Bibleline Radio Show – 2007-11-14

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Coming to you from Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Declaring God’s love through radio and television. Providing real answers to an ever-searching world. Got a question? Dial toll free at 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. Now here’s the host of Bibleline, Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Well, good morning and welcome to Bibleline. I’m great to be with you today. Thanks for tuning into the broadcast. We look forward to being with you each and every day as we come to you live from Tampa, Florida from our studios here at the Calvary Community Church.

This is Wednesday and it’s great to be with you today. Thanks for tuning in. We’re excited about the season and obviously we’re coming up hard and fast on Thanksgiving and we want to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving and a safe holiday. We’re going to have a celebration this Sunday, the 18th and that is going to be a Thanksgiving celebration service at 10.30 and then a wonderful dinner, turkey and dressing and gravy and all the good stuff. You’re welcome if you’re in driving distance to come be my guest.

Come at 10.30, bring your family, your appetite, your Bible and then join us for a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration dinner. We’re going to have all the trimmings and everything you’d expect and we have people preparing turkeys in lots of different ways, everything from deep fry to smoked to traditionally cooked turkeys. And we’re going to just eat up and have a great time. You’re welcome. That’s this Sunday, the third Sunday of the month and it’s the 18th of November we’d love to have you come.

Also we’re getting ready to go to Israel in February. We’ll leave February 25th. We’ll come back on the 7th of March and we’ll have a wonderful trip and we’ll shortly have some brochures, you can call and get your name on the list and we’ll get the literature to you and you can make your decision. We hope you’ll go. We had a wonderful time this year in March and we’re going to go back at the same time where it’s just wonderful weather.

Wonderful hotels, we had a great experience. Didn’t even hear a car backfire. It was just a wonderful, wonderful time. I’d love to have you go and it’ll be trip number 15 for me. I hope you will join us for this trip. And that’s going to be on February 25th, a Monday, coming back on Friday, March 7th, 12, 13 day trip, 12 full days in Israel. And we’ll sleep on the flight over Lord Willie and land at 7 o’clock in the morning in Tel Aviv.

And we will be off and running that first day and not miss any real travel time. We’ll be able to have had breakfast on the plane and get going and just have a wonderful day on that first day. So plan to go with me. Give me a call. That’s 1-800-576-3771. We’d love to have you join us. Also, in our resource center, we got a lot of things that’s coming upon Christmas. I hope you plan to order things early so that we don’t run out.

We have some that we’re going to run as a special. We have the Zondirvan, five volume encyclopedia. That’s a $200 series. We had been offering it for $150, but we’re dropping it down to $110 for that five volume set. It weighs 18 pounds. And so for $110, you can get that. We also have the eight volume systematic theology by Luz That’s an excellent for the serious student of the Bible. Louis Ferris Schafer founded Dallas Theological Seminary and this is his eight volume systematic theology has been reduced to four volumes, two volumes in each of the four.

But it’s a wonderful study of theology across the board throughout your whole Bible. You’ll enjoy that very much. So keep that in mind for a gift of $100 that usually sells for $180. And so these are bargain prices and you might want to get some of these plus the Scofield Bibles. We’ve got them and we hope we don’t run out. We hope we’re able to take care of whatever needs you have. And so… We hope that you’ll go to our resource center if you’re not able to come out here and visit us.

RS is open every day until 430 if you’re in driving distance. But otherwise get on the internet BibleLineMinistries.org or .com. Click on the online bookstore and you’ll be right there. If you want to worship with us you can click on the camera. And if you do that at 11 o’clock on Sunday morning you’ll get the live audio and video. video and that’s exciting. And if you click on the spinning globe you’ll get the radio programs. If you click on the television set you’ll get the television programs.

We hope that you’ll take advantage of these opportunities. As we mentioned yesterday we had a fellow in church on Sunday that’s in the arm we got back from Afghanistan and he said that every Sunday that about ten of them would gather around the laptop and watch our worship services in Afghanistan. I got them through, he said those difficult days. We mentioned that on the air we got a call from Fort Bragg and I think it’s in Georgia. Columbus, Georgia.

And he said, guess what we were doing in our barracks on Sunday and I said what? And he told us that they were listening to the worship service, watching the worship service on the laptop in the barracks. And so we got a lot of servicemen and others that are watching. We got people in Sweden and England and other countries that are tuning in that worship service. You can go there during the week and catch up over years with the sermons now and you can also go there live on Sunday morning go at 11 o’clock and click on the camera.

BibleLineMinistries.org.com. Good to be with you today. It’s Wednesday. to have you come by anytime if you’re in the area and say hi to us. We’re going to go to the Bible for a few minutes and catch our callers. We’ve got a bunch of callers already calling in and getting set to go. You’re welcome to Dallas at 1-800-576-3771. We’re going I’m going to take a look over in the book of Revelation at a couple of wonderful verses. It’s amazing to me and we have, I think, mentioned this verse before, but most people get the teaching on the book of life wrong.

