the very words of Christ Jesus.
John 12:49-50
49 For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. 50 I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
Bob: Again, the meaning of this passage, Chad, is to exemplify, once again, the fact that Christ Jesus, although he was God, came to this earth and lived as a man in order to show you and me how to live. We cannot live as God, are not God and never will be God. He lived as a man in total dependency upon his Father. Therefore, he did nothing unless the Father told him to do it and he said nothing unless the Father told him to say it. Then he said, “as the Father sent me, so I send you”. That basically is the whole meaning of those passages of scripture.
Chad: When I read it, I thought verse 47 was to a believer and verse 48 was talking to an unbeliever. But I was reading it wrong.
Bob: He is just saying he came into the world to speak truth about Himself. To the person who hears His word and does not keep them, he says, I do not need to judge them for they are already judged. They already refused the word of God. I did not come to judge the world but to save it. There is a judge for those who do not accept my words. The person who rejects Christ, as Jews find on that day, they rejected the words of God, and therefore, reject God himself. The very word I have spoken will judge them on the last day. He is speaking to a lost person in that regard.
Chad: Thank you. I appreciate your time and insight.
Bob: You are sure welcome, Chad. I hope that helps.
Chad: Yes, sir. Thank you, Bob
Bob: God bless you. Bye bye.
Bob from San Diego, CA
Caller: What is God’s will for my life? I read the bible each day, and try to spend time with God in prayer. I am just kind of struggling to know how to know where God is leading. I do not have a sense of direction. Maybe that is a bad thing. I do not know.
Bob: Remember when Jesus said to live a day at a time. Yesterday is over. There is not a thing you can do to change yesterday. It is gone. The words you said yesterday are gone. They are gone. They are out there. Tomorrow is God’s business. That is the future and we do not belong in the future. Jesus told us to live one day at a time. So what is God’s for your and my life? To live one day at a time. To do what, while living one day at time? Trusting Him.
Galatians 5:6
6 The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
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.
Bob: I cannot exercise faith tomorrow. So I cannot be in God’s will tomorrow. It is not there. I cannot be in God’s will yesterday. It is over. But I can choose to be in God’s will today. What God’s will is, is for me to walk in dependency upon Christ Jesus. Just like this passage we just read where Jesus himself did nothing unless the Father told him to do it and told him what to say and how to say it. That is total dependency, Bob. That is all God is asking out of you and me is one day at a time, today, to walk by faith in me. Any time we get grandiose ideas of what God has for us, but that is all they are, grandiose ideas. What God has for you and me is just one day at a time. Sweet Jesus. Just like the song says. That is all God is asking for you. That is God’s will to walk in a dependent relationship upon Him. The only time you can is not tomorrow nor yesterday but today, to let Him guide you one day at a time.
Caller: I am learning a lot about depending on Christ for His strength. When I was first a Christian, I was doing it in my own strength. I am learning to live by faith in Christ. It is really his strength.
Bob: It is really a marvelous way to live, Bob. We had some folks who visited us from Lancaster, PA yesterday. They are people who grew up in ministry, who grew up in Mennonite ministry and ultimately got free from that legalism and are walking in freedom in Christ today. In talking to them, there is no way in God’s earth I would ever dreamed I would be doing and the other staff members would be doing today what we are doing. It was not a plan of ours. It was not even a desire of ours. It was the fact of living one day at a time, depending upon Christ to guide me one day at a time. How do you eat an elephant? A bite at a time. How do you live the Christian life? A day at a time. All of a sudden these things opened up. When they opened up, it opened up in a day. That day, I had a choice to trust if this is of God or whether it isn’t and whether I am going to act on it. If it is of God, then I am going to act upon it. If it isn’t God’;s will then, close the door. That was a day’s decision. That was not a lifetime decision. That day led to another day. When we went on the air, the phones lit up. The next day they lit up again. We began to say, “I believe this is God’s will for my life to be in this radio outreach ministry we are in”. It was not our desire. We did not push for it. And if God took it away tomorrow, then we would say, “praise God”. For it was not our ministry to begin with. It was His.
