In this engaging episode of Classic Christianity Radio, host Bob George fields questions from listeners about sin, redemption, and the importance of recognizing Jesus in our lives. Vinnie from Pennsylvania opens the discussion with a thought-provoking question about why Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to ‘go and sin no more’. Bob provides insight into making new life choices in Christ.
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 02 :
We’re going to go to Vinnie in Pitt, Karen, Pennsylvania. Yeah, let’s go on the Internet. Vinnie, you’re on the air, brother.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, brother Bob. Two brief questions, Bob. One, the woman that was caught in adultery, okay? Now, that would have been before the cross, before the resurrection, rather, okay? And what I wondered was, Why did Jesus say to her, you know, if it was grace, why did he say, go and sin no more, when another part of the Bible tells us, well, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God? In other words, you know, why would he say something like that? Why do you think he didn’t put it differently?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, why wouldn’t he?
SPEAKER 06 :
Obviously, he probably was going to commit adultery.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, to me, Vinnie, why wouldn’t he say that? You don’t lead someone to Christ and then go, say, keep in your past lifestyle. So, you know, come to Jesus, and then after you receive him, go back into your old prostitution and your drunkenness and everything else. So… It’s the most natural thing for him to say is now you’re a new creature in Christ. Go sin no more. And in this particular case, it would have been it would certainly been involved in regard to the promiscuity of the of the adultery that he was referring to. There would be specifically to the sin of adultery. But that would be the most natural thing in the world to say to somebody. If you’ve been a drunk and you’ve come to Christ is is get up and and be sober. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, brother, I just took it to mean like, you know, of course, sin is sin. But, you know, we are going to sin. You know, I’m not saying. But you see, Benny, hold on a minute.
SPEAKER 02 :
You see, Benny, look. If you’re making a plan to sin… then you’re not making a plan to not sin. In other words, if you got it in your head, well, I’m going to sin one way or the other, then sure enough, you’re going to. The issue is that you say, Lord, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t desire to continue in this lifestyle. But many people do, Vinnie. There are many, many people who come to Christ and sincerely are in Christ Jesus, but they’ve got a compartment in their home that they do not want to let go of. The love of money is in many, many born-again Christians that they don’t want to let go of. And that’s where God has to work on us. So, in other words, I don’t want to plan on sinning. I don’t want to make a plan that I’m going to get up tomorrow and start sinning, even though I may do that, but I’m not going to plan for it. I think what you should plan for, if you’re going to, is, Lord, if it’s at all possible, allow me to walk in your steps of righteousness. I’m not going to plan to sin. And I think that’s basically what he was saying was get up and sin no more. Don’t get up with the idea tomorrow I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing, but get up to say I’m a new creature and I’m going to walk in the newness of life. We don’t know whether she ever went back to it or not. She may have, but the issue is you don’t plan for that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. I agree 100%, Bob. Brother, I don’t plan to sin either. But, you know, it just kind of struck me there, you know. I don’t plan a sin, but, you know, sometimes I fall.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure. Well, we all do, but we don’t plan to.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I’m born again. You know, I love the Lord.
SPEAKER 02 :
But, you know, sometimes people plan to sin. You know, you can make a plan to go sin if you wanted to. Sure. So I think that’s what it’s dealing with is get those plans out of your head and start asking God to enable you to walk in the newness of life, knowing full well you’re going to fall on your face sooner or later. But again, that’s what keeps us dependent on Christ, Vinnie. If I didn’t have the flesh, and if I didn’t have the desires of the flesh bugging me, I’d probably forget Jesus in a New York minute. And that’s why Paul says to rejoice in your weakness. Your weakness is what keeps you dependent on Christ. If you didn’t have any weaknesses, you’d quit depending on the Lord. And so the issue is that we realize that God came to indwell in this body of ours that contains indwelling sin for a purpose. He could have taken it all out. He could have arranged. He could have done anything he wanted to. He could have arranged where all sin was just absolutely eradicated from us. But he didn’t do that, and I think the reason for it is that if that would have occurred, we’d begin into self-sufficiency and wouldn’t need him anymore. So that’s why I rejoice in my weakness.
SPEAKER 06 :
Amen to that, brother. I just, you know, this has been my ministry for 17 years now. I’ve been following this ministry, and, you know, you really… I can’t say how much you’ve helped me in my life, although when I try and relate it to others, I do run into a lot of difficulty. I had one other quick question. The reference, what I’ve decided to do in my life, I don’t like to use anymore the reference to God as, you know, when I’m speaking in general to somebody, as God, because… I found that there have been people that hoodwinked me. You know, they told me they believed in God. You know, I’m going on talking about Christ. I had one guy after a year that I got to know. I thought I knew him. And he says, you know, Vinny, I’ve got to tell you something. You’re talking about God. I said, yeah, I’m talking about the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ. And he said, well, I just have to be honest with you. He said, I don’t believe in Jesus Christ, but my God is the God of the universe, and I believe in science. So I started thinking in my life, instead of using the term God, I’m going to start being very specific to these people and say Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 06 :
Do you think that’s a good idea?
