Join Bob George in this episode of Classic Christianity Radio as he addresses pressing questions from call-in listeners. Explore the profound essence of the Abraham covenant and its implications for various faiths. Bob breaks down the idea that Jesus came not for religion, but to establish a relationship that breathes life into those spiritually dead, regardless of being Jew or Gentile. In a world cluttered by religions, how do we truly grasp the meaning of salvation through Christ alone? Tune in to witness listeners’ queries unravel into discussions that direct us to the centrality of Christ.
00:00:01 Introduction to Classic Christianity Radio
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 :
Let’s go to Donnie in Patsfield, Massachusetts, listening on WJIV. Donnie, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, thank you for taking the call, and I appreciate your station here.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re welcome, Donnie.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m always hung up on this Abraham covenant with Isaac and Ishmael between the Christians and, I don’t know, the other blessings between the two of them. I mean, we have a Christian faith relationship. Are they saved, the other countries, just because of Isaac? I don’t understand that part.
SPEAKER 07 :
Donnie, no. You see, with all of those things were a foreshadowing to the coming of Christ Jesus. Jesus didn’t come to form a Christian religion or a Muslim religion or a Jewish religion. He came to establish a relationship and to give life to us who were dead. Man has had a problem, Donnie. We’re born into this world, not alive spiritually, but dead spiritually. And the scripture tells us all the way through the scripture, when we were dead in our sins and the uncircumcision of our sinful nature, God made you alive. Now, he would have no reason to make you alive unless we were dead. And when you were dead in your sins, there constantly is through the scripture about being dead in our sins. And death is the absence of life, which means that the life of God does not live in us at birth, that that is something that has to come through spiritual birth. And the only person that was able to give eternal life to all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike, So you’re talking about the Gentile world or the Arab world, and you’re talking about the Jewish world. All that is is Jew and Gentile, Donnie. And I think you just keep it there, just Jew and Gentile. And so whether you’re Jew or Gentile, you’re lost. You’re born into this world lost and dead. So you have dead Jews, you have dead Gentiles, you have saved Jews, you have saved Gentiles. But there was only one means of salvation. It wasn’t God that was narrow-minded. It was the fact that that’s the only solution to the consequence of sin, which is death, is resurrected life. And Jesus is the only one resurrected from the dead. Buddha wasn’t resurrected. Muhammad wasn’t resurrected from the dead. Moses wasn’t resurrected. Only Christ Jesus. And that was God’s son. God prepared a plan in order to save us poor suckers down here from spiritual death, and that came through his son. So all that other is doing is rejecting the son of God. Every religion out there rejects the son of God as their salvation for their justification by faith alone. So it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Catholic or a Protestant. Right. If you are rejecting the total sufficiency of Christ Jesus for your salvation because there isn’t anything in me that can raise me from the dead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
There isn’t anything in me that can forgive my own sins.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
That had to be done by God outside of me, and that’s what Christ did. So what we’ve done is complicate everything with all these religions.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know because I read one thing and I get hit all the time. Oh, they have their faith, the Indians and this and that. They have some gods, this and that. I’m like, no, it’s not true, you know.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, they have their own. That’s true. They have their own made-up gods. They build their own straw gods and set out to worship them. And quite frankly, in order to do that, Donnie, you have to reject Jesus. Muhammad, he rejected God. The revelation of Christ Jesus, I mean, he knew about Jesus. He could read the New Testament.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right, that’s right.
SPEAKER 07 :
But they rejected that, and they formed their own way and means of salvation, which is no salvation at all. And there’s no other name given among men whereby you must be saved. That’s to the Jew, to the Gentile, to the slave, to the free. And it brings it down to the fact of if we would just get our eyes, but man’s not going to do that, but get their eyes off of religion and just get it down on the fact that I’ve got a problem. I’m born into this world dead, and a dead man’s got a problem in case he hadn’t figured it out. Yeah. So it really just keeps boiling down to the person of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER 05 :
One fast question, if I can.
