Radio Broadcast Wednesday 06/21/2023

 

Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the gospel of John. Available for download the complete series on the Book of John. Realize why Christ, Himself, is REAL LIFE and how He personally offers hope in daily living that you may:

• Discover an abundant and meaningful life as a Christian.
• Overcome fear with His assurance that you have His eternal life.
• Experience joy during adversity.
• Apply God’s wisdom in decision making, no matter how big or small.
• Experience freedom as you walk by faith in His love and acceptance. 

 

Purchase Online at Shop.BobGeorge.net

 

Announcer 0:12
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.

Bob George 0:29
You’ve got to die to run for sheriff. When I came to Christ, I had I own my own business. I had my own wholesale firm in California. I had employees. And I had a lot of customers, most of them in Beverly Hills who were Jewish. And I became a Christian. Did that change anything? Yeah, it changed a lot. I had to make up my mind. Do I want to be popular? Or do I want to be a child of God? And I had to die to that desire for acceptance, realizing that I necessarily am not going to be accepted. Now I could have been like this buddy of mine, who was a wholesale salesman, he had a good deal, he had a little thick little necklace he put around his neck. And on one side of it was a star David, and the other side was a cross. So when he called on a customer, if they were Jewish, he just flipped it over the star David and when a Gentile flipped over the cross. So he was headed, he’s bad he was going either way. You know, folks tell you the truth on this, that, in my particular case, with the people who heard that I had become a Christian, they respected me more than their own people many times. And I had no problem at all working with people who were the Jewish faith or anything else, as a child of God. I was more respected than it was before. And so the issue is, but you have to die to that you’ve got to die to the worry that if I say something, I’m not going to be accepted, you gotta die to that and say, If God is leading me to say something about the Lord Jesus Christ, and I’m gonna say something about the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he’s saying that, a seed, if God has made you to seed, don’t remain alone, don’t sit there and hold on to it. It’s like he talked about to keep it under a basket. Let your light shine. That’s what he’s saying. Let your light shine where you are. And so, if the seed dies, if you die, to having to hold on to self acceptance, then it says, you’re going to lose your life. And it says, A man who loves his life will lose it while the man who hates his life in this world, we’ll keep it for eternal life. And again, folks, I don’t think I used to wonder about that hating his life in this world. I don’t know for many years, I said, I don’t particularly hate my life in this world. But I’ll tell you guys, that was from my sphere of influence. In other words, saying from where I live, everything’s kind of okay, you know, you got a nice wife, you got nice kid, you got a nice business, you got all that kind of stuff. Not much to hate. But guys put that into perspective of the overall world in which we live today. Put that into perspective of the wars and the atrocities. And the Saddam Hussein’s killing people and poisoning people and Hitler and all of the things that you see going on in the world today, just to this day, all over the place. And now you’re actually going to be able to say that you love the world, you may be getting all right, in your own sphere of influence, but I’m talking about in light of the whole world. It’s saying, Is it really anything to love? Is there any really anything to love when you when you think about it?

And so we come down to a point of saying, you know, this is temporal, this world that we live in is temporal. At the very most, its temporal. I had a young man that my son was talking to, and he was talking about the fact he had become a millionaire by the time he is 30 years of age. And it was during the time of Johnny Carson died, and he’s searching right now. And one of the things he said was, you know, what good was all of this? What good is he’s gone? Life is meaningless. And that’s really true. There’s no meaning to life. There’s no purpose to life. I had that in my own life before coming to Christ have cried out to God, God, there’s got to be more to life than what I’m experiencing. There’s no meaning to this life. Get up every day and work your tail off in order to make some money to go to bed to get up the next day and work your tail off, make some more money in order to go to bed and get up the next day and work your tail off to make some more money in order to pass it on to your kids who then get up the next day and work their tail off, go to bed get up the next day, there’s got to be more to life than this. And my prayer was Lord Jesus, if there’s any purpose to this life at all, you’re gonna have to show it to him because I haven’t found it. I can’t find it. 36 years I’ve been looking, never find anything. And thank God, that I was led to a man who was bold enough to reach out to me with the good news of Christ Jesus, he wasn’t embarrassed. He too, had been a businessman. He too had devoted his whole life to Christ, and was willing to tell me about Jesus always be grateful to Dr. Bill Bright, the founder and president of Campus Crusade who loved me enough to tell me about Jesus.

