The Plain Truth is so Happy That You Have Been Enjoying Bob’s Broadcasts.
2000 years ago, a newscaster that we know of as Jesus Christ warned us about false Christianity. The warning was not against the devil but against false Christianity…about people who come in His name to deceive many.
Hi, this is Bob Barney with another biblical misconception that I think most Christians hold dear to and believe in.
Do you have an immortal soul?
We kind of talked about this on another short episode specifically about what happens to you when you die. So, do you have an immortal soul? Does the Bible say you have an immortal soul?
You know, there is a quote in the Bible in Matthew 10:28 where Jesus says, “do not fear the one that can kill your body but not your soul in a hellfire, but rather, fear he who can kill both body and soul in hell”. Souls can be destroyed. Your immortal soul can be destroyed, and Jesus even says so.
Do you even have an immortal soul yet?
That’s the next question, because the Bible is quite clear that you do not.
Now, what is the number one phrase from the Bible that everyone sees posted everywhere? You cannot watch a football game…wow, I haven’t watched a football game in five years, but when I was watching football, you cannot watch a football game without seeing John 3:16 being held up somewhere in the stadiums. I guess maybe the NFL doesn’t allow Christian talk anymore but what does John 3:16 even say? It is a scripture that everybody likes to quote or put on a poster…well, this is what it says, God so loved the world that he gave His only son, in the King James Version it says, begotten son, anyone who believes in Him will not perish but will instead gain eternal life.
Does that sound, in that phrase, does that sound like you have eternal life already? Does it sound like you have an immortal soul? Or does it sound like you have to do something?
Well, let’s go over to Matthew, and there was this rich man who wanted to know how he could gain salvation. This is the little conversation being had, it’s Matthew chapter 19, and the title in The Plain Truths Bible is, What Must We Do to Gain Immortality? Then a man came to Jesus and said, Teacher, what good deed, or what good works, should I do to gain eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why call me good? No one is good but God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. Now we have two things that were just said there that people just probably just glossed over when I even read it. But what does it say? If you want to gain immortality, keep the commandments. If implies you don’t have it. If implies there’s something that can stop it, right? If you win the lottery, you’re going to get rich, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get rich because you have to win the lottery. He’s saying, if you want to enter into immortal life, keep the commandments. What’s the second part of this that everybody wants to gloss over? It says to keep the commandments. It didn’t say anything to have faith in me and you’re saved or that all you have to do is believe on me and you’re saved. No, he said, keep the commandments.
And the guy goes, which ones? Because he wants to know if he has to follow them all. And Jesus said, you shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not offer false testimony. Honor your father and your mother and love your neighbor as yourself. People who do not want to follow the Sabbath day says, you notice you didn’t quote honor the Sabbath, but He also didn’t say, have no other gods before me, have no idols, worship only me. He left off the first four commandments. He only read the commandments of how you should act to other people, starting with your father and your mother. That’s what He did. But you notice He said you had to follow the commandments to have immortal life. That’s Jesus. That’s not Paul. That’s not John. That’s not James. That’s not somebody else in the Bible talking. This is Jesus’ words in red letters in your Bible, that’s telling you if you want to enter into a mortal life, you must keep the commandments.
The answer next is to the question of which commandments? All of them, including the Sabbath day.
I know so many people want to believe the Sabbath day was somehow changed into Sunday, but you will not find that in the Bible. You just simply won’t. Modern day Christianity is just full of biblical misconceptions. That is because people really don’t read the Bible for themselves. They listen to some biblical scholar or their minister or pastor or priest, whatever we want to call them, and we listen to what they say is in the Bible and we believe them. Just one more example of Jesus about what we’re supposed to do to have eternal life and what if we’re supposed to follow the commandments or not.
Another example in Matthew 22, the Pharisees ask him, Teacher, what is the greatest commandment of the law? Which one is better than the rest? And Jesus said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. Love God. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Then he follows that up with these words, the entire law and prophets, that’s the Old Testament right there, which depends on these two commandments. What He’s saying is if you follow those two commandments which He just told you, you have to follow all of the law of the prophets, and the law found in the Torah. Because those two commandments sum up all the other laws that God gave to mankind to follow, which are the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments are in force.
Another biblical misconception is that I guess, people believe that their churches don’t have to follow the Ten Commandments, especially the Sabbath one. Only courts and schools have to have them posted. I always get a laugh about that when I hear that. But the plain truth is this, that in order to gain immortality, you must obey the law, and you must obey and believe in Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead and is God again today. The same Jesus who was Lord of the Old Testament is still alive today. He was resurrected from the dead. He’s the firstborn of the dead.
If you are a Christian, you will be the next born of the dead at His coming, as we mentioned in an earlier episode.
The fact is that there are many biblical misconceptions, and I’m going to get into a few more on this 7:11 AM program in the next few months. This is Bob Barney with The Plain Truth today, saying thank you for listening, appreciate you, bye-bye.