Everybody’s name is in the book of life from the get-go. And if you die as an unbeliever, at death your name is stricken from the book. But if you become a believer, the promise is made in Revelation 3.5, I will not blot out your name out of the book of life. So we know that it’s believers whose names then become permanently in the book and God makes the promise that he’ll never blot them out for the believer. But if you’re an unbeliever, your name is there.

And all you have to do is put your trust in Christ and then God will promise it will never come out. But if you die, not trusting Christ as your Savior, your name is going to be blotted out of the book. One of the most interesting passages I think is back in Exodus 32, Israel had really sinned a great sin against the Lord. Moses being a wonderful picture of Christ and an intercessor and wanting to make sure the people were saved offers to give up his salvation so that the children of Israel would be spared.

And you know in this wonderful chapter he asked the Lord to blot out his name out of the book of life. Well, let me just take a look at it with you. It’s in Exodus 32 and it says here, as Moses has a dialogue with the Lord, and Moses returned under the Lord in verse 31 and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou won’t forgive their sin, and it doesn’t tell us what he said thereafter after that, or sister, a blank, but it says, and if not, if not, what me?

I pray the out of my book, which thou hast written. So Moses knew his name was in the book, but he was saying, if you could only bought my name out so that they could be saved, he was willing to do that. But guess what the Lord said? The Lord said in verse 33, and the Lord said into Moses, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. So it’s the one that sins against him.

Now what is that sin? The unpardonable sin is in John 3 18, so clearly spelled out. He that believeth on Christ, John 3 18, the Bible says is not condemned. Then it goes on to say, but he to believe it’s not, he to believe it’s not on Christ, is condemned already. Why? It says because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. So the only unpardonable sin is that of rejection of Christ. And it is that sin.

If you die in unbelief, never having trusted Christ a Savior, the Bible says you will die in a condemned state. You will go to hell. that commit that sin whose names will be blown it out. But the believer can never have his name blown it out. God says basically to Moses, I’m not gonna bought your name out. All believers will have their name in there forever. Isn’t that great? You know a lot of times our hymns are where we get our doctrine and the hymn seemed to imply that when you trust Christ then your name is written down in heaven.

That’s not true. You know when Jesus died, He died to pay for the sins of the whole world. John 3 16 says for God’s love the world. That’s the entire human race. Christ died for every man, woman and child that would ever live from Adam until the last man who has ever born on this planet probably toward the end of the thousand year reign of Christ which is still future. And you know He died to pay for every one of them.

Therefore God put everybody’s name in the book, he intended that everyone would be saved. That’s his will, it’s his desire. 2 Peter 3 tells us that it’s not God’s will that any should perish, but that all should come to the change of mind, repentance to salvation, that God wants everybody to change your mind and realize that there is sinner in need of a Savior and trust Christ in order to be saved. And so it’s not God’s will that any would be lost.

And so Christ put everybody’s name in the book. And if you die as an unbeliever at death, your name will be stricken because you’ve committed the unpardonable sin. It’s like God said here to Moses, whosoever sinned against me, him while I bought out of my book, and the sin being the sin of rejection of Christ, the only unpardonable sin. But if you become a believer, as Moses was a believer, he’s really saying as we see in in Revelation 3.5, I will not blot out his name out of the book of life.

God is saying, Moses, I’m not going to blot your name out. He says that to you. He says that to me. Hank, I will not blot your name out of the book of life. My name is there forever. Why? Because God makes up promise in Revelation 3.5. I will not blot out his name out of the book of life. But whose names are blot it out? Those that reject Christ. Isn’t that incredible? I think it’s so amazing because I find so many times we’ve been taught wrong in our churches and we’ve never got this thing right.

In my church, I know we were always implied that there was a point in time when your name would be written down in the book, but that’s not true. My name has already been there, but now it’s permanently there because I’ve trusted Christ. Another interesting passage is Psalm 69, and this is a Messianic Psalm. What does that mean? That sounds kind of strange, doesn’t it? But a Messianic Psalm is a Psalm about the Messiah, about Jesus in the Old Testament.

There are a number of Messianic Psalms, and here we have actually what happened on the cross recorded for us in advance a thousand years plus before Jesus ever died on the cross. It says in verse 21 of Psalm 69, they gave me also gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Well, I was talking about what happened on the cross. But they gave him vinegar and gall and that was on the cross when he was dying.