And so he says, Whoever serves me must follow me. Now again. Jesus was still on this earth, wasn’t he? He still had his ministry on this earth. And he said must follow me. Where did he say we are to follow him to? Do we follow Christ today? Where did he go? Where was he going? To the cross. That’s what he’s saying, don’t stop, before you get to the cross. There are many people who follow Jesus before he got to the cross. And when he when, even when he was, Peter almost got to that point of denying him because he was being beaten half to death. He said, You’re gonna have to follow me to where I’m going. Now, today, if you’re born again, you’re indwelt by Jesus, aren’t you? And so you don’t follow someone that lives in you, you’re led by that person that lives in you, right? But you have got to follow him first to where he was going. And he was going to the cross and to the resurrection. And so he’s saying, Whoever serves me must follow me. And where I am, my servant will also be. He’s given us great assurance there. And another place that absent from the body present with the Lord. That’s why there really is no fear in death for a Christian, because we know something, that we just go into another realm. And it’s around the doesn’t have all of the stuff that we see. And I think we should enjoy the things that we have here on this earth, I certainly enjoy the beauty of nature. Enjoy the animal kingdom, enjoy most of the human kingdom. We have our ability to enjoy those things. But guys, this compared to what heaven is going to be we can’t even enter into it. You say what we try to proceed what heaven is like and pearly gates and all that kind of stuff. It’d be like talking to a baby in his mother’s womb. Say boy little baby, you can’t wait, you get out of there. Because man had beautiful skies and all that stuff a little baby and say thanks. But just the same with you, I’m gonna stay where I am. I’m comfortable here. And we’re the same way we can’t perceive what it’s like in heaven, but we do know it’s there. And we do know that when we die, we’re going to be absent from the body and immediately present with the Lord.

So Jesus says where I am, my servants will be also. And my Father will honor the one who serves me. But he said, now my heart is troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason that I came to this hour. So Father, glorify Your name. Now you remember, this is a statement that was made prior to his arrest. Do you remember when he was saying, Father, if it’s possible, take this cup from me. Remember that? And here He’s saying, Father, save me from this hour? Shall I say, Father, save me from this hour? No. So when Jesus was saying, to save me from what I have come to do, he’s saying no way in the world. That’s why I came here. So what in the world was this thing, Father, if there’s any way to take this cup from me, take it? I’ll tell you what it means. I think what the Lord Jesus Christ was saying, in his agony is, Lord if there is any other way to save humanity, except from me having to go to a cross and take upon myself the sins of the entire world, they are He who knew no sin, became sin, he literally was so full of our sin that he says he became sin, so that in him, we could become the righteousness of God. And he said, if there’s any way in the world, that I can save these people apart from my having to become sin, do it. However, it’s not my will, but yours be done.

I was teaching a Sunday school class one time of some youth, young people and one of the kids in there was saying, I just don’t understand how anybody could be so full of agony and everything that they would sweat as it were a great drops of blood? And a little girl asked that question, oh, teenager, I said, let me let me ask you a question. I said, Do you think that if you were sentenced to die, I’m saying the electric chair with an injection of some kind, do you think you’d sweat as it were great drops of blood? Said no, there’s there’s been lesser men then Jesus that have gone to their death and never done that. I said, let me ask you another question. What have you had to go out tomorrow and you knew that you were going to go out in a bar and be in a field and stripped of all your clothes and be molested and raped by 200 or 300 guys? You think you could sweat great drops of blood? Yeah, yeah. See that’s what Jesus did, it wasn’t death that bothered Jesus. It was taking upon himself all of the vile sin of the entire world, all of the things that you and I have ever done or thought in our lives, and one of us alone would be enough to put Him to a cross and take all of that upon himself. And that’s what he was agonizing over. But he said, should I say, save me from this hour? No, God saved me. He couldn’t save you. Because our salvation is tied up only in one man, and that’s Christ Jesus. So if God saved him, we wouldn’t be saved today. But it’s for this very hour. The reason I came to this hour is to bring salvation for mankind. So Father, glorify Your name, make, make this plan now known.

You see a plan proclaimed is proclaimed, but a plan that is proclaimed and then demonstrated, you’ve made the plan known, haven’t you? And so it’s a kind of putting the action into the words. It says, a voice from heaven came out and said, I have glorified it. I’ve glorified my name, and I’ll glorify it again. And the crowd was there and heard it said and heard it said it had thundered. Others said an angel had spoken to him. And Jesus said, this voice was for your benefit, not mine. I didn’t, I didn’t need to hear that you did. But now is the time for judgment on this world. Now the prince of the world will be driven out. Now guys, you’re dealing with the prince of the world. And who is that? That’s Jesus, no wait. I’ve heard that of Satan. But it’s Jesus who was driven out of the world? Who was driven out of here?Jesus, right. If you can mark these Isaiah 9:6 are Acts 5:31. You will see that Jesus is identified as the prince.

