Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P581 (10-22-20)
Synopsis
People are so filled with gratitude when they realize the truth of what salvation really is. The gospel, the message of good news that God came to bring to us through His Son, and what was accomplished through His death, burial and resurrection, continues to change lives today. People from time to time have called into the radio program, having been blessed by the truth they heard, the spiritual wisdom and knowledge of God, of the grace of God that helped them escape bondage to legalism and to grab a hold of life in Christ Jesus, which is what true living is all about.
From time to time, people, out of their own love for the Lord, will give financial or of their time and energy, so the truth of the word of God, of life in Christ Jesus, continues to go out. You may not know this, but it takes money to get this message proclaimed on radio stations. Ministries pay money to air what they want to say on a radio station so a radio station can continue to function. Of course ministries, like Bob George Ministries, are listener supported and such money given by listeners is used to pay for radio air time for the ministry to continue on the air. Bob George Ministries is certainly grateful to those who give of their time and resources for this to be possible, and so a big thank you to all those who have supported throughout the years and those to whom God has put such a desire in your heart.
We know that if God wants His message to go out, then all that He requires of us is to be available to Him. We simply trust Him to provide what is needed to do what He asks of us. That is walking by faith, and if He wants something communicated, and time and resources are needed, then He will certainly supply. He supplies through the body of Christ, as each person does what he is called of God to do. If you give, you give cheerfully, in accordance with what you have, and not in accordance with what you do not have. No one is under compulsion to give, and no one is ever made to feel compelled to give, for that is between you and God.
Bob George Ministries continues to reach out and share the finality of the cross, of being made complete in Christ, and growing in grace, and what is shared can be verified and confirmed through the scriptures, and through the Spirit of God living in you, if you are in Christ Jesus. What is shared today is also told in more detail in Classic Christianity and Growing in Grace and other resources available by Bob George Ministries. In today’s program, Bob shares with several listeners what the essence of the gospel is. A short booklet that summarizes the fundamental concepts can be read online. Check out Be Born Free to learn what it mean to be born free as a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Transcript
Cody from Rusk, TX
Cody: God put it on my heart to call. I know you are going through financial times in your ministry. I have been listening to you for twelve to thirteen years. I am telling everybody, that if they feel led to give to the ministry, the money goes to spreading the good news of Jesus Christ. I know each of these pastors personally. They do not have fancy cars or fancy Rolexes, like many of the others do. When you send money to People to People (known today as Bob George Ministries), it goes to spreading the good news and grace and love of Jesus Christ.
Bob: Well, Cody. Thank you. I thank anybody who has any doubt about that, just pull into our parking lot. It looks like a used parking lot. We absolutely have been diligent, Cody, to not be taking advantage of people’s hard earned money they send to the ministry. I tell people, you are not really sending to a ministry. You are sending through a ministry. For we are taking that money to reach out to others. But it is a heavy expense.
Bob: In Christian radio, the ministries have to pay the radio stations to be on their radio program. Nothing is free. And so in order for the station to survive, they have to have money and we are the ones who pay the money to be on the air. So we are literally paying to get this gospel out. The way that we do that is with listener supported people. So we have always been diligent to be good stewards of the Lord’s money in every way possible. I am sure there are times we have not been as good a steward as we could, but it certainly is not by intent and certainly not something that is the norm. We are diligent to ensure people’s hard-earned money they sacrificially give to this ministry is used in a way to get the message out to people.
Bob: We appreciate your wanting to call in and to share that with people, Cody. I know that you have been a part of this financial team for a long period of time. We have been recently talking about it, Cody. We feel that this is something that God is revealing more and more to me that we have been a part of a movement of God for well over twenty five years without recognizing it, without even acknowledging that truth. But as I continue to look back and look at Classic Christianity that has sold well over a half million copies and over seventy thousand world wide. You stop to think of that. You stop to think of ministries like people like in Australia and England, just had some people in from Denmark, and all over the world that are catching onto this truth, and grabbing a hold and embracing this message and passing it on to others.
Bob: I just know that we were on the cutting edge of that twenty five years ago when we went on the air. There was not hardly anybody that was teaching the fullness of the gospel. When we published Classic Christianity and after that Growing in Grace, the publisher told us that you have the title with grace on it and nobody knows what it is and nobody using that word. You would not find a book with grace on it. Today it is all over the place. We were the cutting edge as far as media is concerned, pulling people away from legalism and into the arm of Christ Jesus and into the arms of God and the grace of God.