Caller: Awesome. Thank you, Bob.
Bob: I hope that helps, brother?
Caller: Yes, it does.
Kenny from Frisco, TX
Kenny: I was looking for a church that is closer to where we are looking. We have been driving four hours. I have been looking at churches’ core beliefs and teachings. I wanted to hear your thoughts on a two part deal. A lot of churches are preaching prosperity teaching, that you give and you receive back tenfold. I know it teaches about a lady who gave all she had, but she was not wealthy after that. The other one is having a pastor who is a woman or a husband and wife are both pastoring a church. Is that something I should be concerned about or not?
Bob: The prosperity gospel, we are told in 1 Timothy 6, says that anyone who teaches a prosperity gospel, that type of thing, is a man of corrupt mind.
1 Timothy 6:3-5
3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5 and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
Bob: Any man that teaches that godliness is a means to financial gain, that is a prosperity gospel, is a man who has been robbed of the truth. He has a corrupt mind. He is envious, involved in strife, involved in controversies and quarrel, conceited, understands nothing. Some of the people I know who are teachers of the prosperity gospel, who walk around in their white suits and bouffant hairdos, strutting around on the stage, blowing on people, knocking them over. I cannot think of a more conceited, deceived human being than someone engaged in those activities. None of that is in the scriptures. The prosperity gospel is explained very clearly as people being robbed of truth.
Bob: As far as the women being pastor. As a man, I was called into ministry. My wife was not. She was not called to be a minister. She is called to be a helpmate to me and she is. I do not like the title of being called a pastor. My name is Bob. I do not like being called by what I do. If I ever quit being one I would lose my identity, wouldn’t I?
Kenny: True.
Bob: We have the tendency to put our identity in what we do. We call ourselves doctors or surgeons. Who would you be if your hands are cut off? We call ourselves models. What do you call yourself when you get ugly? We put titles on people. Our title is a child of God. That is who I am, a child of God. Pastor is what I do but a child of God is who I am. To have a woman in a position of leadership over a man is unbiblical. That should not be done. A man should not put his wife in that position.
Bob: A lot of men do that because they are corporations. Corporations have to have a board of directors. They fill their board of directors with wife and children so they could never dismiss them.
NOTE: The audio indicates he does not have family members on the board of directors. That was only true for that time, as Bob thought then. We, Bob George Ministries, used to forbid our family members as board of directors for the reason stated in the audio. Although we do not stack a board of directors with just family members, for the reason stated in the audio, we do not ever forbid a board to not have a family member on the board of directors.
NOTE: Today, we do allow family members to be on the board of directors, although the audio indicates otherwise, because if those in your organization should become corrupt or, for whatever reason, should live in accordance with sinful flesh, steal the ministry away from you, then there is no avenue in which family members can do anything about it. A family member who knows the Lord, is just as capable to act in accordance with the Spirit, and has the incentive to know and love those whom they have known all their life. So that one family member can be a safeguard in certain matters.
1 Timothy 3:1-3
1 Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
Bob: The reason our ministry has an examination at the end of the year is to evaluate what we do. That is for our protection so no one can say we misused money. We do not do that because we have to. So ministries have to be up front, candid, and have to be without question. They cannot have a little tiny misuse that somebody could question, in my opinion. These kinds of things are nothing but charlatans that are bleeding people saying that if you give, God will bless you. If that were the case, why not you give to me so God will bless you. I would get away from those kinds of teachers. I would get out of such churches.
Kenny: Yes, I was just checking into it before I committed to a church like that.
Bob: Sometimes we do. It is fun. The music is good. The people appear excited. All of a sudden you find out what people are teaching. Then it is almost too late for you. You are almost hooked in there. There is nothing in the bible about sticking to one assembly. We have a church in Carrollton. We do not have membership. If you are saved, you are already a member of Christ’s body. We do not have church membership. You are already a member of Christ’s body. Therefore, you are free to be led wherever God might lead you. If God leads you someplace else, praise the Lord. There is a reason for that. We are not there to capture people and to hold onto them and manipulate them. We are there to teach people the good news of the gospel, and let God do with people what he so chooses to do with them.