SPEAKER 07 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’ve been in an Episcopal church. I’ve grown in an Episcopal church for a long time. And a couple of situations came up, and I confronted the rector, the deacon, about the Bible, marriages, and this and that. And they’re not equal in what I’m reading in the Bible. So, I mean, I have all these years in this church. I finally left it because it’s not Bible-believing. How do you feel about making a move like that? I mean, it’s hard. Wife and family is going to this church. I’m going to another, and it’s a mess.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, unfortunately, Donnie, again, you’re down to this denominationalism. And you say, well, why do you have denominations? Well, because… Somebody who ultimately headed up that denomination, or whatever it might be, had their own interpretation of Scripture. And to be real honest, that can’t be. God meant what he said, and he said what he meant. But if we don’t rely upon the Spirit to teach us the meaning of the Word of God, then we have to lean on our own understanding. And so that certainly took place. um in the early in the early formation of the church and so you have all these different governments uh the episcopal and you have the methodist you have all these different denominations and um you begin to match up what you have to do is to match up what they’re teaching not up against their tradition but up against the word of god right and i have and you then you find it doesn’t match no it doesn’t match i confronted about jesus only and uh
SPEAKER 05 :
They said, Donnie, God loves the world. And that’s where I had to leave. But it’s so hard, you know.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. They probably would teach. They could teach God so loved the world. They could teach that is universal salvation. You know, some people would say, see there, that’s universal. Well, it doesn’t say that. No, it doesn’t. And people negate the meaning of the resurrection. Do not go there. Just forgiveness, which does not save you. Only resurrection saves you. And so there’s a lot of, I’ve been studying some things on Calvinism. And again, the entire, that whole reform deal started from a conception of the fact that you’re saved by getting your sins forgiven. There’s the error. And so if God died for the sins of the whole world, that would be universal salvation. That can’t be. So they had to come up with a theology, and they came up with a theology that you can’t find justified in the Scripture, that election, and that God doomed some people to damnation and other people to heaven. Why? Because they believed, starting with the premise, and if your premise is off, your findings are off, with the premise that you’re saved by getting your sins forgiven. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God died to take away the whole sins of the whole world. That was preparation for salvation. The cross was preparatory for salvation. Salvation is being saved from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is eternal life. Had they only grabbed a hold of that truth back then, we wouldn’t have all of this confusion in Christianity today.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, thank you very much. Does that help, Donnie? Oh, yeah, very good. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, my brother.
SPEAKER 05 :
God bless now. God bless.
SPEAKER 07 :
You too, pal. Bye-bye. Cherry Valley, California, listening on Kaybright. Rick, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Bob. How are you?
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m doing good, Rick.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. I was listening to a pastor, and he was talking about prayer, and he brought up a verse out of the Old Testament that says that if we regard iniquity in our heart, the Lord won’t hear us, and he kind of took off with that and It was trying to apply it to us, and it was a little bit confusing for me. I was just wondering if you could give me your opinion on it, please.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, Rick, the issue is how would God ever hear the prayer of a lost man if iniquity in our heart kept him from hearing us? How would he ever hear the prayer of a lost man crying out for salvation? So the issue is I don’t think we as human beings can sit around and say what God does and what he doesn’t. I think God does what he chooses to do. And I think, again, the context of that verse is the fact of people that have nothing to do with God, don’t want anything to do with God. It would be like an atheist or an agnostic in this day and age. And I think we have to just leave it there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I think he was also trying to convince us that we need to repent and before we prayed so that the Lord would hear us again.
SPEAKER 07 :
So in other words, repent of our sins and then do the prayer and then go back to our sins so that our prayer will be answered. All of that type of stuff, Rick, is with a preoccupation on us and what we’re doing with absolutely no clue of Jesus and what he’s done. That’s the problem with religion. All religion talks about is what I’m doing and what I’m not doing, but what true Christianity talks about is what Jesus did. Jesus came and took away the sins of the entire world. You and I were born into this world as a person who was forgiven. Every person on the face of this earth’s sins were forgiven at the cross. God was in Christ reconciling the whole world unto himself, not counting our sins against us. And when did he do that? When we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. And so all of us are born into this world with our sins forgiven, taken away from the eyes of God, but with the consequence of sin still upon us. And the consequence of sin is death. And that’s why salvation, even though it involves the cross, but the cross was preparatory for salvation. Salvation is being saved from the consequence of sin, which is death. by the gift of God, which is eternal life. And the only person that can give you life is Jesus. Buddha can’t give you life. Muhammad can’t give you life. The Pope can’t give you life. I can’t give you life. Nobody can give you life except the resurrected Christ Jesus. And that’s the meaning of his resurrection, was that that life that raised him from the dead can now come and raise you and me from the dead. He died for us then so that he can live in us now. And so we have to realize the truth of that. And anyone who now is in Christ Jesus, and it says in him you have redemption, that’s your possession, and also your possession is the forgiveness of sins. In him you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So both of those are yours. It’s part of your identity. And so as a child of God, he’s dealing with us on the basis of life. And, again, he’s not dealing with us on the basis of sin because if he was, he would have to deal with us on the basis of sin and death. You can’t have one without the other. And, again, it’s like the law. If there’s a traffic sign here in Dallas that says to drive 60 miles an hour and I was driving 70 and there was no punishment for driving 70, you may as well have a potato on that sign for all the good it’s going to do you. Because what good is the sign if there’s not a punishment for violating it? And so under the law, what good does it do to have a law if there’s no punishment connected with it? And the punishment from God was death for all men. And so we were born dead, and we come into this world dead with an opportunity at some point in our life of choosing resurrected life. And that’s what Christ Jesus came to give us. There’s now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. Why? Because the law, the spirit of life, has set you free from the law of sin and death. That’s the good news of the gospel, isn’t it, Rick?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, it is, brother. So that just means that he’s going to hear my prayers any time I offer them.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. Again, who are we to say who God doesn’t listen to? I wasn’t saved until I was 36, but if somebody told me that God never listened to my prayers, I’d say, how do you know? And number one, I do know he heard my prayers. And I do know that I was saved in many, many occasions from physical death by God in order because he had a mission for me in my life someday. The reason I was alive till 36 was because he had a mission for me. He’s got a plan for your life. And we just need to hang on to find out what his plan is and get in contact with him and move forward with it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, very good. Thank you, brother.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re welcome, Rick. Thanks for your call, my friend. God bless you, pal.
