Call-In Classic Christianity Radio – Bob George P604 (02-03-21)
Synopsis
Oftentimes people grow up with religion and reject the reality of Christ Jesus. They associate Christ with things spoken in context of preachers speaking things that are simply not true. Instead of checking out what is being said as being true or not, we see no reality in it, so we reject the religion, but sadly we also reject Christ, whom we associate with in our minds. But one day, we see the reality of a changed life in someone else, who has the Spirit of God living in him. So we ask, what is it in him that is different? What kind of life does he have that I do not? Then you hear the practical wisdom he shares from God’s word. Your heart is moved. You see the practical wisdom and how people are able to walk in joy and peace. People have come to Christ that way. Christ in you was a light that shined in a dark world, but truth was made known concerning Christ, of the gospel that saves, and he believed and put His faith in Christ.
But as believers, as a child of God, we struggle with any number of things as we are in the process of having our minds renewed with truth. It is not unusual, for example, for us as humans to experience depression. That is common to the human experience, but we do not want to stay there, where we are trapped or controlled by it.
Many times callers, believers, ask for help to get victory over depression. Bob George has helped numerous people have victory depression, which is in essence a thinking problem. By adjusting your thinking on what is true rather than what is not true, not on unrealistic expectations and not relying on emotions, but correctly seeing yourself as who you are and in how God designed you to function, you can experience this victory too. There is always hope and this hope is in Christ Jesus. Many people have been helped by Victory over Depression from Bob George Ministries.
Another common question that is asked from time to time is, “What music should we allow our children to listen to?” Again, there is liberty in a lot of these types of things, but the key question to ask is, “Is it telling truth? Or is it telling lies?” That is the key decision point. Truth is what sets people free and error is what binds people and has them enslaved. Is it telling people to glorify Satan? Well, that is an easy decision to make. No way! Whatever you do will certainly be based on loving your son. Is he damaging his eardrums with music that is too loud? That would be a decision to make to have him turn the sound level down. But there is certainly discernment by the Spirit in regard to these things that you will have to make the judgment on. For the Holy Spirit is certainly living in you and will direct you on these things.
Transcript
Carol from Queens, NY
Carol: I have been listening to you for a while. I believe I am a child of God. I believe I am saved. But I suffer from depression, which is very debilitating. I cannot leave my house. It is very hard for me. I do not understand it. I try very hard to understand it. I pray a lot. I believe I am a child of God, but I just do not understand this depression. I have been suffering for many years. I take medicine, but it just does not work.
Bob: Are you on medication now, Carol?
Carol: I take it, but then I go off of it. I just do not think it is the answer. I do not believe it anymore.
Bob: Carol, depression is an emotion. Again, you can have some physical things that are bringing that on. That is a possibility. But the majority of depression that you see is from emotion. Depression is an emotion. I am depressed. That is an emotional state that a person is in.
Bob: Now emotion is brought about by whatever a person is thinking. We are designed that way, whereby emotions predictably respond to what we are thinking. If I were to ask you if you ever felt angry, you would, of course, say, “Yes, I felt angry”. What are you thinking? Angry thoughts. Have you ever felt jealous? What were you thinking? Jealous thoughts. Have you ever felt depressed? What were you thinking? Depressing thoughts. That is why you were feeling depressed.
Bob: That is why you can sit and watch a television program that is sad. You can sit there and watch that and have tears streaming down your face, feeling sad. How come? Because I am watching a sad sight with my eyes, hearing with my ears, and my emotions do not know because they are dumb. Whether I am watching is really fantasy, fact, past, present or future, they are just predictably responding to whatever I am putting in my mind. So, we realize that feeling something is not an unusual thing at all. It does not mean you are a freak at all.
Bob: We are designed by God to feel whatever we are putting in our minds. The issue is not how you are feeling. The issue is what are you thinking. That is what the bible says.
Proverbs 23:7
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he
Bob: As you think you are, you are going to become. You are going to feel and you are going to act out what you are thinking and feeling. That is just a natural God-given process. That is the way He made man.
Bob: The world gets in and tries to create feelings. You will hear that all the time. How do you feel about this? Who cares how you feel about it. How you feel about it is predicated on what you think about it. All of that is deception, in trying to get you to understand your feelings instead of coming to the truth in your mind, you see. That is why the bible tells you not to be conformed to the pattern of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12:2
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Bob: Not your emotions, but your mind.
