This episode challenges listeners to examine their beliefs about forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. Bob George questions prevalent misconceptions, addressing the crucial role of the resurrection in receiving the forgiveness already provided at the cross. The discussion turns a spotlight on how teaching a half gospel can leave believers feeling empty and highlights the necessity of embracing the entirety of Jesus’ purpose. Bob provides clarity on being set apart as a true believer, not merely by categorizing ourselves under religious denominations but through an authentic faith in Jesus Christ. His poignant examples and narratives pave the way for understanding
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let’s turn to the sixth chapter of the book of Galatians. we have to understand that the Apostle Paul in writing this book is trying to drive us to our senses and trying to get us to see it’s not activity it is not fun and games that this Christian life is a serious matter it doesn’t mean we walk around looking like we just ate a skunk but he says in this world you’re going to have trial and tribulation I want to tell you folks there’s not a person sitting in this room that doesn’t have trials and tribulation And so in this world, you’re going to have it. If you don’t have it externally, we have it internally. And the issue is, where are you going to go to? And you see, we get all of these young people, especially, all wrapped up in our youth groups, in our high school youth groups. What happens when you go to college and your youth group isn’t there anymore? I’ll tell you what happened to probably eight or ten people that I know of. They all died of AIDS or And became homosexuals when they got to college. They might have been in high school. I don’t know. But I do know they’re dead today. From AIDS. Sitting in a Baptist church singing their hearts out. Folks, you don’t have anything to draw upon if you don’t have Jesus. You cannot draw upon your youth program when you don’t have a youth program. You can’t draw on your young marriage class when you don’t have a young marriage class. If you’re by yourself, all you have is Jesus. And we better have a relationship with him and someone that we can talk to and relate to and pour our heart out to and be ministered to by him because he’s all you’ve got. And so to these outward appearances that we get so hung up on, they’ll kill you. And they’ll put you in bondage to desiring outward appearances and acceptance by man. Jesus said, if I was teaching the law, I would not be persecuted by man. I’m not here to be pleasing to man. We’re not running for sheriff. We are children of the living God who’s under a continual spiritual warfare and attack every moment of our lives by the one who says, I have only one goal for you to kill, steal, and destroy everything in your life. I’ll steal your marriage from you if I can. I’ll destroy your marriage from you. I’ll destroy you. I’ll destroy the ministry. I’ll destroy anything that I can get my hands on if you allow me. And that’s the enemy that is nudging into your and my head every single moment of the day. And so he’s saying to us that not only those who are circumcised obey the law. The people who are saying be circumcised, that’s a part of the law. But I don’t obey the law. What are the requirements of the obedience to the law? If you’re under the law, it says, first of all, you’re under a curse. Why are you under a curse? Because you can’t obey the law. And what’s the wages of sin under the law? Death. That’s the curse of the law. As long as you hang on to one piece of the law, he says you may as well hang on to all of it. Because if you’re trying to obey one law, you’re obligated to obey all of it. We studied that, didn’t we? And it says in there that if you kept the entire law and just violated one law in all of your life, you violated all of them. And so he’s saying to you, if you’re under the law, you’re under a curse. So if you’re going to hang on to the law of circumcision or baptism or any other law that you hang on to for salvation, you’re under the curse of death because you’re obligated to be all of it. And all of it’s outward signs, outward impressions that mean nothing to God. And so he’s saying yet that they want you to be circumcised so we can boast in your flesh. May I never boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only got one thing to boast about, and that’s the cross. Now, folks, again, have you ever wondered, why do we carry the symbol of the cross? You say, why don’t we carry some symbol of the resurrection? And as I said, the reason for the cross is this, and people don’t understand this. The cross is universal in application. How many people did he die for the sins of? The whole world. How many people was he raised for? All people, but only the ones who accept his life are saved. Whether you accept it or not, your sins were taken away. So you see the cross is a symbol of the one who came and took away the sins of the whole world. Not only ours, but the sins of the whole world. That is universal in application. There’s not a soul alive that has ever been born that you could not walk up to and have the authority as a child of God to say to them, I got good news for you. God was in Christ reconciling you unto himself, not counting your sins against you. Could you say that to anybody? Absolutely. It’s scripture, isn’t it? Could you say that to someone in the jungles of New Guinea? Yeah. Could you say it in the city of New York? Yeah. It’s universal and therefore it’s truth. And so that is true, that the sins of the whole world were taken away at the cross. Does that mean you’re saved? No, because you’re not saved by getting your sins forgiven. That’s a part of salvation, but it’s not in and of itself salvation. So the cross, the reason it’s a symbol universally, is because it’s the pronouncement