SPEAKER 06 :
God bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Bye-bye. Classic Christianity Radio is a listener-funded program, and because of your generous donations, we are able to be on the air. Go to bobgeorge.net to order the life-changing audio CD series, The New Covenant, Law and Grace, and How to Have a Proper Self-Image. These series are essential to understanding our inheritance in Christ, what it means to experience freedom and the abundant life in Christ, living under grace, not under the law, and to see ourselves as God sees us, as a completely forgiven person, loved perfectly and righteous in His sight. Please visit bobgeorge.net for additional information on how you can join us financially and help support the radio ministry. With your prayers and support, we can continue to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Let’s continue now with our classic Christianity radio program.
SPEAKER 07 :
Let’s go to Stephen in Denver, listening on KLT. Stephen, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello, Bob. How are you?
SPEAKER 07 :
Doing good, Father.
SPEAKER 04 :
I got a question. When I have the desire to do good and to be good, is it the Holy Spirit transforming me, drawing me to Jesus? Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, again, Stephen, I think that can be misinterpreted. I don’t think it’s the Holy Spirit urging you to be good. I think it’s the Holy Spirit trying to get you to Jesus. I can remember right before my conversion that I had gone out and and stayed in the bar too long and all kinds of things. My wife and I had a huge argument, and I was walking around in the hills of Whittier with her and saying to her, Honey, I feel like God sometimes wants me to be a pastor. Now, I’ve just been out drinking, but God wanted me to be a pastor. Well, the issue… Hold on. Stephen, if you ask a question, let me explain it to you. So what I’m saying is, and what I’m saying is not just talk. It’s to get to the answer to your problem. God was not urging me to be a pastor. He was urging me to come unto himself. And so many times that urge to do good is not an urge to do good. It’s an urge to come unto Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, your turn. In other words, it’s not about what I did, it’s about what he did, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I just, excuse me.
SPEAKER 07 :
Have you come to Christ, Stephen, as your Lord and Savior?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Okay. I used to think, oh, I had to be good all the time and had to do good all the time to be good all the time. And I’m like, Stephen, look, it’s not about what you did. Not what God did. Right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, Stephen, the thing of it is, is God is good. Yeah. And if God is living in you and you’re abiding in him, he’s going to be producing his life in and through you. Yeah. And it’s going to be a life of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness. Those are the characteristics that God is producing in us. Now. Yeah. Can that then result as those kind of characteristics are a part of your life of being joyful and loving and kind cause you to go out and to feed someone that’s hungry? Absolutely. But it’s God doing it. It’s God doing it in and through you.
SPEAKER 04 :
So I can’t, you know, be good on my own, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Not the kind, no. Again, God said there ain’t anybody good except God, so I kind of forget about that being good. That definition can go all over the place. You cannot bear the fruit of Christ apart from abiding in Christ.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I used to think I had to be good and do good all the time and be nice all the time. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
That would be nice if you could pull it off, but not too many people can pull it off. But, again, like I say, Stephen, the problem with being good is that definition could go all over the place. And you have to say, well, what’s good and how good you have to be before you’re really good. And so that’s why Jesus just said there isn’t anybody good except God alone.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, and if I have what it takes to live godly, In a Bible, a truth, does that mean I’m God’s child?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, what it means if you’re God’s child is the fact of have you recognized your own condition of total lostness, no ability at all in and of yourself to ever obtain salvation. and you have seen your condition and therefore have turned to Christ Jesus for your forgiveness and turned to him for your life, then you’re born again.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
And that’s what you rely upon regardless of what you do. What you do will come as a result of that, but it is not necessarily an evidence of it because you can go do good works when you’re lost.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if… If I have the word of God dwelling within me, that means I’m saved, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. If the word of God is indwelling in you, you’re not rebelling against the truth of the word of God. You love to study the word of God and to grow in grace. Yeah. But the evidence, again, is not even that, Steve. And the evidence is there’s a testimony in your heart that you belong to God. God has given us eternal life and his life’s in his son. And if you have the son, you have life. If you don’t have the son, you don’t have life. And these things I’ve written unto you who believe in the name of the son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life. So the way you know you have eternal life is I know I have Jesus.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