Kenny: That helps a lot. I appreciate your answers, sir.
Kenny, you are sure welcome, brother.
Kim from Grossville, MI
Kim: I would like to know the differences between God’s wrath and God’s discipline.
Bob: Punishment is wrath. From God’s standpoint, the wages, or wrath, from God for sin is death. Discipline is preparing someone for the battle ahead. It is like the practice of a football team. They are disciplining their players so they will be effective in the game. It is not punishment. It is discipline. Punishment is a retaliation for an act done. Discipline is preparation for the game ahead. That is why the bible is a book of discipline. It is called discipleship. That is where the word discipleship comes from. Every time we read the bible, it really disciplines our mind. For our minds have a tendency to get off into the thinking of the world. The bible is always there drawing us back and disciplining our mind to get our thinking back to God’s vantage point rather than man’s vantage point, that is to continually think upon truth. That is why we need to keep in the bible so our mind keeps being renewed on truth and that truth is what sets us free. As far as punishment for a believer, there is no punishment. There is no condemnation, no wrath of God, for those in Christ Jesus. Punishment is retaliation of an act done. Discipline is preparation for the game ahead.
Kim: I appreciate that. Thank you so much for all you do for all of us.
Bob: You are sure welcome. Does that help, Kim?
Kim: It certainly does.
Bob: Well, thanks for your call, Kim.
Lisa from New Orleans, LA
Lisa: I heard you talk about homosexuality being a perversion. I know that too. Is fornication also a perversion?
Bob: No, it is not contrary to man being attracted to a woman or a woman to a man. But fornication is called sin. Both are sin, but you are dealing with fornication. Fornication is sex outside marriage. Adultery is sex when you are married but with someone else than your spouse.
Lisa: Is fornication an abomination?
Bob: Lisa, whether it was or not, the whole issue.
Lisa: I know it is sin. It is sin.
Bob: Okay. Well, just call it what it is. The world, including people doing that, who are saved, has been taken away at the cross of Christ Jesus. No one will ever go to hell because of sins. Only the sin of the rejection.
Lisa: They will only go to hell because of rejection of Jesus.
Bob: Yes.
John 16:9 (TLB)
9 The world’s sin is unbelief in me
Bob: The sins of the world, we get so preoccupied with, have all been placed on the back of God, never to see them again. The issue is, if you are lost, you need to see that what you are doing or what you are thinking is what the bible says it is. Do not try to call it something else. You will never repent by calling, as an example, homosexuality, something other than what the bible calls it. You will never be able to change your mind. The same with fornication. You will not be able to say, “I need salvation”
Bob: Now, once you are in Christ Jesus, God is dealing with us on the basis of new life. As a child of God, all things are permissible but not all things are profitable.
1 Corinthians 6:11-13
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say – but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” – but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
Bob: So your decision-making process is, “Is this profitable to me? Does this bring me joy, what I am doing? No. Is this profitable to others around me? Is it harmful to other people? When you begin to look, would you want someone else to do that to me? That would be, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is the attitude that ties into asking if this is profitable. Are you doing unto others what you would want others to do unto you? That is how He deals with us as a child of God.
Bob: Under a non-child of God, you are already under the death penalty. You are born under the wages of sin, which is death. Even though your sins are taken away, the consequence of sin is still in effect until you come to Christ for His resurrected life.
Lisa: When our savior made the statement that the only sin that is unforgivable is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, what does that mean?
Bob: He said the world’s sin is unbelief in me. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is denying the testimony of the Holy Spirit in regard to who Jesus is.
Lisa: That man, the rejection of Jesus.
Bob: Absolutely. The only sin attributable to man is the rejection of Christ. Who is telling people that today? The Holy Spirit. There in the Old Testament said Jesus is going to come. Jesus came in the gospels. Now the Holy Spirit is testifying to that coming. When we reject the Holy Spirit, we have literally rejected the entirety of the godhead.