Bob: I know that this movement, that we have been a part of, without even knowing it, quite frankly, is something that is bigger than us. It is bigger than our ministry. When people are giving away to People to People, they are giving to a movement that is bigger than ourselves. I just think God allowed a number of people like yourself, and so many laymen across this country, to get in on the action, to get in on something that God is about. If we think God does not want His people to come back to the original and get back to the grace of God and away from this legalism that kills, then we just do not know God. We have been a part of what He has been about and everyone who has participated in this ministry financially or in any other ways have been a part of this movement. We just praise God for you, Cody, and people like you.
Joe from Detroit, MI
Joe: I thank you for taking my call. My question is really truly dealing with an unregenerated person. I am speaking other than prayer of salvation, would their prayer be answered?
Bob: Joe, I think God is willing and certainly able to answer and to talk to anyone that talks to Him. If God only heard the prayers of the saved, how in the world would the lost ever get saved? I can say in my own life, many times in my life, because I did not come to Christ until I was thirty six years of age. I certainly had communion with God and talked to God, although I did not know who He was. I know there was communication taking place, at least on my part. I would be far remiss if God was sitting up there saying, “I am not going to listen to him because he is not my son’ no more than if my son brought a guest into my house and the guest started talking to me. I would not sit there and say, “I am not going to talk to you because you are not my son.” I think God listens to all of us. To think He only hears His children is crazy thinking just the same as my son brought a guest into the house and I am not going to talk to him.
Joe: I need some help here. I need some scriptural references for that.
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Bob: Well, God so loved the world, Joe. In other words, if you stopped to think about it, we are told this in Romans 5:8.
Romans 5:8
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Bob: While we were yet enemies, and that means lost or unregenerate, is what is being talked about. We were, while lost and an unregenerate, reconciled to God through the death of His Son.
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: So He reconciled you when you were totally lost. In other words, your sins were taken away from the eyes of God when you and I were lost. We were born reconciled to Go through the death of His Son. How much more, having been reconciled, that being an accomplished fact, shall we be saved by His resurrected life. So you are saved by his life, not his death.
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Bob: That is what God gave Jesus to do, to take away the sins of the world, so that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. Why would God do that for someone He did not want to talk to?
Joe: I understand that, to become His child, to become born again, yes. All we have to do is cry and accept Christ Jesus. I realize that.
Bob: It is more than that, Joe. To accept Jesus is nebulous. You are accepting what Jesus did for you. To just accept Jesus is nebulous. You are accepting what Jesus did for you. He took away sins from the eyes of God, never to see them again. That means there is no sin that will cause man to go to hell. The only sin attributable to man is the sin of the rejection of the one who provided that for you and that is Christ Jesus.
John 16:9
9 The world’s sin is unbelief in me
Bob: But having cleared the deck for the divine action, to bring life to the dead, is what salvation is.
Ephesians 2:1-3
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
Colossians 1:20
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.
John 5:26
26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
John 20:31
31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Bob: So we have to understand the fact that, and agree with God that, the fact that we are dead spiritually. If I understand that I am dead spiritually and Jesus said He came that I might have life, then that is the solution to my condition of death. Now I agree with God concerning my condition and His provision and I accept His provision by faith and I am born again.
Joe: Thank you. I can deal with that.
Bob: Okay, thank you.
Bob: So many times, my brother, what happens to us, and unfortunately in evangelical Christianity, we have absolutely short-circuited the gospel by telling people to get saved by getting your sins forgiven. That is not true. Your sins were forgiven when you were born. God had took those sins away from the eyes of God before you and I were ever born.
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them.
Bob: But what we do not realize is that there is a consequence to sin called death and that death has to be corrected and forgiveness does not bring life from the dead. Life brings life from the dead. That is why Paul said that without the resurrection we are to be pitied of all people and are still in our sins, knowing full well that a cross had occurred where Jesus took away our sin and also knowing that that forgiveness that was provided then is only received in His resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:16-19
16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 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: The call of God to you and me is, Joe, “come unto me, Jesus, not just for My forgiveness but come unto Me for My life and in that life you will have the forgiveness that was provided for you at the cross.”
Joe: Absolutely. Thank you so much for your explanation. Have a very blessed day.
Bob: Thank you, my friend. I appreciate your call. I hope that helps?
Bob: Thank you my friend. Bye. Bye.