He says here about those who rejected him, let their table become a snare before them, and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. You know, the gospel is too fold, isn’t it? It’s for our welfare that Christ died, that we would be saved. But if you reject it, it becomes a trap and a snare, and you wind up in hell. If you reject Christ, the unpardonals sin being not a rejection of Christ. Let me read that again.

Here he’s talking about being on the cross and about those who had put him there on the cross and he says, let their table become a snare before them and that which should have been for their welfare. Let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, but they see not and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out that indignation upon them and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. That eventually my friend takes place in hell upon those that are unbelievers.

But here’s the verse I want you to see. Verse 28 of Psalm 69, it says, Let them be bothered out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous. righteous. So whose names are stricken from the book? Those who reject Christ, it is so clear in Psalm 69. And what Jesus did at the cross for them should have been for their welfare. But what happens? It becomes a trap, a snare, becomes the means of their eternal doom because they commit the impartable sin to reject Jesus as their Savior.

And they will The separated from God forever and ever and ever and the unbeliever at death has his name stricken from the book. But if you become a believer, my friend, your name will never come out of the book of life. Jesus said in Revelation 3, 5, by the way, these are His words, I will not blot your name out of the book of life. Isn’t that great to know? If you’re a believer, if you’ve trusted Christ as your only hope of heaven, your name is never going to come out of the book.

I’m Dr. Englund, sir. We’re going to go to those phone lines and we’re looking forward to hearing from you. We have Sandra who’s been waiting so patiently and she’s from Tampa and Sandra, welcome to Bible on your own year. Hi, good morning. Dr. Hank, I listen to you show always and this is not my first time calling. But I had a concern last week somebody called and they were talking about the kind of people about the Catholic Church, et cetera, et cetera.

But when we say the apostles creed, it says that we believe in one church to holy Catholic Church for the remission of sins and forgiveness of sins. And why do we have to say the Catholic Church? Why is that always there? Catholic Church is not the only church. Well, you’re absolutely right. And the word Catholic needs to be defined. It means universal, and we sometimes think of it in terms of the Roman Catholic Church, but there’s also the Eastern Catholic Church, the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity as it’s split after the Church had been headed up in Constantinople, named after Constantine.

Now it’s modern day Istanbul. But the church split into the eastern and western branches and there was the Roman Catholic Church and then there was the eastern Catholic Church. But biblically it’s not really wrong because there is one universal church but it’s not a denomination. It’s not headquartered in any city here on the planet earth. It’s actually the body of Christ comprised of every believer, no matter where they live, no matter what church they attend, if they have trusted Jesus Christ, as their only hope of reaching heaven, may become a member of the One True Church, and were placed into that church by the Holy Spirit at the moment we believe.

And we become members of the One True Church, but it’s not the Roman Catholic Church, that’s for sure. The Pope made an announcement just a few months back here that the Roman Catholic Church was the one true church that all other churches were defective and that they really couldn’t really therefore function with God’s blessing because they didn’t have the apostolic succession and all this stuff. But that’s not true. The one true church is a living organism comprised of all believers from Pentecostal Rapture.

But it’s unfortunate that we think in terms of Catholic being the Roman Catholic Church, which is not true. They try to claim they are the one universal church that’s not true, but the one universal church is comprised of every believer, whether you be Baptist or Methodist or whatever you are. If you’ve trusted Christ, you will definitely be a, you are a member of that church who will go to heaven. Well, wait, somebody has to replace that word. It’s universal.

I think you are. Catholics think that they’re the only church. I know they don’t. They’re the only two church. And that is so wrong. And Jesus did say that he has a flock in every church and his flock knows his voice. I agree with Sandra and you’re absolutely right. I don’t like to recite the Apostles Creed because it also says Christ descended into hell and that’s not true. Christ went into the heart of the earth, into paradise for three days and three nights and then took all the believers that were waiting there for their sins to be paid for up to heaven.

Now Paradise is in heaven, but he never went to hell. That’s more like it. Yeah. And yet again, the puzzle is created. There’s so many flaws that we don’t recite in our church. Oh, OK. Thank you, Sandra. Thank you very much for clarifying that for me. You’re very welcome. OK. Sandra, in Tampa, Florida, you’re welcome to call here at 1-800-576-3771. We’d love to hear from you. We have Ishmael, who is listening right by his radio. He’s asking about Luke 11 and about a passage that talks about unclean spirits.

Well unclean spirits are the fallen angels that fell when Satan rebelled against the Lord and led a third of the angels of God in that rebellion. And they are the fallen angels and they are the servants of Satan and they obviously can in dwell unbelievers. And it says here in verse 24 of this chapter in Luke 11 that Ishmael is asking about, when the unclean spirit is going out of a man, he seeketh through dry places seeking rest and findeth none.

these spirit bodies or spirit beings want to have a body to indwell. If someone is indwelled by a demonic spirit and the spirit leaves that body, he looks for a place to reside. Demon possession is real. It tells us here that he says, of I will return into my house, the house being the body of the person that he had in dwalt, when I came out. And when he telleth, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then he take it to himself, seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there.