of God saying, I took away the sins of the whole world. There’s no one who will ever go to hell because of his sins. Do we understand that, folks? There’s no sin that you have ever committed that was not taken away at the cross of Jesus Christ. Do you believe that? Now, some of us have tried to out-sin God, but we can’t do it. There is no such thing as a sin unforgiven. They were all taken away at the cross. I have people who say, well, what about my future sins? How many of your sins were in the future when Jesus died for them 2,000 years ago? It appears to me that that would be all of them. And so there’s not a sin that has been, is, or will be committed that was not taken away at the cross. Now, we talk about the atoning death of Jesus Christ. Did Jesus come to atone for sins? No. No, a bull and goat atone for sins. And we hear preachers today continually talking about atonement, atonement, atonement. Say, what are you talking about? There is no atonement in the New Testament. Atonement was Old Testament way of getting your sins covered until the next covering. So atonement covered sin. Jesus took it away. And if you have a translation where atonement is used, check it out in the Greek. That is not the translation. It’s propitiation. It is a word that means it’s done. It’s final. It’s over. So knowing that to be true and knowing that the cross is the universal sign that your sins have been taken away at the cross. Can any of you go up to a person and say, if you don’t shape up that sin, you’re going to hell? Can you or not? Is there any sin you can commit that would send you to hell? How about Hitler’s sins? That couldn’t send him to hell? Gee whiz. What about Stalin’s? What about old Ben Laden? I’m not so sure about that one. Were those sins forgiven? Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Are they saved? No. Why? Because they have not gone to where you received the forgiveness. It’s money in the bank, but I haven’t gone to the bank. So guess what? I’m going to die impoverished because I don’t go to where the money is, in the bank. And the scripture says, in him you have redemption prepared. The forgiveness of sins. Where is forgiveness that was provided for the whole world received? Where is it received? In him. Now what do you mean in him? What do we mean in him? The one that sacrificed for the sins but more important than that is the one who was what? Raised from the dead. And there’s where we’ve come with a half gospel. And in so many of our churches, and I say in the Baptist churches I went to, it doesn’t make any difference where it was, you got a great evangelistic call, but it’s always come get your sins forgiven, get your sins forgiven, get your sins forgiven. And so young people are buying a life insurance policy, a fire insurance policy. Who wants to go to hell? You got to be an idiot. So come forward and receive Jesus and forgive your sins and you won’t go to hell. That’s not true. And you go back to the pew as empty as you walk to the altar. Why? Because you don’t come to get forgiveness. You come to get life. And it’s not just the physical Jesus that walked on the earth 2,000 years ago. It’s the resurrected Christ. That’s why he said, without the resurrection, we’re to be pitied of all people and are still in our sins. What’s the matter? Didn’t Paul understand the cross? How can he say that? Did he know that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world? Was he confused on something? No, he wasn’t confused. He was just giving you truth. Without the resurrection, we’re to be pitied of all people and are still in our sins. Why? Because without the resurrection, there’s no forgiveness. Even though it was provided, it can’t be received any place except in the resurrected Jesus. Not the Jesus who walked on the face of this earth, who healed the blind and made the deaf to hear. but the one who was raised from the dead and today is seated at the right hand of God. That’s the resurrected Jesus. And folks, without the resurrection, we’re lost. And if you’ve never come to believe in the resurrection, you’re lost. We’re not saved by believing Jesus hung on a cross. You’re saved by believing he was raised from the dead. Now, in order to come to a resurrected Jesus and receive what he came to give you, eternal life, you have to believe in the eternal consequence of the cross. And we have people who teach the opposite of that. We don’t teach the finality of the cross. We teach, yes, he died for the sins of the world, but if you keep on confessing your sins, he’ll keep on forgiving you. That’s nonsense. It’s idiotic nonsense. I taught it for years. I taught nonsense for years. There’s nothing true about that. When Christ took away your sins, he took away your sins. And when he took it away, he took it away eternally. That’s why that act of the cross is as an eternal function as his resurrection is eternal. He had to die for all sins in order to give you eternal life. He had to deal with the cause of death eternally. in order to give you eternal life. So had he not dealt eternally with the sins of the world at the cross, he could never have offered you eternal life. I sat with a young lady in Toronto who was talking afterwards with a chaplain and myself, and she was saying, well, what do you think about these people because they don’t believe in eternal security? What do you think about these people who just teach, well, I can come to Christ and go do anything I want to and I have eternal life? I said, let me see if I can help you with this. And I went over what I just went over with you, that what caused spiritual death was sin. The wages of sin is what? Death. But what? The gift of God is what? Life. Now, in order to give you life, eternal, he had to deal with the cause of death eternally. Because had he not dealt with the cause of death eternally and gave you life, the next time you sinned, you’d die again.