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Bob George 13:44
And so it says now’s the time for judgment on this world. I believe that ought to be a period. Now the prince of this world will be driven out but I don’t think that should be a period but a comma. And again, guys, let me tell you, there is nothing in Aaron about punctuation in the Bible, the Greek language and it was written and had no periods it had no nothing. It just constant words, we put the periods and the commas in, not the writers of the New Testament. So the prince of this world will be driven out, now of Jesus, who was driven out of this world? What is the condition? Who is the church today? Come on guys. Who’s the church today? Born again believers, are we together, the Spirit of God came to live within you and then baptized or placed you into the body of Christ, right. That’s the church is the body of Jesus, it isn’t our body, it’s his body. Now that church is in mystery form. Where’s our King? This is the kingdom. Where’s our king? He’s in exile. How come he was driven out who drove him who drove him out? He came into his own his own received Him not, but to as many as received him to what? He gave the right to become a child of God. We crucified him. That’s why he’s saying that the prince of this world would be driven out. But I, when I’m lifted up from the earth, we’ll draw all men to myself. So I’m going to be, I’m going to die. But I’m going to be raised. I’m in this world, I’m going to be killed by the people of this world, but I’m going to be raised and when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself. And so it says, We elevate the resurrected Christ, is where we draw all men unto Christ. Not just He died for us, but that he was raised for us, he’d be lifted up, that’s resurrection guys. The dynamic of the Christian life is the resurrection. That’s why Paul said without the resurrection were to be pitied of all people, and are still in our sins knowing full well that a cross had occurred.

He said this to show the kind of death he was gonna die. The crowd spoke up. We’ve heard from the law that the Christ will remain forever. And you’re claiming to be the Christ, and you’re but you’re claiming you’re gonna die. So how can you say The Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man, still not understanding. And Jesus told them, you’re gonna have the light just a little longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark, does not know where he’s going. Put your trust in the light, while you have it. So that you may become sons of light, sons of the living God, representatives of the light of the world, Christ Jesus. And when he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.

John 12:37, even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, we’re gonna go to that in a moment. Now, folks, is that amazing or not? And you know, guys, we have that today. You can have people. And every person that is sitting in this world, in this world in this room today, who has been born again of the Spirit has a testimony, don’t you? And what is your testimony? Your testimony is that you went through life for so many years. And you were lost, bouncing prayers off the ceiling. nothing made sense. Had no meaning had no purpose to life, just existing. And one day, somebody came and told me about Jesus. And I put my faith in what I was told, I put my faith in the fact that God said I was a sinner. And God also said that Jesus came to die for the forgiveness of that sin. And I believed that, and I put my faith in that. He said, I was dead spiritually. And Jesus was raised from the dead in order to raise me from the dead spiritually. And I understood that and I, I believe that. I put my faith in that. And I was born again, something happened. All of a sudden, my mind was different. I started thinking differently, my attitudes toward things were totally different. Everything began to change. And I’ve, although they may not became perfect overnight, it just meant that everything was new. The way I thought, my attitudes toward life were totally changed. And there’s no explanation for it. One moment, I was in the bar with my buddies, and the next day, I had no business in a bar with my buddies. Nobody told me not to go I just didn’t belong there anymore. One day is the last person your language is that of the last person came to Christ your language started clear, that doesn’t mean you can’t slip when someone pulls in front of you on the freeway. But your language cleared up. I used to want to go to the bars now want to go home? My life changed. Now how do you explain that guys? All of a sudden you have some kind of a psychological thing, there isn’t anything psychological about it to me. All I did was pray a prayer to the God that I could have prayed at any time in my life, to come into my heart and to make me into the kind of person that he wanted me to be. And if Jesus was not alive, that would not have occurred.