Bob: Carol, connected also in depression is made up of ingredients. There are certain ingredients that make up what we call depression, just like there are ingredients that make up a cake. You are looking at something that you call a cake. It is made up of ingredients. Well, there is somebody who appears to be depressed. Instead of dealing with ingredients, deal with the thing called depressed. But it is made up of things. It is made up of unrealistic expectations. What does that cause when I have unrealistic expectations toward people? Well, I will get disappointment.
John 16:33
33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Bob: In this world you will have tribulation. That is a fact. That is the truth. So I should not be shocked or disappointed when I run into them. Jesus said I will have those things. When we live in a fantasy or an unrealistic expectation, we have set our state for living in depression. Because depression is going to come from deep disappointment. In depression is anger. In depression is fear. Now, does Christ deal with all of those things? Yes, he does. He deals with fear. In each one of those cases, Carol, perfect love is what casts away all fear, all of it.
1 John 4:18
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Bob: If you alleviated fear out of your life, you would alleviate depression. It is a major ingredient of that.
Carol: How do you do that?
Bob: By replacing it with the perfect love of God.
Carol: I try.
Bob: No, you do not replace it by trying. Neither do you replace it by praying. You replace it by having your mind renewed. That takes time in the truth of God and His word, to come into you, and for you to be able to understand the word of God by the Holy Spirit of God living in you, and to come to grips with the fact that nothing can separate you, Carol, from the love of God.
Romans:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Carol: I believe that so much. But I need help in scripture. I do not know where to look in scripture to find the word.
Bob: I will tell you what I am going to do. I will send you a copy of our compliments, a tape series, on how to face victory over depression. In that tape series, it is full of the very scriptures that you are talking about that you need to hear. Now, they will begin to renew your mind. Now do not expect instantaneous results, like you will be zapped, that you will overcome overnight. It will take time for those truths to penetrate. But I can tell your heart is open, and when your heart is open, the Spirit is there to reveal to you what those things mean. Those tapes will help to teach you what the bible says but the Spirit of God is going to have to teach you what it means. It is all about the grace of God. God gives grace to the humble, and He resists the proud.
James 4:6
6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
Bob: When you hear this, this is God, and this is from God. It is God’s word. The humble heart says, “Lord Jesus, if this is what you say, this is true. I want you to reveal truth to me”.
Carol: Bob, I love Jesus so much.
1 John 4:19
19 We love because he first loved us.
Bob: Carol, that is not that we love Him but He loved us first. Until we understand the fullness of His love, we are really not in a situation of responding to that kind of love. We cannot initiate it. It is the result of responding. Then when you hear about His love for you and the more you hear about different thinking patterns. Our minds are full of error and lies. Those have to be dispelled with true.
John 8:32
32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Carol: That is it. That is it in a nutshell.
Bob: Christ is. If you know the truth, the truth will set you free. What puts you in bondage? Lies. All of this tape series is going to do is it will dispel the lies in your head, and not one of us has escaped that, and replace it with truth and that truth will do exactly what Jesus said it will do. It will set us free. That is good news.
Bob: Carol, we had people who were in shock treatment, people who walked out of mental hospitals after being in them 15 to 20 years, after listening to the truth in the word of God, listening to those tapes, and walked out of that a free person.
Carol: That is why I quote you. You are my last hope. I have tried so many things. I listen to your program. I will have to try you. Maybe you can help me.
Bob: Bless your heart, Carol. We are so anxious to do that. You accept that as our gift to you. We are more than happy to do that. You listen through those things. Then get back to us after you heard those.
Carol: I will, Bob. Thank you very much.
Bob: You are welcome. Listen, the hope is in Christ, the hope of Christ Jesus and there is hope. You are not in a hopeless situation. There is hope. I guarantee Christ and His word will pull you out of this.
Carol: I believe it with all my heart, mind and soul. I believe it.
Rick from Gulfport, MS
Rick: First off, I want to give you applause to your Victory over Depression series. I sent them to my mom over Christmas. She is going through exactly what the last caller is going through. I sent it to her for Christmas. She has already listened to them. She is free now. I want to praise God for that. She was on medication too. Now she is off of it and praising Jesus. Living free. I did not think there was any hope.
Bob: That is sweet. We try. Again, Rick, what happens is you have people involved in religion and they do think there is any reality there and they equate that with Christ. “This does not work, so I have to go someplace else”. So people do not think that maybe what I was taught is not true. It never entered my mind that whatever I identify with must be teaching truth. Not necessarily. That is where you have to let the word of God set you free.