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 02 :
So do you see the impossibility of losing what salvation is? We say, do you believe in eternal security? No, I believe in eternal life. We need to keep the word life. To mean salvation. Because that’s what salvation is. Is life. He who has a son has what? Life. He who has a son is saved. Same thing. But we now have an explanation of what salvation is. It’s life. It’s his life. Living in me. Which is my only hope of glory. And the only way that I’m going to get that life is by faith. And if I don’t need life, I’ve already got life. And I don’t need a little life. I need all of it. And so when you come to Christ, you come to Christ for all that He is. That all that He did, that all that He is, all that He was, and all that He ever will be. And you come to Him for life. And you’re saved from the wages of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life. You’ve crossed over from darkness into light, into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have something, redemption and the forgiveness of sins. It’s over. It’s done. There’s no more asking for what you already have. You already have forgiveness. So when you’re asking, you’re saying, I don’t believe that you took away my sins. Now, you can say whatever you want to. You can say, oh, that makes me feel better and all that stuff. So if it makes you feel better to hang Jesus back on a cross and crucify him again, that’s fine with me. That’s your prerogative. But don’t say that that’s faith because it isn’t. It’s presumption. Jesus took away the sins of the world at the cross one time and for all, never to be done again. And he says when you’re in him, you have received that forgiveness. Now walk by faith in the fact that you are no longer a person who gets forgiven. You are a forgiven person. You’re not a person who gets redeemed. You are a redeemed person. You’re not a person who gets eternal life. You have eternal life. You’re not a person that hopes it will be seated someday in the heavenlies with Christ Jesus as far as he’s concerned. You’re already there. You’re not a person who gets justified. You are a justified person. You’re not a person contrary to what some people think, that you’re sanctified. You are a sanctified person, and you can’t get any more sanctified by what you do. And we have people who teach progressive sanctification, that you just keep getting better and better all the time. And I think just wait until someday you get so good you won’t need Jesus at all. Just think what a joy that’ll be when you’re so wonderful that you won’t even need him. And there are people who think that I’m just getting better and better and better and better. I say, let me interview your husband. Let me interview your wife. We’ll see if they agree with that. You’re not going to get any better than the very day that you stepped out of Adam into Christ and he stepped out of heaven into you. He set you apart. And folks, I want to tell you something. What we are set apart for is we’re set apart from the world. Now let’s go on. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. I want to ask you a question. How fond is the world of you when you stand up and claim I am a born again blood soaked Christian? Think the world loves you? You know what the world thinks of you and me as a born again believer? I’m not talking about people who talk about the good Lord and the good boy upstairs and God. Anybody can say that. I’m talking about people who say, I am a born again believer. You know what the world thinks of you? You’re a bigot. You’re a bigot. You have no sympathy for anybody. You’re not accepting. That’s a big word today, isn’t it? Accepting. That’s what the world thinks of you. You’ve been crucified to the world. They don’t like you. The world doesn’t like me. The world doesn’t like you. Now, if you compromise, they’ll like you. And we were talking to a doctor the other day. He said, oh, yeah, I come to God through Jesus, but there’s plenty of ways to come to God. So I said, well, you’re never going to have to worry about the world hating you. Do you know why in the end times when the Antichrist comes and we’re out of here, either our bodies or our body’s dead and we’re out of here? Either one of those two. I don’t know which one it’s going to be. You know what it’s going to be saying? good riddance good riddance God got rid of the troublemakers all of these intolerant non-accepting people these people that believed that we all worship the same God Muslims worship the same God they say isn’t that the strangest thing you’ve ever heard in your life that a Muslim worships the same God that we do the God that I worship gave a testimony about his son He said, this is a testimony. God’s testimony, the one that we say we all believe in. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I’ve written unto you who believe in the name of the Son of God, and know that you may what? Know that you have eternal life. Is that the same God you have? Same God that says Jesus was just a prophet, but Muhammad’s a better one? Is that the same God? How can the same God write one thing in this book and write another thing in another book and then write another thing in another book? Is the God of the Muslim who wants to run the Jews off the face of the earth, is that the God of Israel who loves the Jews and sustained them and is coming back for them someday? And the ones that every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? Is that the same God? It’s got to be insane. Not the same God. And yet the world wants us to all get together and say, oh, it’s the same God. No, it isn’t. The only reason you’d think it was is if you don’t know your scripture. And that’s the problem today. People are reading books instead of the book. And you have people reading this book and this book and this book and this book and this book and this book and this book and then quoting what’s