The last state of that man is worse than the first. What it’s saying here is that if a demon leaves someone, that they can come back and bring more demons with him as they are looking for body to involve. That’s why casting out demons is something that we can do in the power of Christ’s name, but it’s only a temporary measure. If you cast a demon out in the name of Christ and the demon leaves, he might come back with many more demons and the latter state of that person is worse than at the first.

So when you’re dealing with somebody who might be demon possessed, what you need to do is get them saved because then the demons will not come back because the house is occupied and the Holy Spirit takes up residence. Christ takes up residence in that body. The Bible tells us, no you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you which you have of God. That’s 1 Corinthians 6, 19. You may not even be aware of it, but every believer is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit and our bodies become His temple.

There is no demon that ever wants to indwell in the same body that is indwelled by the Holy Spirit. I love 1 John 4-4. It says, Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. In 1 John 4-4 is talking about Christ being in you. He’s greater than Satan who’s in the world and Satan’s demons are fallen angels. And it’s interesting. Anyway, the house is swept and clean once the demon leaves, but only that’s temporary.

In a few cases where I’ve dealt with people with demon possession, I have asked the Lord to remove that demon because while the demon was in them, they couldn’t listen, they couldn’t hear, they were so agitated and were very physically strong, had to be restrained. It was dangerous, really, to those that were around. The person became calm. We were able to talk to them. Once we let them to Christ, the demon never came back. I don’t like these experiences.

I don’t seek for them. But over my many years, I’ve experienced it a number of times. I know that I have to work quickly to explain to them when the demon is gone, how to be saved, And get them saved and then the demon cannot return and will not return. But if you cast the demon out, that’s all you do. You leave them very vulnerable for that demon to come right back to that house that he dwelt in. Thank you Ishmael for that question.

And I hope that is answered for you. Michael in St. Petersburg calls in with this offer of question. He says, the war of Goggin Magog is this before the Rapture. The answer is no. This is Armageddon if you read Ezekiel chapter 38 where you have the story of God and Magog the Russian army coming down against Israel at the end of the tribulation period You find that God gets angry at Russia and he says that My fury it says when you come in the the land of Israel Sayeth the Lord God verse 18 of chapter 38 of Ezekiel my fury shall come up in my face and in my jealousy and my the fire of my wrath have I spoken and it says in that day there will be a great shaking in the land of Israel so that the fowls of the heaven the beasts of the

field know creeping things that creep upon the earth and all men that are upon the face of the earth catch this all men that are upon the face of the earth shall shake at my presence that’s the return of Christ it’s at the presence of the ward of the earth’s shakes and that’s at the end of the the tribulation period. So we’re watching right now everything unfold as it will be Russia becoming now more of a dictatorship and China and the other powers of the world stepping up on the world stage for these events and Russia and Iran linking up which is exactly what Ezekiel 38 verse 5 says and they will come down against Israel.

This is exciting times I believe the world is coming soon. Well we’ve got to go to break. We’ll take a break now and go to the stations. We’ll let the stations that take a break now to have it at this time. We’ll come back and do a second half hour in just a minute. So stay with us. We’ll be right back. A Bibleline will be back in a moment. Give us a call at 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. Alright I’m Dr.

Englund from It’s Great to Be With You. Thanks for tuning in today. Again, we are so thankful for all of you who listen. And we thank you for your nice notes of encouragement for your prayers. We have so many tell us a pray for us and we really believe that and feel the presence of God here as we broadcast knowing that there are people out there who pray. We also of course need your financial support. You, our listening audience are the means by which we are able to be on here because you’re supplying for us to be able to pay the bills.

the voice and you are the partnership behind the scenes that keeps this program on the air. Thank God for every one of you. I’m telling you, it is America we never know from week to week how the Lord will provide. It’s never really the same. And we just are so thrilled by how God has kept us going. We’re on again today. Look at that. And that’s because of you. If you’d like to help Bible on, you can do that by giving a gift by credit card of the phone.

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That’s 1-800-576-3771 call. Our operators will assist you and we hope that you will give us a call and we’ll say thank you in advance. God bless all of you because you’re the ones who keep us up on the air. Again, we’re going to Israel In February we’ll leave February 25th, 2008. We’ll be flying directly from Newark to Tel Aviv nonstop on L.L. The Israeli Airlines very safe and will arrive on Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. in Tel Aviv. And we will have eaten breakfast already on the plane and we’ll jump on our bus and we’ll head north on the Mediterranean coast.