SPEAKER 02 :
Nothing wrong with that at all. I think that… You know, you can say God the Son, the God that has been revealed to us through Christ Jesus, because God was revealed to us through Christ Jesus. But you’re right on that. The word God really doesn’t have any meaning to it. And like James said, you believe in God, good. Satan believes in God. And so God is used all the time. You know, people, very easy to say the word God. The big boy upstairs or the good man or the good Lord and all of that. Anybody can talk that. But if you mention Jesus and try to say Jesus, you’ll gag on it if you don’t know him. And that’s what happens to people is… The word God is thrown around, and the Muslim world believes in God, and then they come along and say, well, we all worship the same God. Nonsense. We don’t worship the same God. Come on. God doesn’t lie, and the so-called God that revealed what is in the Koran is certainly not what’s in the Old and New Testaments. So unless he’s a schizophrenic, you’re not going to say it’s the same God because he didn’t reveal the same material to us.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to be very specific in my life. I’m going to use the term Jesus Christ because he is God. The Holy Spirit is God. Sure. You know? And I’m not going to let these people hoodwink me anymore.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s a good idea.
SPEAKER 06 :
Go along with me, you know? I want to be specific.
SPEAKER 02 :
Amy asks people sometimes, what’s your God’s name?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Say, what do you mean? Well, my God’s name is Jesus. What’s your God’s name? I really matter. It stops people.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. Well, thank you very much, Bob. And both you, Bob, and Bob Crister, have a very wonderful Christmas.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, my friend. We appreciate it, Vinnie, and appreciate your call very much. Atlanta, Georgia, listening on WGUN. Pat, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello, Bob. How are you?
SPEAKER 02 :
Doing good, Pat. Thanks.
SPEAKER 05 :
Listen, I wanted to get some advice from you, if I could, on the most effective way to be a witness for Christ. Now, I’ve, in the last couple of years, learned to rest in salvation rather than do as I used to do, trying to work for salvation. And in the process, I’ve had to learn how to just let myself, make myself available to to God to do his work through me rather than focusing on what it is I’m going to do for God.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
So, um, however, I mean, I do know that, uh, I have every confidence in the world in his ability, but I’m also aware at the same time of my ability to mess it up. If I, you know, if I try to get too much of me involved in it, but, uh, I’ve always felt like the worst thing that I could do is when I’m trying to witness to somebody for Christ is to start pointing out all their sins.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, you start doing that, and if he knows you, he’s going to point yours out.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right, exactly.
SPEAKER 02 :
And the sins aren’t the issue. The only thing you ought to be talking about sins is that God was in Christ reconciling you unto himself, not counting your sins against you. That’s what you need to talk about sins. Then you need to talk about what is the consequence of sin, which is death, and there’s your problem. The problem isn’t how sinful you are. The problem is how dead you are. And the only solution to spiritual death is spiritual life, and that’s where the resurrection is what saves us. So it says we’re saved by the resurrection of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, yeah, I understand.
SPEAKER 02 :
See, I never talk to anybody about how sinful they are because that’s not the issue. Their sins, even a lost person, God was in Christ reconciling them unto himself, not counting their sins against him. While they were yet enemies, that’s lost, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. How much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? You’re not saved by the death of Christ, which deals with sin. You’re saved by the life of Christ, which deals with resurrection.
SPEAKER 05 :
So what I should be focusing on more than our inability to keep the laws of God is to convince somebody of how much they need life.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely, Pat. The best salvation message in the world is going up to a person like yourself. Let’s say you’re lost. Say, Pat, I’ve got some good news for you. What’s that, Bob? Did you know that God was in Christ reconciling you unto himself and not counting your sins against you? That there’s not one sin that you will ever be accountable for to God except the sin of the rejection of the life of Christ. No, I didn’t know that. Did you know that the reason that Jesus died was to enter into your spiritual death with you so that raised from the dead, you could enter into his resurrected life with him? And the consequence of sin is death, and that’s why Jesus said, I came that you might have life. I’m the resurrection and the life. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. The whole issue of salvation is there’s a consequence to sin. It doesn’t matter whether it was one little tiny sin or just massive. The consequence is death, and the only solution to death is life, and the only life available to us is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. Do you want to come to Christ for life, thanking him for what he did for you at the cross, taking away the cause of death and accepting his resurrected life into your heart? That’s the salvation message.
SPEAKER 05 :
And that has been, in your experience over the years… the most effective way that you seem to… It’s the only truth. Just tell them the truth.