in the book. And no one’s reading the book to know what truth is. Truth that will set you free. So I want to tell you something, folks. The world is dead to you, and Paul said, I’m dead to the world. There is nothing in this world. You go out into business today, and you go out in any kind of business, and you go in as a born-again believer who believes in the inerrancy of the Word of God, and you believe the Bible says it’s true, and I want to tell you, you’re going to be ostracized a lot more than you’re going to be accepted, unless it happens to be with another Christian. Is that true or not, guys? So when you come to the Lord, you’re set apart. You’re not set apart because you go to church. You’re not set apart by how you wear your hair, your dress. You’re set apart because of what you believe, and even more importantly, because of whom you believe. That’s what sets you apart. That’s what it means to be sanctified, set apart. I’m set apart because I’m a believer in Jesus. I’m not a churchgoer. I’m a believer in Jesus. Are you a Baptist or Presbyterian? No, I’m a believer in Jesus. When I signed up down at the vet, I said, what religion are you? I said, I’m a child of God. She looked at me like I was nuts. Said, I’m not familiar with that denomination. We’re children of God. We’re not Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Presbyterians. There aren’t going to be any of those in heaven. There aren’t going to be Presbyterians and Catholics in heaven. Just children of God. Just people who by faith I believed and accepted in the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. And folks, it’s more than just an acknowledgement of an event. It’s eternalizing it. I believed all my life Jesus died on the cross. Was I saved? Of course not. I believed all my life he was raised from the dead. Did you? Most of your life? We all believe that. Were we saved? No. Why? I didn’t know he did it for me. You internalize things. He did that for me. I thought he did it for the world. I guess I thought it wasn’t in the world. But I know he did it for me. This is something Jesus said, Bob, I did this for you. I took away your sins. I was raised from the dead to give you life because you’re a mess. You don’t have to sit around and think about how a mess the world is. You’re a mess. And you need a new life. He did it for me. When you internalize that and personalize that, That’s when you’re born again. You can sit all day long saying, oh, that’s nice. Did that for the world. Never affect you at all. So he’s saying to us that I’m not going to boast except anything in the cross of Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. Folks, if your mindset and your thoughts are still in the world, you haven’t been set apart. Do we realize how many worldly thoughts we hang on to? They’re unbelievable. We hang on to them. You have people today who have much more confidence in Ritalin or Prozac than they do in Jesus. And you compromise your kids and put them on drugs when they’re little. They’re going to be a drug addict when they’re old. And don’t argue with me on that. I’ve got too much examples to prove otherwise. And we buy the world. And we buy what the world says. And we grab a hold of what the world says and believe it like it’s gospel. And it’s not gospel. And we have got to get our minds to the point where we look at this word and folks listen to me. You check your every thought up against the Word of God. If it doesn’t match, get rid of the thought. It’s called foolishness to God. And you match your attitudes up against this Word. And if your attitude is contrary to the Word, get rid of the attitude. It’s foolishness to God. We’ve got a book. And you’ve got the Spirit living in you if you’re born again to teach you the meaning of this book. Because anybody knows what it says. But you have to have the spirit to know what it means. And we sit there in our foolishness and defend our foolishness. Just like they were defending the foolishness of circumcision. Just like we defend the foolishness that you have to be baptized to be saved. Or defend the foolishness that God’s going to take your life away from you. Those things are foolish up next to the word of God. It doesn’t teach that. And so he’s saying, in conclusion to this, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is a new creation. In chapter 5, verse 6, in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. He’s now told us how to live your life as a new creation, expressing yourself through love. The only thing that counts are you born again. And we use the word, are you a Christian? It doesn’t have any meaning anymore. Of course I am. I’m not a Buddhist. Not something else. I’m a Christian. Doesn’t mean anything. What means something is, are you a child of God today? A child of the living God. The only thing that counts is, are you a new creation? Have you been born from above? I know you’ve been born from below. I can tell that looking at you. Have you been born from above? No one is born a Christian. I had a person the other day say, well, I’ve always been a Christian. No, you haven’t. No, you haven’t. You may have grown up in a Christian church, but you didn’t become a new creation until the day that you, by faith, turned your life over to the living Christ to live his life in and through you. You’re just playing games. So no one’s born a Christian. No one’s born alive spiritually. We’re born dead and in need of life, and we turn to the only source of life, and that’s Christ Jesus. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God. He’s saying even to the Jews, God’s people. This is what truth is. Peace and mercy to all who believe this. That’s the only way you’re ever going to have, peace and mercy, is when you faith these truths.
SPEAKER 01 :
Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
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Put Jesus first in your life and turn your life around.