What a beautiful view. We’ll see. The city of Caesarea where Paul was imprisoned. What a wonderful, wonderful archaeological site. And so much happened at Caesarea. This is where Peter came and led Cornelius to Christ. This is where Peter rather Paul was imprisoned for two years and numerous other stories occur around Caesarea. And we’ll also tell you about it later. We are going to do part two right now. Oh, Bibleline and ask Dr. Lindstrom a question? You can. Just pick up your phone and dial 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. Now here again is Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Alright, we’re back from that break and this is Bible. It’s so wonderful to be able to be with you. Thanks again for tuning in and this is the second half hour. We’re coming to you live from Tampa, Florida from our studios right here at the Calvary Community Church where I’m the pastor. And we invite you to drop by. Anytime you can come by during the week and our resource center is open to about 430.

You can also come by on a worship day and guess what? This Sunday we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving in our morning worship service at 1030 and then we’re going to have a great big Thanksgiving celebration dinner that will follow. turkey, turkey, turkey, and ham and all the trimmings, dressing and gravy and it sounds wonderful and it will be and we invite you to come. So if you’re in the area in driving distance, come out and visit us this Sunday. That would be wonderful and we hope that you will.

That’s this Sunday the 18th of November. Come at 10.30, bring your family, your appetite, your Bible and then stay and join us for our wonderful Thanksgiving celebration dinner. We’ll just have a wonderful time of eating and fellowshiping and it’s going to be a wonderful, wonderful day. We hope that you’ll take advantage and come out and see us this Sunday. Also, we’re planning to go to Israel in February of 2008, February 25th on Monday. We’ll leave and we’re going to fly to Newark, New Jersey where we’ll get on L.L.

flight and fly directly nonstop to Tel Aviv. When we get off the plane, it will be seven in the morning. We will be eating our breakfast on the plane and we will immediately start touring and we will head north along the Mediterranean coast. We will do all that we have to Mount Carmel, seeing a lot of sites along the way. Mount Carmel, of course, is where Elijah hung out. We will see where he defeated the Prophet’s Abail. We will see Armageddon and we will wind up in Galilee that first evening where we will stay on a beautiful hotel overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

What a spectacular time we’re going to have. I’ve been 14 times, this will be trip number 15. And if you’ll call and get your name on the list with your phone number or end address, we’ll be glad to get the details to you quickly so you can make your decision. It would be wonderful to have you go with us. And there’s nothing like visiting and seeing with your eyes the very places that the Bible speaks about. Well, call us about the Israel trip.

Also, we want you to know we’re running a few specials in our bookstore. We can’t possibly talk about them all on the radio, but we do have the Zonervan Five Volume Pictorial Bible Dictionary. It runs for about $200. It weighs 18 pounds for all these five volumes. And it’s quite a nice set as a Christmas gift. We’re offering it for $110. And we hope that you will take advantage of that. And so we hope that you will call in and we’ll be glad to get that out to you.

So please take advantage of that, call in and order this over the phone. If you go to our website, it’ll be at a much higher price because this is a special. And we also are offering the Jameson Fossep Brown commentary, excuse me, all the James Fossep Brown commentary, but also we have the Lewis-Barre Shafer Systematic Theology that sells for 180, and we have it at a special price for Christmas for $100 for that eight volume set. it’s condensed into four volumes, beautifully bound, and that’s for the serious student.

It’s really a wonderful series. And lots more. Call and you can find out what are some of the specials. We have, of course, the skill field bibles and all those kind of things. Good to be with you. We are enjoying being with you every day. We’re now going to visit Richmond, Virginia. And we have Miss James in Richmond, and welcome to Bibleline, and you’re on the air. Hello, Dr. Heng. How are you? Good. And may God bless you. You and your program.

Thank you. And thank you so much that it really do help us a lot. Could you please explain chapter Luke verse four? It does that mean unforeseen occurrence. Can I hang with the phone and listen to you? Well, just a little bit Luke is it chapter four or Luke what what chapter chapter chapter chapter I’m sorry chapter 13 verse four. All right, I’m going to take a look and you can hang up and we’ll try to get back. try to answer that on the phone for you.

Okay, thank you. On the radio. That’s Ms. James in Richmond, Virginia, and she’s asking about Luke 13.4. Or those 18 upon which the tower in Silom fell and slew them. Think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem. What happened was a tragic event in those days. It made the headlines, I’m sure, and all the papers I’m teasing. I don’t think they had newspapers, but it would have read, you know, 18 killed, tragic accident, tower falls, and 18 people are dead.

Well, the religious folks here that thought they were just okay thought that they got what they deserved. They said they were sinners above all men. That’s why God brought that tower down on them, I mean, we killed them, but we’re pretty good ourselves. Verse 5, Jesus says, I tell you, no, that’s not the correct answer, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Now the word repent comes from the Greek word meta noia. Meta means change, noia means mind.

