Explore the challenging topics of water baptism, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the role of spiritual gifts within a Christian’s journey. Bob provides thoughtful answers and practical biblical insights, guiding listeners through the complexities of these theological questions. By tuning in, you’ll gain a fresh perspective on faith, making sense of historical teachings and the profound truths of Scripture. Whether you’re a seasoned believer or new to Christian doctrines, Bob’s answers will enrich your understanding and faith in Jesus Christ.
00:00:01 Introduction and Financial Support Request
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Today we are pleased to present a special radio show featuring call-in listeners from Bob’s original people-to-people daily radio program that was on the air for over 30 years, offering real answers for real-life problems as he addresses common questions as well as the tough issues of today, directing callers to the centrality of Christ in you, your only hope of glory. We want to remind our listeners that Bob George Ministries needs your financial support to continue to have Classic Christianity Radio on the air. Please visit BobGeorge.net to find out how you can help support us financially. Let’s now join Bob as he presents practical biblical insights as he helps people experience a life of faith, hope, and love in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 07 :
We’re going to go to Fountain Town, Indiana, listening on WBRI. Jeff, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, Bob and Bob. hi jeff jeff how you guys doing today doing good thank you great hey i had a question about i keep i ran across the television uh somebody teaching on dispensation and i was wondering what it was and then i’ve heard other people tell me to stay away from it it’s you know bad stuff and all that and Why is it that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, Jeff, to be real honest with you, I’ve never studied dispensationalism and have no intention of it. It’s not necessary. The only dispensation that I deal with is the only clear dispensation that I see in the Scripture, and that’s the new and old covenant. that went into effect and is spelled out in great clarity in the ninth chapter of the book of Hebrews in comparing the old covenant to the new covenant that we stand in today as believers. And beyond that, I just don’t see any need for studying what they call dispensationalism. A dispensationalist divides the words and divides periods of time, and you’ve got the age of innocence, and you’ve got all of this type of thing, which quite frankly has no meaning to it to me. I’ve never been able to understand why people get hung up on those type of things because there’s no meaning to it. There’s great meaning to understanding the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. To me, there’s no meaning to the rest of it. So I personally have never paid any attention to it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. I was just curious about it. You know, I’ve heard about it and so forth. And then when I’ve talked about it to other people, they act like it’s bad news or something. And I just didn’t know why or why. how come or whatever, because nobody ever explains it. They just tell you it’s bad and you ask them why. They don’t know.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. Well, again, I think it’s stretching. I think what it’s doing, Jeff, is stretching limits to things and kind of putting God in a box that this is when he was doing something here and then he was doing something here and doing something here. It’s pretty well putting God in a box that is totally unnecessary for biblical understanding. We don’t have to have all that stuff. again what we do need to understand and if we would just concentrate on that in our churches we would be in great shape is the difference between the old covenant and the new and to realize that the new covenant did not go into effect until the day that jesus died and just like a will today will not go into effect until you die if you have a will It it’s the same thing as having a covenant or a testament. You’ve got an Old Testament and a New Testament, an old will, a new will, a new covenant, an old covenant. And that will go into effect only when you die and will never go into effect a day before the day you die. And your death will have to be proven. And then your covenant or your will will go into effect. And so the same was true in the new covenant that we entered into at the death of Christ Jesus. And then we have to understand that Jesus didn’t teach under the new covenant. He taught under the old covenant. He introduced the new, proclaimed the new, and it was proclaimed by him and explained by Paul that But he didn’t teach under the new dispensation or the new covenant. He taught under the old and buried us under that old technique or that old agreement between God and man. He buried us with things. I had a young man last night coming in talking about the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount buries you. It is not an encouragement to us. It buries. It shows me I cannot do this. I cannot pull this off. And the Lord says, now you got it, Bob, because you can’t pull it off. But I did. And so Jesus’ teaching was preparing us for the cross and the resurrection. And had he not taught the way that he did, Jeff, in burying us, we would have never seen our spiritual death. And if I don’t see my spiritual death, what do I need with his resurrected life? We would have never seen the depths of our sins. We would only see the fruit and never the root, that the root of all sin is unbelief. And we would have never seen that. We would have just dealt with the don’t commit adultery and don’t steal and those type of things. We’d never get to the root problem. had it not been for the teaching of Christ Jesus. And so that was all preparatory for what he came to do in ushering in a new covenant of grace through his death, burial, and resurrection. So the new covenant of the old is vitally important for us to understand and to get a hold of. Outside of that, pay no attention to it. I don’t.