Ray from Garden Grove, CA
Ray: God bless you too. I really appreciate your ministry as well. I appreciate your spiritual wisdom and advice.
Bob: Thank you, my brother.
Ray: I have a question related to the church I attend. The church I attend are looking to use W2’s to match up our tithes and offerings. What do you feel about that, sir?
Bob: To do what now?
Ray: To make sure we are paying our tithing and offering as to the amount of ten percent, to use W2’s.
Bob: Asking you to turn in W2’s to church?
Ray: Yes.
Bob: I would turn in my resignation before I turned in my W2. Why would you want to be in a church like that, that is teaching that kind of legalism when the bible says a little bit of leaven spoils the whole loaf, if they are teaching that kind of legalism. Legalism is rampant in that. I would not be in a church like that personally.
1 Corinthians 5:6-7
6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Bob: The other side of that, a person’s giving is between that person and God. That pastor obviously does not believe that, for he believes it is between him and another person. That is nonsense, Ray. You already figured that out or you would not be calling me about it. You already know there is something wrong with doing that. Number one, what business is it of a pastor as to how much money I make? If you want to expose a W2, let me see his and let me see how he is doing. Again, not any of his business what a congregation does. You are supposed to be giving free will, in accordance with what you have and not in accordance with what you do not have.
2 Corinthians 9:7
7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Bob: It is not that I may not be in a church that is teaching tithing if I had a ministry in that church where I could teach grace, where at least I had something. But I do not believe I would last long there, and I do not believe you would either. I think something like that needs to be challenged. I would, first of all, go to the pastor and ask him what in the world is he doing teaching tithing and if he has any idea what the new covenant is about. It is ridiculous. I can hardly believe someone is doing that. I heard that before. It is hard to believe the audicity some pastor has in order to tell his people that is what he wants them to do and then have people dumb enough to turn in their W2. That to me, which is the dumber, the pastor or the congregation?
Ray: Yes, sir.
Bob: This does not make sense to me.
Ray: Yes, sir. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Bob: You are welcome, my friend.
Ray: God bless you, sir.
Bob: Okay. Bye. Bye.
Samantha from Corpus Christie, TX
Samantha: It is not that I have a problem with my faith. It is just I have a problem relating it to other people. I believe that they do not necessarily believe what I believe. I know a lot of people who ask a lot of questions and doubt God’s word a lot. I question that I have had for a while, and I have not been able to answer it. In Genesis, it talks about God creating the earth and man in His image. Then it says that He created them male and female. I was just wondering why. In the 2nd chapter, in verse 22, He took a rib from Adam and created a female. They created them male and female. Then in the 2nd chapter, He created the female from man.
Genesis 2:22
22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
Bob: Well, both of them are creations of God. In other words, they were not here because of natural birth, Samantha. It had nothing to do with natural birth. They were created by the hand of God. In the seventh verse of chapter 2, it says the Lord formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7
7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Bob: So, Adam was made and formed from dust and so would Eve been formed in the same way. The difference was, as it talks about in the 22nd verse there, the Lord made a woman from his rib that he had taken out of man and brought her to the man. So that is how Adam and Eve were created.
Genesis 2:21-22
21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
Bob: But here is the deal.
Genesis 5:
1 When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind”[Hebrew adam] when they were created.3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.
Bob: In Genesis 5, we are told that when God created man, and he is talking about mankind, not just Adam, but mankind, Adam and Eve. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. When they were created, they were called man, so male and female. When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, and in his own image and he named him Seth. You and I were not born in the image of God. We were born in the image of Adam, dead in trespasses and sins. Adam and Eve were the only people ever created by God. We were born of his creation.
Samantha: Okay.
Bob: So we are not born in the image of God. We are born in the image of fallen Adam. That is why from that day forth man had to be redeemed and saved and be restored to what we lost in Adam, that being the Spirit of God living in us. That is the reason for salvation.
Samantha: I have one more question. It is something that, whenever I was not saved. I have been saved for about nine months now. I am like incredibly happy. I know that this is life for me. Any sad time is a happy moment. I am praising God all the time. I have had questions before I was saved about the bible and the fall of man. Why would God create us if He is all knowing. Why would He create us to fall into sin?