And the two together mean a change of mind. And you’ll notice that if you have your pen there, Miss James, look in verse 4, and it It says, think ye, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem, mark the two words, think ye. Then draw a line down to the word repent in verse 5. Their thinking was wrong. Their thinking was wrong. And Christ is telling him to change their mind because he says, unless you recognize that you’re also a sinner and need of a Savior.

You may miss the Savior and not trust Christ and wind up in hell. So Christ is talking about people who are self-righteous thinking that they are okay, while others who are killed and accidents like this are deserving of it because they are terrible sinners and Jesus says you need to change your mind. Your thinking is wrong. I tell you, except you change your mind, that’s what the Greek word for repent means, you shall all likewise perish. You’re going to perish in the same way into an eternity without Christ in hell unless you change your mind and realize you have a need for a Savior and trust Jesus as your Savior.

Good question and I hope that I answered it for you. This is a popular passage used by most preachers who preach repent and swan. They’ll stand up and wave their arm and point their finger and say, except you repent! You’re all likewise perish. They don’t tell you that it means a change of mind. They will say it means a turn from your sin. So they wave their hand and shout and point their finger at you and say, unless you turn from your sin, you’ll perish.

That’s not what it means. And that’s what it’s saying. If you notice the context here, it’s talking about how their thinking was wrong and that they thought they were okay, but the ones that were killed were not okay. And Christ says, you need to realize you’re not okay either. you need to change your mind or you will perish just like they did, not necessarily with a power falling on your head, but you’ll perish without Christ, which is significant and then you’ll go to help.

All right, we have Noel in St. Petersburg calls in with this offer question. Jesus said to Peter, see that your faith fail not, lest I’ll be converted. I think that’s not a good quote there. I’m going to quote the real verse for you. What if my faith fails? This is not talking here about salvation at all. Here is Peter on the night of the betrayal. You find this over in Luke’s Gospel. This seems to be Luke day because we are continually turning to the Gospel of Luke today.

And if you’ll look with me at Luke chapter 22 in verse 32 of Luke 22, here, well I’ll back up a verse here, Christ is telling Peter that he was going to deny him three times before the Cockwood Crow in the morning. the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as weak. But I have prayed for thee, that I have prayed for thee. Now, what he’s talking about here is faith in the Christian life.

You know, we’re not only saved by faith, but we live the Christian life by faith. And what does that mean? The word faith means trust. We trust that Christ died, paid our sin, dead and full, was buried, rose again from the dead to be saved. Then in the Christian life, we trust that there is a day of reckoning when we’re going to give it a count for what we’ve done since we’ve been saved. And so, we’re going to give it a count for what we’ve been saved.

and that we believe that so that we’re motivated to serve the Lord, realizing that we’re gonna earn rewards if we do and we’ll suffer loss of reward if we don’t and that we need to buy faith trust what God has said about what’s important in our life and choose to live in accordance with God’s Word. So it’s our faith here. Now, obviously, Peter, here, obviously, his faith in a sense, failed because he didn’t trust God to take care of him.

He was afraid for his own life. And so we find here that in verse 33, notice Peter boasts about his strength and he says, Lord, I’m ready to go with him both in the prison and the death. We need to be careful that we don’t boast like that because obviously Peter, I think, truly believe that, but he was wrong. We need to recognize our dependence upon the Lord, and he said, I tell thee, Peter, that cock shall not crow the state before thou hast thrice, deny that you even know me.

So talk about a failure here. Now that doesn’t mean that Peter was lost, or that Peter was in danger of losing a salvation, but Peter, in his Christian walk, obviously severely failed in his trust that God would take care of him. So this is what it’s talking about Noel, your faith failing has to do with your Christian walk. Once you trust Christ, that’s an act of faith and it’s not a process, it’s not a continuance of faith. You know, people say, keep faith, keep holding on.

Well, that’s not what the Bible teaches at all. We’re not holding on and we’re not keeping faith in order to be saved. happened at the cross fully paid our sin that and when we receive that salvation by an act of faith at an instant of time, we receive eternal life at that moment and possess it forever thereafter. So eternal life is certainly not in question. So you’re saying here in your question, what if my faith fails or if I decide to stop my faith?

It’s too bad, so sad if you’re a believer you’re going to go to heaven whether you like it or not. But you will obviously become barren and unfruitful. Peter talks about that and he talks about how you need to keep your faith alive in that you continually trust the Lord every day to guide your steps and direct your path and as you do that then you will not be without fruit and barren as the Bible says that some will be.