Lisa: When someone is turned over to a reprobate mind, they are saying, “I am going to do what I want to do. I do not care. I am not going to change. This is what I believe and this is what I am going to do what I feel is right.”
Bob: That attitude is a reprobate mind, saying, “I am not going to say it is wrong that it is a sin. The sin I am doing is what I feel is right”. That is a reprobate mind.
Lisa: Okay.
Bob: Can God change that? Certainly He can change that.
Lisa: Oh yes. I know God can change anything.
Bob: There is something about that attitude, Lisa, that is saying, “I do not care a flip what God says and I do not care a flip what God cares about because I am going to do what I want to do”.
Lisa: You do what you want to do.
Bob: Yes. That comes as a result of being a reprobate mind.
Lisa: Okay. Thank you so much.
Bob: You are sure welcome. I hope that helps.
Lisa: It did. Thanks.
Debbie from Silver Creek, GA
Debbie: I have a son thirty years old. He is a homosexual, and I love him dearly. I accept him but he is always telling me that I do not truly accept him. I do not accept homosexuality. I disagree. I don ’ t even know why it has to be an issue in our relationship with one another as a mother and a son.
Bob: Debbie, are you married?
Debbie: Yes.
Bob: You might ask him if you were openly having an affair with somebody, would he accept that?
Debbie: He probably would.
Bob: He probably would with what he is doing. I do not think so, because you are his mother. Or if his father was openly having an affair with somebody, saying, “That is no problem. I was just born that way”. “I was just born in a way for me to stick with one woman is an impossibility, so I want you to accept me the way I am”. Or, “I like children. I like eight year olds. Do not blame me. I was born that way”. Or, “I am a pedophile, if that is what you want to call it. I was just born that way”. How do you think acceptance would be? Or, “I like to kill people. There is something about me and people that I just do not like. I was just born that way. I like to kill people”.
Bob: All of those things are all in the same category. They are habits. They are decisions people make. For him to try to put you on a guilt trip for not accepting his homosexuality is ludicrous. The issue is I am not going to accept your homosexuality. I am not going to accept you living in a perverted lifestyle. So, I accept you as my son, and I will love you as my son, but I will not love you as a homosexual. I do not agree with your homosexuality. The bible says it is perversion. You know it is perversion and I know it is perversion. So with your children, or whoever it is, you look the person straight in the face and call it what it is, whether it hurts or whether it doesn’t, and to call it what it is. How is a person ever going to repent of sin if you never name their sin?
Debbie: They say they have no sin.
Bob: My sister is a psychologist. She is right there telling him it is okay and he is born that way. I have got both of them. I know what I know where I stand and where my faith is at. How do you handle that, you know?
Bob: Debbie, I was not a Christian until I was 36 years of age. I knew all my life that homosexuality was a perversion. I did not need to be a Christian to know homosexuality was a perversion. I did not need to be a Christian that if I, Bob, went after Harry or Jim, that that was perversion. I would not have to be a Christian to know that. You know that. Scripture itself verifies that. Scripture itself is able to say that this sin, it burns within your own body. Do not tell me your son is happy or any other homosexual is happy with their lifestyle. The most heinous crimes are committed by homosexuals. They get angry because they are into something they do not know how to get out of. Instead they are trying to get out of it because they think they can’t.
Debbie: Which is a lie.
Bob: That is a lie of the enemy. Then they want the world to accept it!
Debbie: That is true. I appreciate that.
Bob: Well, Debbie, it is not good news for you. But you have to stick your guns with it.
Debbie: Just keep me in your prayers.
Bob: Sure will, Debbie. I am sorry you are having to go through that. That would not be a pleasant thing to go through.
Debbie: No, it is not. The Lord has given me the grace to do it. So I guess he will continue to do that.
Bob: That is for sure, Debbie. God bless. You keep us posted if we can be of any help.
Debbie: Alright. Thank you. Bye bye.