Rick: Is being slain in the Spirit, is this a spiritual gift? Is there any biblical backing for this? What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
Bob: The first question, being slain in the Spirit is something as ludicrous as anything I heard in my life. There is absolutely no biblical substance to that at all. There very thought that someone can tap you on the head and have you fall backwards is about as dumb as I have ever heard of. I guess you have to have the gift of catching along with it. That is television and spectacularism. That has nothing to do with the bible at all. Nothing at all. I thought the Spirit was supposed to give you life, not slay you. The very terminology is idiotic.
Rick: I have been accused of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit when I said that there is no biblical backing for this. I asked for proof of it and I could not give it. I do not want to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, but I could not find any backing.
Bob: You are you in Christ, aren’t you?
Rick: Yes
Bob: Then there is no way to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. You have already accepted His Son. So there again is the terminology. All blasphemy is rejecting the final testimony, which is God’s final testimony as to His Son. In the Old Testament, the Father spoke to people. Then Jesus came and spoke about Himself as the Son, and now the Holy Spirit is there testifying about the Son and if you denied Him, you denied the entirety of the Trinity. There is nothing about blaspheming the Holy Spirit except rejecting the Son.
John 16:9
9 The world’s sin is unbelief in me
Bob: God is not going to send anyone else to testify about Jesus. He sent the Father. He sent the Son. And, He sent the Holy Spirit. He is not going to send anybody else. All of that kind of stuff is spectacularism. It is show business and spectacularism, in order to deceive people into what is not truth, but keeping them in being in error that keeps them in bondage and dependent upon the teacher and the slayer rather than the one who came to give life, who is Christ Jesus.
Rick: What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
Bob: Well, they are listed in the book of Romans and listed in the book of Corinthians. You can read in those passages what the gifts of the Spirit are?
Romans 12:3-8
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
Bob: You will find an interesting thing, in that book of Corinthians, as it lists spiritual gifts. It was written before Romans. By the time Romans came out, you will see some of the gifts that are listed in Corinthians are alleviated and eliminated in the book of Romans.
Bob: Spiritual gifts, as listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, are gifts for the purpose of edifying the body. In other words, the gift is like this. A cow does not drink her own milk. It is for the benefit of others. An apple tree does not eat its own apples. It is for the benefit of others. It is something that gifts of the Spirit are for mutual edification of the body. So, you have the gift of teaching, the gift of administration, the gift of serving and all of those things. They are for the building up of the body of Christ so that we can grow into unity.
Bob: Now, about the different gifts. Some gifts are for the early church. There were the sign gifts. Then there were the gifts of evangelists. The gift of tongues is not for believers but for unbelievers. It is a sign to the unbelieving Jew. You have all kinds of gifts that were used at one time and if used today they have to be used the same way they were back then. There were gifts of tongues. A tongue is a language. It is not gibberish. Some of those guys get up and talk in English and then you hear them babble and babble and say “thus saith the Lord”. It is for a sign. It is a known language. It is known by the hearer. There is no exception to that in the bible. There are a lot of things presented especially today on television, that is a total perversion as to what the clarity of the word of God is all about.
Rick: You answered my question. I knew in my heart but mainly for the benefit of a friend of mine. I want to praise God for His Son and for your ministry. It just opened my eyes.
Bob: Anything that takes away from Him. Once again, you will hear people say praise Jesus after drawing all the attention to themselves. Realize something. Christ Jesus does not have any heroes. There are not any heroes. Those people on television are not heroes. Pastors are no heroes. Laymen are not heroes. We are called children. We have got to see us as God sees us. We are no big deals. I have no right to think of myself as a big deal. We are not any big deals. We are just people saved by the grace of God. People who are walking around and looking flashy and acting like some kind of show business celebrity have lost contact with the head, and need to be brought back to reality of Christ Jesus, who was a servant. Christ did not walk around, Paul did not walk around, and the apostles did not walk around acting like big deals. They spent most of their life getting the daylights knocked out of them. It is unfortunate there is not more of that going on today. The fact is we need to get back to the reality and not worshiping people and get back to worshiping the Lord.
1 Corinthians 3:5-6
5 Who am I, and who is Apollos, that we should be the cause of a quarrel? Why, we’re just God’s servants, each of us with certain special abilities, and with our help you believed. 6 My work was to plant the seed in your hearts, and Apollos’ work was to water it, but it was God, not we, who made the garden grow in your hearts.