Let me turn to that passage in Peter as well, which is a great passage which describes exactly what happens if a believer is not careful. And guess who’s telling us about this? You’re right. It’s Peter. He experienced what this was like. And so he’s telling us here how that we need to keep our faith alive here. It says here, add to your faith, birth you, and it lists seven ingredients here to the recipe to keep your faith vibrant as a Christian.

In the 2nd Peter chapter 1, he, the lack of these things, is blind and cannot see a far off and have forgotten that he was saved or purged from his old sins. But he’s talking here about us not having that happen to us, but in verse 11, having an abundant entrance when we enter into heaven. wants to reward you, he wants to to to trumpets and praise you for serving him and living for him. And if you’re faith, if you stop living for Christ, you’ll still go to heaven.

But you’re going to be according to this passage here, blind spiritually. You won’t be able to see very far spiritually. And you’ll have a zero entrance when you go to heaven. You You won’t have any fanfare, you’ll have no rewards, and you’ll be ashamed. And you’ll shed tears. But you’ll never be lost. No, I hope you get the difference between Colossians as a good verse too. I want to just throw this into the mix here while we’re talking about it.

Colossians talks about… How that we need to continue in the same vein that we were when we got saved. It says in verse 6 of chapter 2 of Colossians, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus, our Lord, how did you receive Him? By faith. You trusted Christ to be saved. And so it says, as you have received, therefore the Lord Jesus Christ, so walk ye in Him. So we walk in the Christian life, which is not the same as salvation, but we still do that in faith.

We trust God. Just as we trusted that Christ died for us and purchased our salvation at the cross, our Christian life is also one of faith where we trust God. Yeah, this is important. This is significant. This is something that I need to do. This is something that ought to be compelling to me and that we present our bodies a living sacrifice believing that that’s what God would have us to do and live each day faithfully for him. Noel, thank you for that call.

I hope it helps and we’ll try to, well, give us a call if we didn’t get an answer right for you. We now have JT. By the way, if you want to call in, we’ve still got some lines open for a live caller, 1-800-576-3771. 1-800-576-3771. Give us a call. We’d love to hear from you. We have a number of off-hears. We’re going to try to tackle these right now. Well, some of them anyway. JT in Virginia calls him, leaves this off for a question.

He says, is it true that Satan has open access to heaven at this time and is always there accusing the brethren instead of staying on earth with his demons? Well there’s some confusion here. He does have access in the same way that you and I do. I have access right to the very throne of God, according to Hebrews chapter 10, as a believer. I can approach the living God sitting upon his throne in heaven. The Bible says that we ought to have boldness to do that as believers.

Hebrews 1019. Because Christ has opened the door of communication between us and Him. As believers we are His sons and we can have direct access and we can talk to the Lord anytime we want day or night 24-7. That’s really great news. Satan does not leave the earth, he doesn’t travel back and forth to heaven to accuse us. He accuses us from here. And so he is the great accuser and you can read about that in Revelation 12 in verse 9 where it talks about Satan the accuser has of course in the future.

The middle of the tribulation will be cast down onto the earth and loose his control over the airspace around the planet. He accuses believers in verse 9 and 10 of jeremulation 12 day and night and he doesn’t do it by traveling to heaven. He does it from right here on the planet earth. So to say he has access in the sense that he goes to heaven, no, he has access as he can talk to God. But we have that same privilege as believers.

We can talk to the Lord too. So it’s not where he’s physically removing himself from the planet leaving his demons behind. here on the planet and he is the God of this world. We have a call now that came in from Light Source and our TV programs are on Light Source and we’ll be probably putting a link to our site so you can get to that if you’d like to see it. But our TV programs are on Light Source.com and this question comes in from that particular way of getting to us.

Mr. Watcher viewer leaves us off her question. Second Timothy says a deacon has to be the husband of one wife. Please give your opinion whether man can serve as a deacon that has been married more than once. And I believe that husband of one wife means that. So I think for deacons and elders that they are to be exactly that. And some of course say one at a time, but I don’t know that you can read that into that.

So thank you for the question and that’s the answer I believe is the correct one. Off here, Jackie, in Richmond, Virginia says, I am a messianic Jew and I’m listening today. I was recently told by a pastor that as a Jew I cannot receive salvation until the tribulation, hundred forty thousand because we have turned our back on god please clarify obviously your pastor is uh… wrong or whoever told you that that has to his wrong just have been getting saved all along it petitos those were three thousand jews got saved and then paul talks about leading jews to christ if you read the book of acts you have jewish people getting saved and gentiles getting saved throughout the book And so that is certainly an incorrect statement.

And Paul tells us in Romans chapter 10, my brother, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. And then he tells that the Lord is rich in chapter 10 of Romans to all Jews and Gentiles. And that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10, 13. And he’s talking about Jews, he’s talking about Gentiles. And his desire is that many Jews would come to know Christ because Paul was Jewish and had a special heart for his Jewish brother.

