Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P567 (09-03-20)
Synopsis
In this world, we will face all kinds of temptations, and we may even give into temptation. Such is the frailty of all mankind. There is not a person who has not sinned except Jesus Christ. He is not tempted by sin but was subjected to all the temptations we faced. But he was without sin. That is why we have a great and merciful high priest, who can identify with what we go through. He took away all the sins of the entire so that we can freely come to Him to receive life and grace in our time of need. You who are a child of God, humble yourself, trust the Lord to cause all things to happen for your good. Continue to walk in faith in the promises of God for you. If you should stumble or fall, get right back up, forget what lies behind, and go boldly to the throne of grace for help in time of need. Yes, make restitution when that is what needs to be done in your situation, as God would have you do. Remember though that you are a child of God, if you are in Him.
For now, Satan is the god of this world, and he goes about deceiving men. Deception will increase as the time of the end of this world draws near. Yes, there is a great tribulation coming, and increasing tribulations along the way. Jesus compared them to birth pains. Jesus warned about these things coming so we will not be surprised by them. He wants us to be prepared but not scared. Yes, Jesus spoke of wars and rumors of wars, and of such tribulations that if He had not shortened those days that even the elect would not survive.
There will be a day that many will meet the Lord in the air, and in which the dead in Christ will rise first. So, in the end, it will be glorious, but there will be great trouble until that glorious day comes. So, He tells us when you see these certain things begin to occur, to look up, for your redemption draws near. So, we should keep our eyes on this hope, on Christ, so we are not overwhelmed when we see the love of most grow cold, where murders increase, where people will hate one another, children disobedient to their parents and brothers and sisters betraying and hating one another, and persecutions on the rise.
And, we have this promise, because of God’s amazing patience and grace, that the gospel will be preached and then the end will come. So pray more than anything else that God opens up the hearts of those to receive Him by faith. Yes, Jesus said narrow is the road to life and few find it. We see that even in the Old Testament, with over a million and one Jews. Only two, Joshua and Caleb, had faith in what God had said, in order to enter the promised land. Only Caleb and Joshua entered the promised land, for they held onto the truth of the word of God.
How important it is to hold onto truth. Even in the apostle Paul’s day were deceivers, those who rejected Christ as the Messiah, those Judaizers who turned the minds of people back to works of the law, and had them enslaved and trapped all over again. The apostle Paul was very firm and bold with truth, and never compromised on the gospel in Christ Jesus. Let anyone be accursed who preaches a different gospel than the one he preached, for no one else taught him but Jesus Christ. We now have this truth of the gospel written down for us, the words of the apostles, whose message came not from men but from God, who alone taught them.
So if a Jehovah Witness tries to tell you that Jesus is not God, he is an anti-christ according to the word of God. Since his premise is off, anything he has to say concerning God, whom he insists should only be called by the name Jehovah, will be off too. Have nothing to do with them. Do not allow them to speak among those people under your care. Do not allow them to deceive your neighbors. Do not welcome or allow them into your homes if they bring such false teaching. Yet, today, we have so many preachers allowing priests, Catholics, Mormons, and various religious leaders, who clearly preach a different gospel, to have them speak from the pulpit. That should never be!
Heed the warning of the apostle Paul so you are not naive and do not fall prey to deception.
Romans 16:17-19
17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.
Transcript
Laura from Aberdeen, MD
Laura: I talked to you last week and it was an informative conversation. I have another question for you. It was in the word that Jesus was tempted at the same points we are tempted in the flesh. Well, I am being tempted with something that I have done that I am not able to easily rectify. I am living with regret and I am trying not to live in temptation, or live in depression about it and live in regret. My question is this. Jesus never had an opportunity to even understand making a mistake, regretting what he did, that I know of, because he made no errors and is perfect. How do you handle not giving into the overwhelming feeling of regretting something that you have done that is going to have repercussions for years? Also, how did Jesus even deal with something like that, because it does not appear he regretted anything?
Bob: Laura, if you laid an egg, the only thing you can do is sit back and admire that sucker. There is nothing you can do about it. It is there. It is done. To sit and regret about what you have done is ridiculous because there is nothing you can do to change it. Yes, it was done. Yes, it was a mistake. Yes, there are repercussions to it. If there are people to apologize to, then that is always good to do. Whether they accept the apology or not is not your concern. You have done what God asked you to do. That is all you can do.
Philippians 3:12-14
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Bob: But to sit around thinking about the past is senseless or useless. Jesus told us to forget the past and press on to the high calling in Christ Jesus. Do not put your standard up to Christ Jesus. No one is ever going to live up to the standard of Christ Jesus. He came to show us righteousness in Himself and then went to heaven because there is no righteousness down here. Do not compare yourself with Christ.