I say to people sometimes what do you have to lose? If Jesus isn’t there? If this is a big farce that I’m telling you about the worst thing that’s gonna happen to us, you’re gonna pray to air. Now, just how big of a deal is that a friend air? But on the other hand, if Jesus is true, and Jesus is alive, your whole life is gonna change. And when you die, you’re gonna go to heaven according to the Word of God, what kind of a gamble is that? Guys, you gotta be a net wit, not to understand it. It’s either praying to air getting saved. If Christ Jesus is who he claimed to be, God, and He said to you and me that you’re lost, then brother, I’m lost if he’s God. If he isn’t God, who cares and I’m lost? But do you realize that not only is the testimony about Jesus as the what he came in claiming himself to be God, that if that’s not true, then he was either an imposter or a liar, or a maniac. Or he was God. Because any man claiming himself to be God is either a Zulu, or he’s an imposter, or he’s God. And every one of those apostles that got Paul flogged, he got flogged so many times, it’s unbelievable, only taken one for me, got flogged, died, everyone of them a martyr’s death, Peter hung upside down. Now, they don’t do that for a lie, folks, you don’t do that for a little game, you’re playing with people. They did it because they knew that Christ was raised from the dead and that he was alive living in them. And on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to live and indwell believers, that was an experience that they cannot deny. So to deny that is to call all of them liars, to call Jesus a liar, to call all of the apostles a liar, and folks to call every single person for 2000 and some years who have claimed to be born again to the spirit, including you in this room are a bunch of pack of liars. Or else you’re deceived, you got a mental problem, or else you’ve had an encounter with Christ Jesus, you’re gonna have to make your choice about me and you, I’m either a mental problem, and that probably could be a little bit easy to look into, or total imposter. Or you’ve had an encounter with Christ. And my life changed. To go from a businessman who didn’t care about anything, to have business to go to somebody, could of cared less about business, and I want to do is tell people about Jesus. That’s a miracle. That wasn’t me. It was not you. So but after you’ve done all of these miraculous signs, they still would not believe in him. That’s amazing in that they still wouldn’t leave any. But Isaiah, the prophet wrote about that he said, Lord, who is believed our message, and to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this reason, they could not believe because as Isaiah says, elsewhere, He’s blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so that they can never see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn, and I would heal them.

Folks, the same sun that melts wax also hardens clay. It’s not the fault of the clay or the wax. It’s not the fault of the sun. It depends on what it falls on. The message of Christ Jesus and salvation by grace alone, that message either it’s either going to melt your heart, or it’s going to harden your heart, it’s going to do one of the two, it cannot do anything but. The more you hear it, and the more you resist, the harder your heart becomes. But when that message comes on a piece of wax, and it melts that old hard heart, that’s when you’re going to be born again. You can’t see. Why? Because you don’t want to see. I can take you out to one of the most phenomenal sites in the world. Huge in scope called the Grand Canyon. How many of you ever been to the Grand Canyon? How many you think I could take you there and you wouldn’t see it? I’ll tell you how. Turn your back on it. That’s all you have to do. Turn your back on and you’ll never see the Grand Canyon. Your eyes are blinded. Your hearts are dead. Why? You don’t want to hear. You think I’m gonna have to give up something. Yeah, you’re gonna have to give up hangovers, disappointments, misery, all kinds of good stuff, in order to have the joy of the Lord, as Christ Jesus. Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus glory and he spoke about him. Yet at the same time, many, even among the leaders believed in him. So you’ve got one group over there that says, I’ve seen the miracles, and all of this. And then you got another group. It says, I believe like Nicodemus came to Jesus at night and Lord, you know, what is this? And God, Jesus said, You got to be born again. His response is probably very much like yours or mine. If you’re kind of a wise guy when he means you got to be born again and expect me to climb back in the womb, my mother be born again, thinking physically. He said, No, Nicodemus, unless you’re born in the water naturally, and born of the Spirit, spiritually, you’ll never see the kingdom of God. There’s two births that have to take place one natural, and the other spiritual. And I believe without question, Nicodemus was a silent believer. But I think he was a believer. And so the same thing was true there that even among the leaders of the Hebrews, many of them believed in him. But because again of the Pharisees, they would not confess their faith for fear that he would be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. How many of us are in that boat, where we love the praise of men more than the praise of God? And you know what, folks, the praise of men is very shallow. And the acceptance of men is very shallow. You can see total acceptance one day and total rejection the next. And the only unconditional acceptance that you and I will ever experience in our life is the unconditional love of God. Probably the closest thing we’ll come to it here on the earth as we have a dog and you’ll kind of get a glimpse of unconditional love. They love the praise of men more than the praise of God.

Announcer 27:16
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 in praise the Lord. Amen.

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Listen to the Salvation message today!

Stand on the firmness of truth. Don’t keep going back and forth. Thank Him that the forgiveness issue is settled.

Let’s pray together:

• Lord Jesus,
• I thank you for taking away my sins on the cross,
• never ever to see them again.
• Having done that, I now thank you for giving me eternal life,
• through your resurrection.
• I now receive that life.
• And I am going stand in the fact that I am a child of the living God.
• In Jesus Holy name I pray.
• Amen

All believers are now brothers and sisters in Christ.

John 3:3
³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

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