SPEAKER 02 :
I used to go out and talk about the sin issue all the time until I realized that if God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not counting our sins against him, that why do I need to talk about the sin issue? It’s been taken away at the cross. What I need to talk about is there’s a consequence to sin called death. And in case people can’t figure that out, death is worse than sin. Ha! If you’re dead, you’ve got a bigger problem than sin. Sin caused death, but death’s your problem and the only solution to its resurrected life, Pat. Yeah, it’s a phenomenal truth to begin with. See, in the early days, what the apostles all got crucified for was the resurrection. preaching the resurrection and we’ve gotten into preaching the cross only at the exclusion of the meaning of the resurrection see we forget that then and that’s because we don’t teach people there’s a consequence to sin called uh death you know we say oh god’s gonna paddle you nonsense he’s gonna take you to the woodshed nonsense the wages of sin from god’s standpoint is death and And all of us are born into this world dead spiritually and in need of spiritual life, and the only life available to us is the life of Christ.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s great. Always a pleasure.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, same to you, my brother, and best of luck to you. If we can help you in any other way, you let us know. Thank you. All right, my friend. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 online for more information about how to purchase helpful books and Bible study materials to guide you as you grow in your relationship with Jesus. The bobgeorge.net website also has additional information on how you can join us financially to 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 the teaching message.
SPEAKER 02 :
let’s go back to new Orleans. Let’s go on WLN. Oh, Brad, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Hi, Bob.
SPEAKER 02 :
How you doing brother?
SPEAKER 03 :
Good. Um, first of all, I’d like to, um, I’ll give, give, give thanks to God for his grace and saving me on April 13th of 1997. And also for, um, bringing us together right now. Um, Mike, my question, um, I want to praise him too, brother. Okay, great. Um, Um, when I was, um, born again, um, the Holy Spirit, uh, came in and, and dwelt and has indwelt with me and I was convicted at the time. And, uh, um, when I was new, I had done some things and I continued to feel conviction by the Holy Spirit for, um, doing things that, um, for saying things or, or doing things that weren’t, um, things that I should be doing that he didn’t approve of. And I kept on feeling this conviction from him. But being new at the time, I don’t see it as I see it now. Looking back on it now, I’m wondering if I was blaspheming the Holy Spirit. And I have grieved it at times when I didn’t respond to the Holy Spirit’s conviction in me. And I’m wondering if If it could have been classified as blasphemy?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, no, absolutely not. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, no, no way in the world, Brad. If you’ve ever heard that, someone’s lying out their teeth to you because that is just not true. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the same thing that Jesus said, the world’s sin is unbelief in me. And to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is to attribute the works of Christ to the devil. Or to attribute, yeah, that Christ’s works are of the devil. And quite frankly, there are many theologians, not that that means anything, but many theologians that don’t believe that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit could have been done by anybody except those who were standing in front of God himself in the days of Christ being here on earth and worshiping and disclaiming and really attributing all of his works to that of the devil. That may be true, that the only true way that a person could truly blaspheme against the Holy Spirit would have been in those days. But today, you can have people who can attribute the works of Christ to the works of the devil, but you don’t see that as much as just denying what Jesus did. So no, you have not blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, for sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 02 :
You need to stand in the fact, Brad, that if you have come to know Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and you have accepted what he did for you, you see there’s two things that man has to do. They have to believe God and what he said about us. Our hearts are wicked, deceitful above all things. Who can know them?
SPEAKER 03 :
I never will forget the conviction of the Holy Spirit when I was born again. how he made me see my wretched condition.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, and again, made you see that you were not a believer, because that is the work of the Holy Spirit today, has in essence replaced the law, who showed us what we were doing is sin, but Jesus said, I’m going to prove the world wrong about sin, about sin because they don’t believe in me. He pointed out what the root of all sin was, his unbelief in himself. And that gets underneath the skin of everybody. And so from that point on, the Spirit of God… if all of your sins have been put behind the back of God, never to see them again. They’ve been taken away from the eyes of God. I’m sure the Holy Spirit knows that. And so he is not convicting you of sin. He’s convicting you of a life now that you have that you’re living inconsistent with who you are. Sins have been put behind the back of God, never to see them again. He isn’t dealing with you on the basis of sin and death today. He’s dealing with you on the basis of new life. And saying, Brad, now here you are as a child of God, and you just went out and insulted somebody or lusted after somebody. Is that consistent now with who you are as a new creature? Is that my best for you? And you say, no, Lord, that isn’t my best for you. Thank you for what you took away at the cross, and thanks for dealing with the root problem with me. And he’s going to be doing that until the day we die.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for putting that into perspective for me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you’re sure welcome, brother. I hope that helps.