Bob: He did not create us to fall into sin. That was Satan’s plan for us. Again, Samantha, we have to get out of that mindset of all knowing. We have no point of reference to that at all. Those are just words to us. There is nothing in us that makes us all-knowing and we cannot relate to it. The issue is God created man for the purpose to be able to have beings to choose to love Him and whom He chose to love us. That would have been the motivation for the creation, to have people that we could love one another. He knew there was a gamble associated with free will, in that man could choose his own way and not love God.
Bob: The opposite of that would be creating us as robots. He did not create us as robots. He created us with a choice. So after the creation, we do not know how long Adam and Eve were in existence there until Satan came and rebelled in heaven and the angelic beings went with him and came to this earth in demonic form and brought about the fall of man, but always in God’s plan was the redemption of man. So He did not create us to be dead and He did not create us to go to hell. He created us to go to heaven. Satan tried to interfere with that plan. Because the wages of sin is death and once that was understood that the wages of sin is death and I can get mankind to sin, then I have lost them. They have been lost to God now. That is, therefore, God’s plan of redemption, for Jesus to take away the cause of spiritual death, which is sin and then to offer us resurrected, eternal life, which spoiled Satan’s plan completely.
Samantha: Right. Okay. That answers my question.
Bob: How old are you, Samantha?
Samantha: I am nineteen. I will be twenty soon.
Bob: You just keep walking with the Lord, Samantha. I would have given anything in the world to come to know the Lord at an age like you. It would have saved me tons of problems.
Samantha: Thanks for the encouragement.
Bob: Bye. Bye now.
Robert from Ontario, Canada
Robert: Thanks for taking my call. I have a question from Acts 7:60 about the stoning of Steven.
Acts 7:60
60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
Robert: In verse 55, it says he was full of the Spirit. At verse 60, it just said before he died, he said, do not charge them with sins. How would you explain that in light of your teaching that God took away the sins of the world, behind His back, never to see them again?
Acts 7:55
55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Bob: Well, Robert, the book of Acts is merely a recording of what someone said. It does not even mean it is accurate. If you remember in the book of Acts, they said they went out and sold all their possessions and laid them at the apostles’ feet. I certainly do not believe that is a doctrine. There are a lot of things said. There was a point in scripture where Peter said, “Perhaps He will forgive you of this”. He knew better than that, but that is what he said.
Acts 4:34-35
34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
Acts 8:22 (KJV)
22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
Bob: That is one of the reasons we know scriptures are true. There are things people said where you look back, and say, “Peter, why did you say that?” But on that particular thing Stephen said, “do not hold that sin against them”. That is just confirming the fact that the Lord does not hold their sins against them. Obviously that is not something Stephen was going to say to the Lord and then the Lord say “Okay, I will not do it.” The Lord already had not held sins against them. He was just confirming that fact.
Bob: The book of Acts is a historical book and it just records basically of Peter and Paul and what people did and said. It is a recordation of that, not necessarily solid doctrine. Again, it is not our teaching in regard to the finality of the cross. That is clear teaching of scripture.
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them.
Colossians 1:22-23
22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation – 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.
Romans 8:1-2
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Hebrews 9:28
28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Bob: Teaching of the finality of the cross is paramount. But again, when you have a passage like that, it is merely a confirmation of what God did.
Robert: It sounds like a request. Verse 55 does say he was full of the Holy Spirit.
Bob: It may sound like it but it is not a request. It cannot be a request if He is full of the Holy Spirit and full of truth. So the issue is, “Do not hold sin against them.” I think it is an echo of what Christ said on the cross.
Luke 23:34
34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
Bob: But you have to start, and you cannot get off of that, that “God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them” It says this is the message He has committed you and me to be teaching. That is a premise you start with. Everything else is interpreted in light of that truth.
Robert: Okay, in 2 Corinthians, does it not also say that. “Be reconciled.”
2 Corinthians 5:20
20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
Bob: God has reconciled. No, this one is like this, Robert. In accounting, if I owed you a debt I could not pay, you would take that off of your accounts receivable and then tell me to take it off my accounts payable. If I do not take that debt off of my accounts payable, then every time I am around you, I am going to be guilty. God has to beg us? It sounds crazy in the passage you are quoting. I beg you on Christ’s behalf to be reconciled to God. In other words, to take it off your accounts payable is to realize God has done it. There is nothing you can do to get more forgiveness or to make God happy with you. He is happy with you if you are in Christ Jesus.
Bob: Okay, brother?
Robert: Good answer.
Bob: Okay. Good to talk to you, Robert. God bless now. Bye. Bye.