SPEAKER 05 :
What was the Gospels? Were they under the law still? Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
See, because the Gospels is teaching of the life of Jesus, not the death of Jesus. Right. So in essence, Jesus taught under the old covenant. In our Bibles today, you have the New Testament or the New Covenant starting with Matthew. But the reality of it, as far as the New Covenant and the New Testament is concerned, it begins in the book of Acts, not in the Gospels.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Because Jesus taught.
SPEAKER 07 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Isn’t that funny how the church is always mixing it in one big soup bowl and feeding it to you, and no wonder people leave disgusted and unsatisfied. Yeah. They’re mixing law and grace together continuously.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I agree with you.
SPEAKER 05 :
And they’re always preaching the Sermon on the Mount and so forth and telling you to try to keep the Ten Commandments and all that when it says it was a ministry of death in 2 Corinthians.
SPEAKER 08 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. And it’s just, I don’t know, it’s just funny that they don’t teach it. They just, you know, swing the scripture here and there and pull it out of the old and the new and make it for you and apply for you today and all that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, it really, that is very true. You know, I think if my people will humble themselves and pray, then I’ll say, that isn’t for us, that was for Israel.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
And come in and, boy, we just pray up a storm on that trying to get our land saved. Well, that’s nice, but it wasn’t for us. That was for Israel.
SPEAKER 05 :
Same thing for tithing. They always want to quote Malachi 3.10, but the beginning, chapter 1, tells you to the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER 05 :
It doesn’t even say nothing. We wasn’t even grafted in yet.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, absolutely.
SPEAKER 05 :
People want us to tithe, tithe, tithe. And that always, you know, when I was a young Christian, I used to ask people about that and pastors, you know, because I would devour the word and I would, you know, read it and read it. But the more I’ve seen it, I just felt like we didn’t have to tithe. I was in a church where they, you know, taught you if you didn’t tithe, then you’re cursed and all that kind of stuff. And so I tithed because I was scared. I didn’t tithe because I wanted to. Absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, one of these days, I don’t think I’d have the nerve to do it, but I have to say that my old flesh sometimes would love to just come into the church with a big old basket of lettuce or something, and when they talk about tithing, just go dump it on the altar down there because that’s what tithing was, was tithing your foodstuffs. Don’t forget the broccoli, Bob. The broccoli. I don’t think I’ll do that, but I have to admit that I would sure like to.
SPEAKER 05 :
A friend of mine one time, I said, I think I’ll bring in a goat and a bag of grain and a jug of wine and set it on the altar when they ask for it. Of course, I wouldn’t do that. Anyway, I appreciate you guys, and thank you for your ministry, and thank you for your grace message and so forth that you teach and just making it plain to people. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re sure welcome, Jeff. Thank you for your call, brother. Hey, have a super day. You too, my friend. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 06 :
Let’s go to Shelby Township, Michigan. Let’s go on WRDT. Ann, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi. I had a question about the Trinity. I was listening to a preacher on the talk show, and he said that the Trinity was something that was dreamed up by the Nicene Council that was Catholic doctrine and that nowhere you find it in the Bible. He wasn’t disparaging the Holy Spirit, but he was just bringing to our attention that Some of the common beliefs that people have are based on history and not based on Scripture. So that caused me to rethink the relationship.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it’s better than what he said because what he said isn’t based on anything. So whatever he said isn’t based on anything. And I don’t have any idea who that man is, and I really don’t care, but I want to tell you something. that if you deny who God is, you’re not going to go into his presence, period. You cannot deny who God is. God, what did Jesus say? Go out and identify people with the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The word Trinity is not used in the Scripture, neither is rapture. But certainly a rapture is described in the Scripture, what we call a rapture, people being snatched out of here. And the Trinity is is talked about continually as an example with Jesus. He said, I will raise myself from the dead. Another place he said, the Father will raise me from the dead. Another place says the Holy Spirit raised him from the dead. Another place it said God raised him from the dead. Well, he wasn’t raised four times. It’s just the issue that that is. And until Jesus came, no one knew the Trinity. No