SPEAKER 03 :
Also, can I ask you one more question, please? Sure, yes. When I witness to people about what God has done for me in saving me, I experience the Holy Spirit being magnified within me. And this only happens when I’m witnessing to people Or when I’m singing and it’s manifested within me. What do you mean, Mike? I feel the same like when I was born again and the Holy Spirit came in. I remember the feeling of that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. But you know, Brad, if I can just interrupt you, Brad, don’t depend on feelings. That’s one of the most dangerous things that you can get into is depending on feelings. You kind of look for that old feeling.
SPEAKER 03 :
I only feel that way when I’m witnessing, though, and I don’t even think about it. It just shows up.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, then that’s okay. Just don’t look for it.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t. I don’t. I just, after the fact, I notice it.
SPEAKER 02 :
But you see, again, the fact that you feel the Holy Spirit working in and through you, leading someone to Christ, is wonderful. But that doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit isn’t there, just as dynamic when you don’t feel it. Okay. So your Holy Spirit is there all times. He’s there when you go get a drink of water. You may not feel that. So, in other words, I want you to realize that the Holy Spirit is there living in you 24 hours a day. And when you’re doing something that he has told you to do, there may be that feeling that is there. That’s fine. But he’s there all the time.
SPEAKER 03 :
You believe that we sense his presence more than others?
SPEAKER 02 :
You sense his presence sometimes more than others. Absolutely. There are some times when it’s like in the 500 silent years where he seems to be just totally silent in your life. But he isn’t. He’s there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, well, thank you, Bob. I didn’t want to take up the time from somebody else. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good to talk to you. Bye-bye. We’re going to go to Darren in Denver, Colorado, listening on KLT. Darren, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, fellas. Your last caller sparked a question in my mind, and there seems to be a movement out there to call God the Father Yahweh and God the Son Yeshua, and that those are their appropriate names, and that Jesus or the Father are not appropriate. And I was just wondering… I don’t feel that way necessarily, but have you looked into this? Is there any validity to what they’re saying?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, of course not. There’s numerous names for God in the Bible. Elohim, you’ve got names that designate different things that God did. There’s an entire book that’s written out of all the names of God. It encompasses an entire book. So the issue is, what does it make a difference what a person’s name is if you don’t know who he is? Right. The idea that you have to go around calling Jesus Yeshua because that’s a Hebrew word, but the Greek word was Jesus. And the English word is Jesus. The Greek would be pronounced a little differently than that. What about the Arabic word? Jesus spoke in Arabic. What was it there? So people get nuts over that kind of stuff and begin to think that, that it’s really important to pronounce a name properly. If you live in a foreign land, your name is not going to be pronounced the same over here. I think if I was down in Spain, my name would be Roberto Gheorghe. Well, please don’t call me Gheorghe up here because I think nobody knows what you’re talking about. But that’s the name for George, my understanding, Georgi. Well, that’s translation. So what’s it make any difference if I went to Spain and said my name’s Roberto Georgi, they’d know who I was. And if I say my name’s Bob George up here, they’d know who I am. So all of those things, they get into this nitpicking stuff and think that you have to speak Hebrew and And you’ve got to speak Greek in order to be spiritual, which is utter nonsense. If that’s the case, how come the people who spoke Hebrew killed the Son of God? And how come if knowing Greek is the key to anything, how come it’s very difficult to find a true born-again believer in Greece? I’m not saying there aren’t, but they’re very hard to find.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 02 :
And so people get all hung up, Darren, on this language stuff. And these people walk around saying, you’re Shia. I say, do you speak Hebrew? Do you speak anything else in Hebrew? Well, no. Well, then why are you so hung up on the name Ushia? If you want to call Jesus that, that’s okay. But the English pronunciation of Ushia is Jesus. Come on, quit trying to impress people. Now, if you lived over in that part of the world and you spoke fluent Hebrew and you came to Christ or you were over here and spoke fluent Hebrew, and, of course, we have to remember that that Hebrew in the Old Testament was translated into Septuagint in Greek years before Jesus was ever there. So there’s an awful lot of Greek that was being spoken or that wouldn’t have happened. So the issue on that, Darren, I’m trying to say is people get hung up on the most ridiculous items that I’ve ever seen in my life. And people will call in and they say, I guess they think that’s impressing somebody that you call Jesus Yeshua because that’s the Hebrew pronunciation. I guess they think that maybe that’s impressing somebody. I don’t know. It doesn’t impress me, but maybe it does.
SPEAKER 04 :
I guess it almost gets legalistic, doesn’t it?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, of course it does. Well, it’s prideful. It’s a prideful thing. We call him by his real name. Well, so do I. Right. But his real name is translated into my language, Jesus. And as much as English is probably the most universally spoken language in the world, I think a lot more people know the Jesus of the Bible is Jesus than do you, Shia. And so it becomes a prideful thing. It kind of sickens me, to be real honest with you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, hey, thanks for that excellent explanation. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re welcome, Darren. Hope that helps.
SPEAKER 04 :
God bless you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Bye-bye.
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.