Bob: You see if that attitude is consistent with a lot of people you see in ministry today. Are they walking around saying, “Who am I?” There are a lot of charades that are going on today in Christianity that I believe people need to start seeing the reality of truth, and bringing and helping those people to get back to reality. The reality is there is no big deals.
Rick: Praise God for that.
Bob: Is that not the truth? Well, Rick, I hope that helps, brother?
Rick: It sure does.
Bob: Alright. Bye.
Dave from New Jersey
Dave: I want to ask you a question I have been wrestling with for a while. I told you how your ministry, your message has helped me grow in grace and not be concerned with trying to stay out of hell. I am so thankful my Christian walk has become a lot easier. But I have a question that I am wrestling with. It has to do with non-Christian music. What, from your perspective, what would you see as bad music for a Christian to listen to now? Of course, my favorite style of music is the gospel and I try to stay away from music that is too sexually suggestive or is preaching violence and hate, but I am a big fan of the golden oldies. My church, and I will not give the name of the church or pastor, but my church and other churches I fellowship with are legalistic in that the pastor says that a Christian should not listen to any music that does not have the name of Jesus in the lyrics. If you do, then you will be tempted to go back into the world. So I am wondering if a teenager were to ask you about music, what advice would you give him?
Bob: Dave, I really cannot answer that. It is pretty hard going into the word of God, giving an answer on that. So my opinion would not be any different than someone else’s. I listen to my body to tell me when I am hungry and all kinds of things. Your body is designed to tell you when you are hungry and when to eliminate. And when you listen to it, you will probably be on good grounds. I believe if you listen to the Spirit of God, then He will give you wisdom on such things.
Bob: There is certain music with a certain beat to it, I would not even listen to when I was lost let alone saved. It has nothing to do with being Christian. It has to do with my eardrums. That is not for me. I do not think I am a person sitting around telling people what to listen to. As far as the oldies, I too like the oldies. That was part of my bringing up and part of my life. I absolutely love it. There is some stuff that is played on Christian radio that I would not bother to listen to because it is so bad. When you listen to the lyrics, it is sheer legalistic. I cannot sit down and say what is good music and bad music. I can tell you when the lyrics are true and when they are bad in the same way as I discern a good sermon and a bad sermon. You can have someone deliver a phenomenal message but everything he teaches is a lie but he sure teaches it well. And you can hear another person that stumbles around. Paul talked about his own life but he teaches truth that will set people free.
2 Corinthians 11:6
6 I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way.
Bob: So what is a good message? Truth. What is a bad message? Lies. So I do not care who delivers it, or how suave they are in the delivery or how crude they are in the delivery, the issue is, is it true or isn’t? And so those other things you have to predetermine. I do believe today, and in this age, as you listen to some of the heavy rock music that has come in, I would not let my children listen to that when we were lost let alone saved. On the other hand, I can only, with children, I can only insulate them. I cannot isolate them. If a child wants to listen to that even, though I do not play that in my home, they will find a way to listen to it. Remember the power of sin is the law. All you have to do to get a child to listen to it is to tell them not to. So what I want to do is to introduce my children to good music and to do that early, and not music centered around a beat so you feel like you have just taken amphetamines in order to be hopped up. Some of that music is horrible. The beat is horrible and some of the lyrics are horrible. They would be horrible if they did not have any music to them. That is one of those disputable matters that we can get legalistic on and you just have to leave it up to a person. If a person is in Christ, God will let them know if it is not good for him. Just like staring at pornography, God will let you know it is not good for you.
Dave: Absolutely. Years ago, before I got saved, I used to be into heavy metal. But even before I got saved, I began to listen to those lyrics. A lot of those songs had to do with Satanism or just musical pornography.
Bob: Sure. Again, it would not make any difference if you put lyrics to a tune of the old rugged cross. The lyrics are evil. So, it does not matter how you form them or what melody or beat frame around them, the lyrics themselves are evil. The performers you see, the majority of them are drug addicts. So again, I think a Christian has got to learn to gain discernment from the Spirit of God living in them. And, again, the more we try to make a legalistic situation out of that, the worse it becomes. Children run from that. The issue is teaching your children how to discern what the Holy Spirit is saying to them and they will be in good shape and us as well.
Bob: Okay, brother?
Dave: Okay.
Bob: Thank you.
Dave: God bless you.
Bob: You too. Bye.