one understood. They knew there was a Trinity in the Godhead, Ann. You see, in the beginning, Elohim, in the beginning, God created. That word is Elohim. The I am is a plurality. In Genesis, let us go down and confuse their language. Who in the world is the us? Let us make man in our image. Who’s the us? Who’s the our? And the old rabbis had to be standing there scratching their beards, wondering what in the world is this trinity when the Bible clearly declares that there’s only one God, none before me and none after me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Can you give somebody advice on how to find a church that’s doctrinally sound? I’ve been looking for a year now. I’ve gone to six different churches, and I find some doctrine, like what I just mentioned, that you don’t find out until months into visiting, and then I’m like, well, I have to leave and find another church. I just want one that’s Bible-based, not a denomination, one that believes in the Bible. That simple, and I’m having a hard time.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Well, Ann, what you might do is look at a paper up there. You can find churches that are pastored by people who went to Dallas Theological Seminary, to Moody Institute. There’s places like that of people that have gone and gotten pretty good training through their time and are pastoring today. If you want to stay away from denominations, why, that’s easy to do. But I think if you’ll find Bible churches… In your yellow pages, you’ll see Bible churches. And then just call and find out. And you can call and inquire with people as to what their belief system is. But I think I would go in that direction.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Good to talk to you, Ann.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you. Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER 06 :
Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
Classic Christianity Radio thanks you for your support of our online and radio ministry. Make sure to visit bobgeorge.net to order a copy of the Closer Look Bible Study Series. A Closer Look Bible Studies features eight in-depth study guides that detail hundreds of Bible verses to help you deepen your understanding of the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. A Closer Look Bible Study Guides are an excellent tool for both individuals and larger Bible study groups. Please visit bobgeorge.net to order your copy of A Closer Look Bible Studies as well as many other wonderful books, CDs, and study guides. With your support, we can continue to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Let’s continue now with our Classic Christianity radio program.
SPEAKER 06 :
Let’s go to Laguna Hills, California. Let’s go on Kaybright. John, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. I don’t know exactly how to frame the question, but I would like to just ask And I’ve heard it said many times that salvation plus nothing, faith plus nothing is salvation. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 says you’ve been saved by grace through faith. But my question deals with water baptism. And I grew up in a friend’s church, and we never really participated in those kinds of sacraments or outward expressions. And so my question is, what is our responsibility in that? And like I said, I don’t really feel comfortable standing in front of a crowd, a congregation, and and doing it knowing that it’s not going to be salvific in nature. So my question is, why would Jesus have done so, and what’s our responsibility towards that? specifically water baptism, not so much the sacraments themselves.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, let’s just answer the first question, is water baptism necessary for salvation? 1 Corinthians 15, verse 2, “…by this gospel you are saved.” Now, that’s a pretty strong statement. I don’t even think it needs interpretation. “…by this gospel you are saved, inasmuch as you hold firmly to the word I preach to you, otherwise you believed in vain.” For what I received I passed on to you of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. After that he appeared to Peter and then to the twelve. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of them still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, and then to all of the apostles. And last of all, he appeared to me as to one abnormally born. That’s the gospel, death, burial, and resurrection. There ain’t any baptism in that. There ain’t any tongues in that. There ain’t any church membership in that. There ain’t any do good. You’ll be saved in that. It’s his death, his burial, and his resurrection. And putting your faith not only in the fact that that happened historically, John, because I think that’s what a lot of people do. I believe in the events. but what those events, what he did it for, and who he did it for. What did it mean when he went to the cross? What did it mean that he died? What, for me, what did it mean when he was raised from the dead? For me, I can acknowledge he was raised from the dead, didn’t do anything for me, or… was that resurrection so that I, too, could be raised from my state of spiritual death in which I was born into this world. I wasn’t born alive spiritually. I was born dead spiritually and in need of