Romans 3:22-24
22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Galatians 2:21
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Bob: When Jesus was tempted, he was not tempted like you or I. Let me put it this way. You can put us in a room of drugs. To some people that would be a temptation. To me that would not be a temptation. That is not a temptation for me to take drugs. That is one that I can use as an example, and probably the only thing I can use. But the issue is, that is the kind of thing you are talking about. All of the temptations of the world was presented to Jesus but he was not tempted by them.
James 1:12-14
12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
Bob: Whatever you have done in the past, He has put in the past never to see them again, as well as what you are going to do in the future. As far as God is concerned, you can test in fact that whatever that sin was that you have a regret on, Christ has paid the price for that. He has put it behind His back never to see again. If that was good enough for Jesus, why should it not be good enough for you? If He said He put it behind His back never to see it again, and you still remember it, then your standards are higher than His.
Hebrews 7:27
27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
Hebrews 8:11-13
11 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”[a]13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
Laura: I hear what you are saying but I think then that it comes down to living with the mistakes physically and being able to just let it go. I guess that is something you have to work out.
Bob: Without knowing what the mistake is, then it is hard to understand.
Laura: Our husband and I have put ourselves into a huge financial debt with credit cards and we promised God about five years ago that we would never use a credit card. He took us completely out of debt when we cut up our credit cards. Through our own flesh, we started going back off that promise, and now we have wiped out all our savings. Everything is gone that we worked hard for for five years. We are in a bigger debt than we started out with. It is a physical snapshot of our disobedience. So, we are very humbled. We are not just sorry. But we are done. We understand what we did.
Bob: Is there any way to make that back? Is it with credit cards again? There are ways of getting out of those things, Laura. If you get yourself in a jam and there is nothing you can do to get out of it and you want to do right, then you can go to the credit card company and say that you can pay $20 per month and put it in their hands. You can say to them, “I did make a mistake and that will not happen again. But the issue is that is where we are and we do want to do what is right. So, here is what our offer is, and we hope you will accept it so I can do what is right in this thing. Otherwise we have no option but to declare personal bankruptcy.”
1 Peter 5:6
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
Laura: I was wondering, how anybody would be after having a great time, and after that great time, there is no good end to it. Jesus did not regret anything he did. I was wondering how you get past it.
Bob: There is not a person on the face of the earth who does not have regrets. There is not a person on earth. The issue is that if anybody ever went through life without sin is a liar. The only one without sin is Jesus. There is not a person alive who could not have regrets. But I am not going to live with those regrets. It is over and once I have tried to make restitution where I could, to talk to people that if I offended them in some way. Beyond that I say, “God, you have taken care of that. My standards are not greater than yours. So I am going to walk in the newness of life and move on.”
Philippians 3:13-14
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Bob: Okay?
Laura: Yes. Thank you.
Maurice from Glenda, GA
Maurice: I just had a question about the Jehovah Witnesses organization. I am not calling to discredit the organization. I just have a lot of things I am dealing with. One thing is, it seems like they discredit Jesus Christ teaching because in the Old Testament, they talk about Jehovah God more that they talk about him in the New Testament.
Bob: They deny the deity of Christ so you might as well not even listen to them. There is something that you and I live by in nature. If your premise is off your findings will be off. If you go to a doctor, as an example, and he examines you and he has the premise that you have tuberculosis when in fact you do not have tuberculosis, he will probably kill you with medication. Because the premise is off your findings will be off. That is a rule we live by.
Bob: When your premise is off that Jesus Christ is not God, everything is going to be off. All your findings are going to be off. That is certainly true in Jehovah Witnesses teaching. When you have people who spend their lives calling on people trying to convince people that Jesus is not God, you have the teaching of the anti-Christ.
1 John 2:21-23
21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist – denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
Bob: So when dealing with someone who is in that category, the last thing you want to do is to sit down and acknowledge them or in any way shape or form to become involved with them.
Romans 16:17-19
17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.
Bob: When studying the bible you will not be studying it from the vantage point of truth but from the vantage point of their persuasion. Their persuasion is based on the premise that Jesus is not God, so everything else they are convinced of is also going to be wrong. That is why they hang out in the Old Testament instead of the New Testament, just like you said.
Maurice: I know in the Old Testament, they use the word “Jehovah” for God but in the New Testament is used the word “Jesus Christ.”