And just leave it there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Okay. I’ve been so critical lately. And I’m trying to stop that. I’m going to criticize myself for the mistakes that I made. And I tell myself, Stephen, God has already forgiven you, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes. Yeah, you can’t beat yourself up over the past, Stephen, or anything you can do with your past. What has been done has been done. You can’t change it. period it’s like your words once they’re out there you can’t take them back they’re they’re out there and they’re gone yeah and so uh god has put those sins behind his back never to see them again and if that was good enough for god then it ought to be good enough for you yeah and that’s where you walk by faith in that truth we didn’t deserve that we couldn’t we we really didn’t deserve it we couldn’t earn it but we can walk by faith in the truth yeah okay steven okay All right, my brother. Thanks for your call, Stephen. God bless you, pal. Bye-bye. Let’s go to Glendale, California. Let’s go on K-Bride. Ellen, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hello, Bob. Hi, Ellen. Hi, Bob.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Ellen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Very simple question. Is the James in the Bible the half-brother of Jesus or not?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s what I wanted to know. I’m very sure.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, in chapter 13 of the book of Matthew… It says when Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. And coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in the synagogue. And they were amazed. And they asked this question, and rightfully so. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers, they ask? Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary? And aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? and aren’t all his sisters with us? Where did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him. So it names his brothers and then also explains that he had sisters. So Mary and Joseph certainly were not celibate after the birth of Christ Jesus. It says that she was a virgin until, and the until meant until Jesus’ birth. And then after that, they had children. They obviously had four brothers, and they had a number of sisters. We don’t know how many sisters he had, but we do know of the brothers. And James was one of the brothers who later on became the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s odd that he didn’t write more personal about him.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, quite frankly, during the years that James knew Christ, I don’t think he was real fond of him. As a matter of fact, you find places in the Bible where the family gathered together and thought they ought to put him in a nut house. And so, so they, uh, uh, they did not understand Jesus. I, but I’ve said to people, how would you like to have had Jesus as your brother never did anything wrong. Um, so the issue is that, uh, that James, when he wrote, he wrote about the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, he had a job that I don’t think a person in the world would have wanted. And that is to try to, pull the Church of Jerusalem that had been steeped in the legalistic traditions of Judaism and try to introduce the grace of God into that format. It would have been almost an impossible task, but he certainly accomplished it. So that’s who James is.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you very, very much.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re sure welcome. God bless you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 07 :
Bye-bye. Let’s go to Nanette in San Francisco, California. Let’s go on to KDIA. Nanette, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, how are you? Thank you for taking my call.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re welcome, Annette.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you so much. I’m struggling with this thing, you know, that if you stumble or if you commit a sin, to God, a sin is a sin, even a small sin or a big sin. But you know, you read the Bible. You’re not supposed to do that when you were not born again. You did that and you stopped when you did it again. Do you lose your salvation?
SPEAKER 07 :
Nanette, did you just hear the call just a minute ago? Okay, this is the gospel that saves you. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. It has everything to do with what Jesus did. All you can do is either put your faith in that truth or not put your faith in it. Now, you haven’t put your faith in what Jesus did for you at the cross if you’re still thinking there’s more forgiveness to be executed or… that you could lose your salvation by sinning because if you truly put your faith in what jesus accomplished at the cross he took away your sins eternally at the cross never to see them again that’s why there’s no more forgiveness to be executed that’s why romans tells us there’s now no condemnation awaiting you who belongs to christ jesus he didn’t say no condemnation if you stop sinning he said there’s no condemnation why because christ has put it all on him at the cross And there comes a time, Nanette, where you must put your faith in that truth, not just in the event that I know that Jesus died, but why did he die? He died to take your sins away from the eyes of God, never to see them again. That means there is no condemnation awaiting you who belongs to Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER 02 :
But you feel so lousy that you feel like you are separated from God.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re dealing with feeling. Well, that’s your dumb feeling. And it is dumb feeling because it’s not based on truth. You feel something because you think something. So why you’re feeling that is you’re thinking that you’re out of fellowship with God. You’re out of relationship with God. That’s a lie. That’s not in the Bible. You are in the light if you’re born again. And I’m not sure you are. Because, Nanette, I don’t think you put your faith in what Christ came to do for you. And I want to suggest you do that today. Lord Jesus, here’s a prayer. Lord Jesus, I have acknowledged the fact that you died and was buried and was raised, but I never understood why. I understand today why. You took away my sins, never to see them again. And I thank you for that. And come in now and give me your resurrected life. Annette, we have to go off the air. We’re going to put you on hold. Talk to you afterwards. You hang on.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord. Find more information online at bobgeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs and Bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. 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.