life. That life is what provided that for me. His resurrection life is what provided that for me. If I don’t know that, then I haven’t put my faith in Jesus. I put my faith in acknowledging the event of death, burial, and resurrection. But I have never put my faith in what that meant to me personally. That’s when you’re saved. And there’s nothing to add to that. Death, burial, and resurrection, this is the gospel it’s told. Very clear, this is the gospel in which you’re saved. And he said, well, then what do you do that for? Well, number one, why was Jesus baptized? John said, the one who sent me to baptize told me the one on whom the dove descends is the Messiah. So why did John the Baptist baptize Jesus to identify him to Israel as the Messiah? Why did Jesus allow himself to be baptized so that John could identify him as the Messiah? in regard to the prophecy that God had told John the Baptist that the one on whom you see the dove descend, this is the Messiah. And so today, baptism, number one, it says in the scripture that I will baptize with water, John the Baptist said, but the one coming after me, whose sandals I’m unworthy to tie, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And a few verses later was the day of Pentecost when we were baptized by the Holy Spirit. meaning that the Spirit of God came to live within us and baptized us or placed us into the body of Christ Jesus. That’s the baptism it saves, not water baptism, but spiritual baptism. And it says very clearly that here was one form of baptism that John did. That’s water baptism. That can clean you on the outside. But this is the baptism that saves you, which is spiritual baptism. So you can use baptism as an open testimony, verifying the fact that I have been saved. I have come to Christ by faith. And I am now going to follow that up with this physical example of dying to the law that killed me and being raised again in the newness of life to be married to another, and that’s Christ Jesus, my Lord.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, brother.
SPEAKER 03 :
I appreciate it very much.
SPEAKER 06 :
Does that help? Okay, my friend. Thanks for your call, John.
SPEAKER 07 :
I hope that helps. Corpus Christi, Texas, KCTA. Jesus, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, praise the Lord, brother.
SPEAKER 07 :
Didn’t think I’d be talking to Jesus on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’ll tell you what. You’re a blessing, bro. A brother of mine told me about your station. I’ve just been listening to it week after week. And you’re a blessing. I think we’re on the same page.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, thanks, Jesus. Good to hear from you, brother. It’s always good to be on the same page with Jesus.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I tell you. You better be on the same page with him. Yeah, that’s right. But anyways, the question that I had, brother, was in 1 Corinthians 13, 8, where it says that tongues shall cease. Was that talking about the written word once the written word was established or published? Or was it talking about the second coming of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, again, there’s controversy over that. Different people have different interpretations of that altogether. So it’s when the perfect comes, and they say, well, what is the perfect? Well, I quite frankly believe that Jesus is the perfect. And so when you’re talking about spiritual gifts, have spiritual gifts… ceased maybe some of them have but certainly not all of them the issue is jesus what i was talking to the other gentleman about is the fact of do you speak in biblical tongues and biblical tongues is a known language it would be known to a country to a to a tribe. It isn’t something that only one person understands what is being said. That has no meaning to it at all. And like I say, as we live today in America… What in the world good would it be to come in and speak in a babbling that nobody understood what you’re talking about when you and the listeners both speak and understand English? Just what benefit would that be? If God wants to speak to you, he isn’t trying to con you into something and say, I want to speak to you in English, but I’m not going to. I’m going to speak to you in some language you don’t understand. That’s nonsense. And so it’s not that whether tongues has ceased because I do believe that if I was in a situation or a minister of the gospel was in a situation where they were in a country where they did not understand the language at all and I did not know the language at all, if God wanted to, he could give me the gift of communication of the gospel to those people if he so chose to do so. And if that did occur, that would be biblical tongues.
SPEAKER 04 :
I had an experience like that with, well, not me, but there was a Korean family when I lived in Dallas. They’re a Christian world in Dallas where we got saved. There was a Korean family that lived across the way from us, so we invited them to church because they didn’t know about the Holy Ghost, baptism. And during the worship service, my wife began to speak in tongues, and the Korean family said, look, she’s speaking in Korean.
SPEAKER 07 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 04 :
So that’s biblical tongues then?