Bob: Well, they do not acknowledge Him. They do not acknowledge that at all, that Jesus Christ is God. You have a lot of things about the Jehovah Witness people. I used to bring them in the house to keep them off the street. They will not pray with you. They do not know how to pray. It is such a strange teaching. They brainwash their people. They go out totally brainwashed and go out and try to convince people of this doctrine, which has been in error ever since they began. There was a time where they believed the 144,000 were the 144,000 Jehovah Witness and those are the only ones going to heaven. They kept that up until their membership exceeded 144,000 and then they had to change it. There is so much in that denomination that has changed and messed around that it is not even worth talking about. I always think that in Revelation 22.
Revelation 22:12-17
12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.
Bob: Earlier in Revelation, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End”, says Jehovah God. So I acknowledge that. Then you go back to Revelation 22:12. “Behold I am coming soon. My reward is with me and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Bob: Who is this according to you? Jehovah God.
Revelation 22:14-17
14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. 16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
Bob: It identifies by name, Jesus, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. It identifies him by name. Yet they will look at that and change their bible.
Maurice: Is it true that in the New Testament that they have inserted the word “Jehovah”? From my understanding the word “Jehovah” is not in the New Testament.
Bob: Again, what difference is there if it is. God revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, We have to go with that. That is who God is. God revealed God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The word “God” is in the Old Testament. There are many names for God. Elohim is a name of God in the Old Testament. There are numerous names for God in the Old Testament. God of healing. I do not know all of them. But there are hundreds of names God has used.
Genesis 1:1
1 In the beginning God [Elohim] created the heavens and the earth.
Bob: The word “Elohim”, identifies the same one God who created the heavens and the earth.
Bob: It is nonsensical what they teach. The issue is that God came to reveal Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. They deny Jesus is God. When dealing with someone that denies Jesus is God, they have nothing to say to you and me as a Christian.
John 1:1-14
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Maurice: Thank you very much, Bob.
Bob: You are sure welcome, pal. Bye. Bye now.
Beth from Temple, TX
Beth: Could you explain Matthew 8:12? What is this about, being cast into outer darkness and this gnashing of teeth?
Bob: Again, the way you interpret, is to look at scripture in context, as to what he is saying there. It was talking about the centurion that Jesus had just commended for his faith.
Matthew 8:9-11
9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
Bob: In other words, the people that have come to Christ by faith will be at the place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were in the fold because of their faith. But the children of these people, and that is not all of them, but it is the vast majority, will be thrown outside. It is merely saying that not all people are going to enter in by faith. The only people who are ever going to enter the kingdom of heaven are people who enter in by faith and faith alone. Obviously, the people, like I mentioned earlier, when you realize who went into the desert into the promised land as God called them to, were two people out of a million and one. So, it talks about in scripture, and it is very clear to us, that the road is narrow.
Matthew 7:14
14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Bob: It is not the people that have done the good, but it is people who have entered by faith. Man does not want to walk by faith. Man wants to walk by works. That passage is dealing with the salvation of man. The ones who come by faith enter and the ones who do not are going to be thrown out into darkness.
Beth: So the children of the kingdom are the ones who are not saved?
Bob: Yes. The children of the kingdom are talking about Israel.
Beth: Okay. Because I know someone that refers to Christian in these days. The children of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness. They always say it like that?
Bob: Well, let us just put it in terms that we better understand. Only the saved people, those who came to Christ Jesus, and no one else. He is the only way to God. Those who come to Christ Jesus by faith are going to be at the banquet of God. The rest will be thrown outside where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
John 14:6
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Beth: Yes sir. I understand it now.
Bob: The best way to understand it. Yes.
Beth: I heard you say something about fasting earlier. What does it mean? What is spiritual fasting?
Bob: Beth, I see nothing in fasting. The issue is what does it mean? I said that I believe that holding fast onto the truth of Christ Jesus is the fast that he is looking for. That is the spiritual fasting. We sit down and we want to take that into the physical realm. I did not eat. What good does that do any good if they are not eating? It does not say that those who did not eat are going to enter the kingdom of God, but those who enter by faith are going to enter the kingdom of God. True spiritual fasting is holding fast to truth you have received and never varying from the gospel preached to us by the apostle Paul.
Galatians 1:6-9
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse
Galatians 1:11
11 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Beth: When they say these things, without prayer and fasting, is that what it means?
Bob: Outside of it would be the physical fasting. The meaning of it is hanging onto truth and not letting go of it.
Beth: Okay.
Bob: Okay?
Beth: Yes sir.
Bob: Alright. Beth, I appreciate your call.
Beth: Thank you very much.