Jackie, I hope that helps. I’m sorry you’re getting this information like that, but Jewish people can and do get saved all the time. I have a number of Jewish members in my church that have received Jesus as their Messiah, as their Savior, and they’re definitely saved. I’ve led many, many Jewish people to Christ over the years and not only here but in Israel. I had a great experience at the Sea of Galilee. We were there and we had some spare time and I ran across about 20 soldiers that were just hanging out.

They didn’t have anything significant to do. One of them had a guitar and I said to him, may I try your guitar? And he said, sure. And I strummed a little bit and he said, can you sing for us? I said, well, I sure can and invite you to sing along with me. But I said, all I know is Christian songs. He said, that’s okay. That’s all right. Apparently he couldn’t play the guitar and they were really open. So I began to sing courses like, do Lord, do Lord remember me and other great Christian course.

And I had them all singing along with me and we were having a ball Then I just set the guitar down after about 15 minutes or so and shared my testimony And you know we had a bunch of those Jewish soldiers Trust Jesus as their Savior that night a lot of them came over to my hotel to talk to me further And we had a great time. Wow. How wonderful that was what a great experience and God used the guitar as a opened door there.

I grabbed that guitar and we began to sing and they were singing Christian courses and just having a ball. We had a lot of fun and they were all, you know, gun soldiers in their early twenties, all carrying machine guns and were packing a lot of power. But, you know, they were open to the gospel. And I find that Jewish people in Israel are much more open than American Jews. Here it’s a tough road. It takes a while to break the barriers down and lead them to Christ.

But in Israel, they seem to be so open. They’re ready for somebody to connect the dots. And I have every trip been so successful with Jewish people. They’re open to the gospel in Israel. So pray for the peace of Jerusalem and pray for the the salvation of Jewish people there and Jackie we’re so grateful that you called in. We have a call from Longboat Key Florida. We have Mick on the line and Mick welcome to Bibleline you’re on there.

Well God bless you Dr. Hank. Thank you. We just enjoy your ministry sir. We just want to tell you how much you helped not only us but a lot of people that we recommend listen to this radio program. Oh great. Concerning eternal life and our salvation, I think a lot of times when we’re talking to these people, what I like to ask is if they think God is in favor of abortion or if he’s in favor of divorce because I certainly know as a child of God that he would not aboard me and that now that I’ve been invited to the wedding feast that I’m certainly going to be there with Jesus one day but I wanted to make that comment and then I wanted to ask you concerning 1 Corinthians 13 I believe it’s 13 8 yes looking through a glass darkly but then we’ll see face-to-face am

I correct there on that is great okay couldn’t we interpret that as face-to-face as opposed to the Bible being our now being face to face. Wouldn’t that actually be with Jesus? Well ultimately so but you know you can begin early on in Corinthians and it says if we take in the Word of God as the Holy Spirit illuminates our understanding that we actually have the mind of Christ and here we actually are really seeing Him face to face and that we’re getting clearly what he’s saying.

He was one of the first of the New Testament letters and as the New Testament record was completed, then we have the full revelation of God concerning Christ and about our duties and purposes and the direction we take as Christians. really talking about scripture but ultimately we will seem face to face for sure. Yes, and one last thing concerning the different translations. I’m probably, you talk I think you’ve said as many as 60% of the pastors have not read the complete Bible.

That’s incredible. I’m stunned but yet having traveled to many of the churches in Bradenton area, I know that to be a fact. But what I’d like to say is we sometimes talk with a woman out on Holmes Beach and I preach the blood of Jesus Christ, the cross. And I try to stay with the simplicity of Christ so when I’m talking to someone. And many times I find and I certainly love your teachings on the different Bibles. I’m going to have to cut you off because we’re at the time we’re going to have to end the program.

And we sure do thank you for calling and Mike, I hope you’ll call back and we’ll catch up with you tomorrow on this because we are at the very close. Keep listening every day and go to the Internet and catch this program again and others. And of course, keep looking up. Jesus is coming. Give us a call. We’d love to hear from you here at Bible on headquarters. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a presentation of Bibleline Ministries of Tampa, Florida.

Your donation to Bibleline makes it possible for this ministry to continue in your area. Bibleline’s address is 40-8-11-George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Or visit Bibleline Online at BibleLineMinistries.com. Be sure to tune in for another edition of Bibleline from Calvary Community Church of Tampa, Florida. Alright, I’m not carrying a wincer, but we had fun being with you today again here on Bibleline and look forward to being with you throughout the rest of the week. I hope you’ll join me every day and tell your friends about the program as well.

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