SPEAKER 07 :
That would be only biblical tongues. There’s nothing more to that or less than that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
That would be biblical tongues. But you see, again, Jesus, again, you have to look at this. You see, you made a statement about spirit-filled or something. And see, that means whatever you want it to mean. The Bible explains what it means to be filled with the Spirit. It means to be controlled by the love of God. It has nothing to do with babbling in tongues. It has nothing to do with witnessing. It has to do with what the book of… of Ephesians teaches, and that is that I pray that out of his glorious riches, he will strengthen you with power in your inner being so that Christ will be at home in your heart through faith. And I pray that you, along with all of the others, will have the power to know the height and depth and breadth and width of the love of God and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, so that you will be filled to the measure with all of the fullness of God. Now, to be filled to the measure with all of the fullness of God is to be filled with the Spirit, isn’t it? And you couldn’t be filled with the Spirit unless you were filled to the measure with all of the fullness of God. Are we together on that? Amen. Okay. So it tells you exactly what it means. It means to be filled or controlled by the love of God. Which, see, we forget about. See, we forget the love stuff. Let’s just babble together and let’s giggle together and let’s roll around on the floor together. As if that is loving. Yeah, it’s real love to go knock somebody in the head, knock them over. That’s a real example of love. And so we take these things and we forget what the Bible said or we never knew what the Bible says, what being controlled by the love of God is all about. The love of God is what controlled Paul. The love of God is what controlled Jesus. And the love of God is what Jesus wants us to be controlled by. Those are not acts of love. Those are acts of pride. I do something that you don’t do. I’m more spiritual than you. Don’t tell me that that doesn’t get into people’s head because it does. I know that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yes, it does.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m more spiritual than you. I knocked you over. Well, big deal. If I can get up from this occasion, I’ll knock you over.
SPEAKER 04 :
They even blow air into their stomach.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s all satanic activity. There isn’t anything in the Bible about that at all. So we have to understand the truth of that and not get conned by those kind of manipulations. Mm-hmm. That is taking place in the Christian world today.
SPEAKER 04 :
And then they ask for $1,500 donations.
SPEAKER 07 :
You better believe it.
SPEAKER 04 :
And they get it. There’s 20 people in here that $1,500, he wants you to give. Each one $1,500.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now how in the world can I think of something like that? Is that what God’s down there saying?
SPEAKER 04 :
Try to get $1,500 if you can get the most out of them.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you’re just, you know, all of that kind of stuff is so nonsensical. But we have people by the millions and by the thousands who grab a hold of that time. You know, imagine God saying, hey, Benny, there’s 1,500 people in the audience that need to give $1,500. Come on. Give me a break. Give me a break is right.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know what I always tell them? You know what? Jesus said that he already paid the price.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
There’s no price to pay anymore for whatever he has to give to us.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that is for sure.
SPEAKER 04 :
The other thing in Acts, in Acts 2, when they received the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, was that for the Jews and then for the Gentiles in Acts 10 as an evidence that they had received the Holy Spirit or that it was for real, the promise that he had promised he was going to send?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, in the book of Acts, the reason that they spoke in biblical tongues was because you had people from all nations there. You had hundreds of different nations in Israel, and the gospel was communicated to every one of them by the 11 apostles. It doesn’t say anybody except the 11 apostles had the Holy Spirit. It said when they got up and they criticized that these men, these men are not drunk. So it was the disciples, the apostles, who proclaimed the word of God in languages that they did not understand.
SPEAKER 04 :
So it wasn’t the rest of the 120.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely not. He said these men. If you read it carefully, it says these men.
SPEAKER 04 :
Because even Mary was there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, sure. There were all kinds of people there, but it didn’t say that. It said these men, and they said, who are these men? They must… be drunk uh aren’t they these galileans uneducated galileans well who are the uneducated galileans they were the men who were there as the as apostles of christ jesus well yes we have to go off of the air unfortunately but you call again i appreciate your call and i hope that helps them brother actually oh yeah i appreciate it brother and uh thank you my friend the lord be on you thank you thank you my friend bye-bye
SPEAKER 01 :
Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Put Jesus first in your life and turn your life around.