Bob: Bye bye.
Howard from Bakersfield, CA
Howard: I could not find the scripture. What I was looking for or wanted an answer to. In the bible all nations will come against Israel. I was wondering if that meant the United States too?
Zechariah 12:2-4
2 “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. 3 On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves. 4 On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness,” declares the Lord. “I will keep a watchful eye over Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations.
Bob: It does not single out the United States. You have Israel. It does not exclude the United States. But of course if you are talking about all nations that would mean the entire world. There was no such thing as Israel until 1948 when they became a nation. Everybody started looking forward to prophecy at that time. You have Israel, a very small nation, that is bordered on the north by Lebanon, bordered on the East by Syria and by Jordan, and then you have all of the other countries in that part of the world, and all of them are anti-Israel. Incidentally, they are also anti-Christian, but not all of them. In Lebanon, as an example, there is a terrific population of Christians, but there are also the militants that are there. They are on the southern border of Israel that are bombing into Haifa today and into Israel today. That, Howard, is going to continue on until the Lord comes back. There is never going to be peace in Israel until the prince of peace returns and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, period.
Ezekiel 37:25-28
25 They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. 27 My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. 28 Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’”
Philippians 2:9-11
9 Therefore God exalted him [Jesus] to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Bob: You can go through all the negotiations but it is not going to happen. You have an end, that end time. When the end time comes, which will be fought there in Armageddon, the final battle. It will be between the Muslim world and the Jews and if Christians are in that, the Christians. That is who the Muslim world hates, that is who they get rewarded according to their god for killing, are the Jews and the Christians. So when people are sitting at their border and openly declaring that their goal is to wipe Israel off of the face of the earth, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out somebody does not like you. So that will take place until the end of the ages. It will basically be between those nations over there in Israel. It is a terrible thing going on.
Howard: That is what I tell everybody. Like the Lord says, do not blame me when you see these things happen. Then the end will come.
Bob: Absolutely. I understand that there was another tsunami in Indonesia that wiped out another group of people. You see those kinds of natural disasters. You are finding a terrific influx of earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars. Every place you go it is turmoil. There is no explanation for that except that Satan is stirring up the turmoil and it is winding down to the end of the ages. I believe that with all my heart. I have never been in my entire ministry talking about end times. It has always been. I know it is coming and I will be ready when it does. I believe it is near only because of what I see going on in that part of the world.
Mark 13:3-27
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?”5 Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 8 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.
12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 13 Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’[a] standing where it[b] does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19 because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.
20 “If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. 21 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 23 So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.
24 “But in those days, following that distress,
“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[Isaiah 13:10; 34:4]26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
Howard: There is nothing we can do about it but pray. Pray for people to get right with the Lord.
Bob: Absolutely.
Howard: That is what I want to know.
Sam from North Augusta, GA
Sam: What I would like to discuss. Why doesn’t religion help people find romantic security and then preserve it?
Bob: I do not know what you are talking about, Sammy.
Sam: Because married instead of fornicators nor adulterers or all of that other kind of deviations from romantic security, a permanent romantic security.
Bob: Sammy, I do not understand what you are talking about with romantic security. The bible talks about marriage and it certainly talks about romance. So, I do not know what you are dealing with.
Sam: They seem unwilling to assist people in that. They sort of resent.
Bob: Who are the “they” you are talking about, Sammy?
Sam: All of them that …
Bob: Who is the “them” and the “they” that are resisting?
Sam: Religions. Islam. Christianity.
Bob: That is not true. I am having difficulty comprehending what you are getting at there. First, you have a bible. That is where you have to go to find truth anyway. The bible talks very little about marriage. It does talk about the fact if you are going to be married, marriage is not a la la land anyway. Marriage is a commitment with another person you are going to serve the rest of your life. Marriage is not about what you are getting out of your mate, but how I am going to serve her in love. The bible talks very deeply about that. Again, I think you just have to go to the source, which is the word of God and that is where you are going to find truth for your own life. What somebody else is doing is none of your business. I think to sit there and say the religions and about different denominations, that is a hodgepodge of nowhere. The only place you are going to find the security, the plumb-line for answers to your question is in the word of God. That is where you have to go and where you have to stay for those answers.
Sam: I did not mean to distinguish a romantic security other than God’s.
Bob: I don ’ t even know what romantic security is, Sammy. We are having difficulty here. I will let our counselor speak off the air and talk to you and see if we can get some clarification. We are all over the place with these definitions, if a definition does not match up with the word of God. So I do not know how to handle it. I will put you on hold and see if we can get answers for you. You hang on.
