Radio Broadcast Tuesday 06/09/2026

Classic Christianity – Hang On – Part 2 – 6-09-26

~ “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:12
~ Hold on to Life, His Life living in you. Reminder, when the Holy Spirit lives in you, He is in you forever. He is what we are to hold on to, and He is holding on to you always and will never let go of you, no matter what. And when life troubles come your way, He is right there with you. So remember that and keep on pressing forward in TRUTH. That TRUTH is Jesus Himself.

~ Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus. Phillipians 3:12-14

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And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, having done what, will I inherit eternal life?”
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good, except God alone. Luke 18:18,19

Jesus is God in flesh: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

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Pray to God:

Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?

Lord Jesus, teach me the truth of the world today and give me the wisdom to know the truth and identify the lies of the devil. Thank you God.”

~ Bob George recounts his journey to faith, detailing his struggles with commitment and his realization of his need for salvation. He describes a pivotal moment at a religious open house where he heard a Gospel presentation, leading to his acceptance of Christ. Bob emphasizes the transformative power of spiritual rebirth and the importance of holding onto Christ’s love. He shares his efforts to share his newfound faith with his family, particularly his father, who eventually accepted Christ before his death. Bob concludes by stressing the unconditional love of God and the need to let go of past struggles to embrace divine grace.

~ “So there, there again. You say you mean a pastor doesn’t know the Lord? Absolutely, absolutely. Just because you’re a pastor doesn’t mean you know the Lord, just means you went to cemetery or seminary, and if the seminary that you went to doesn’t teach salvation through grace in Christ Jesus, what are you going to know? And so it wasn’t the fact that Dad was adamant about anything, he just didn’t know, but I continued with that, trying to get information as little as I could back and forth to Dad, but just didn’t seem like anything was happening.

On this day, 39 years ago, I was called back to Austin, where my sister lived, and Dad was down in Austin visiting, and had to go back into the hospital at that time, unbelievably sick again. And so it was over this holiday, so our whole family was able to gather there, my sister and her husband and family, and my brother, and his family, and myself, and we all were there for that holiday season of visiting dad in the hospital. The last day that we were there, getting ready to leave to come fly back, my dad called my brother and I into his room, and he said to us that boys, I’m gonna tell you something. When you’re lying here like this, dying of cancer, everything that you’ve thought was so important in life and placed such great emphasis in is absolutely meaningless. And he said, Bob and Dick, the only thing that’s important is man and his relationship with God. And he said, Bob, I read that book and everything’s a okay. And I knew that my dad had come to the Lord. When I kissed my dad goodbye that day, I did not shed a tear. I don’t know why, because I always did, but for some reason I knew I’d never see him again on this earth, but I knew that I would see him again in heaven.” ~ Bob George

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Announcer 0:13
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
So I was always a great committer. I’d always commit to something and then spend the next five days or so trying to figure out how to get out of something, and so I said, Oh, absolutely, we’re gonna go out to that religious place, that’d be great, and I figured that’s better than going to the attorney’s office and getting a divorce, so it was. It was kind of one of those options that this is better than the other one. And the very next day, Amy didn’t know that at the time, but I was trying to figure out how in the world am I going to get out of this. Then guess what, we had another blow up there was just plain no, it was either that or it’s over, and so we went out to the open house, empty as a pork barrel.

You know, ___ _____, who was the guy, one of the men that discovered how to get a rocket from this earth to the moon and back, and he said he became a Christian when he realized that with all of that intelligence he couldn’t figure out how to get along with his wife, and it drove him to Jesus. I could figure out how to get a rocket to the moon and back, but I can’t figure out how to get along with my wife, and it came to Christ.

It was the same thing with me. I couldn’t figure out what in the world was going on in my life, and so we went out to that open house, and there I heard ____ _____ give a presentation on the Gospel of Christ. Wasn’t talking about religion, he’s talking about Jesus, that was new for me, that even though I’d sat in church all my life, I had never heard a message of salvation. I’d never heard a message that I was a sinner, that I was separated from God. I always thought I was okay. You know, you’re kind of when you don’t know truth, you’re kind of, you’re kind of forced to just believe what the world says, so I kind of believe God was grading on the curve, and until you, until your curve is to the point where you say, I think I’m going to have to live to be about 150 for this curve to come out, and then you’re hoping maybe that He’s graded on something else, but you don’t have a clue what it was, but anyway, I had no idea about salvation. I had never heard the word in all the years that I sat in church, I never heard lost, never heard saved, never heard that you had to come to Christ by faith for salvation, never heard any of those type of things, and yet I was in a church that’s quite well known. And so we sat there, and after he finished speaking, I was deeply touched, and told Amy, “I’m going to go down and talk to that man, and she probably thought I was crazy, but I did. I went forward and sat down with him, and he sat down with me. It took him about, oh, maybe three seconds to figure out my problem, and he asked me if I’d ever made that discovery of knowing Christ Jesus as my Lord and Savior. To be real honest with you, I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, and so he went over the scriptures with me, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. Do you believe this, Bob? Yeah, did I believe it? Yeah, intellectually, was it real to me yet? No. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Do you believe that? Amen. That I really believe, I really believe that one Christ Jesus came to die for sinners. Well, that was pretty good news. You say that’s the good news, because I’m one of those. Do you want to receive him to as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become a child of the living God. And everything inside of me said, boy, do I want to receive him. I want new life, guys. I did not come to Christ to get forgiven, I came to Christ to get life.

I came to Christ because there was something wrong with Bob George. There was something far worse than what I was doing and not doing. There was something deep under the skin wrong with me. It’s like Jesus said, it’s not what a man puts in his mouth that defies. Deals a man, you don’t have a drinking problem, you got a heart problem. It’s what proceeds out of your heart that defiles a man. There’s something wrong with you, not your drinking, but you, and until you come to see that, you’re never going to come for help. All you’re going to do is to try to quit doing what seems to be your problem, but you never get to the root of your problem. You get to the fruit of it, but never the root of it. I knew there was something wrong with me. I knew that. I knew that from looking in the mirror and seeing that face coming back at me, and really, and realizing, Bob, there’s something wrong with you. There’s something wrong. And God said, yeah, there is wrong. You’re lost. You’re lost because you’re not plugged in to what I created you to be plugged into. You’re an oil lamp without oil, you’re a bulb without electricity, you’re a car without gas. You can’t function the way I created you to function, because you don’t have what it takes inside of you. You got everything that your mom and dad gave you. You were born physically, now you need to be born spiritually. There’s a natural birth, and there’s a spiritual birth. Your mom and dad gave you natural birth. Bob, I’m here to give you spiritual birth. You must be born again. That’s what born again means. You’ve been born once physically, now you need to be born spiritually. Dr. ______ that day asked me if I wanted to accept Christ Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior. There weren’t anything in the world that I wanted to do more than that. In a flood of tears, was able to pray to God. It’s not that prayer saved you, it’s the attitude of the heart. By then my heart had been heard the truth, my heart was open to the truth, my heart had come to agree with God that I was a mess, and agree with God that I’m the solution to your mess, and there was something that clicked inside and was able to say, Lord Jesus, thanks for taking dying for my sins, and now come into my heart and make me into the kind of person that you want me to be. Meant it with all my heart. Something changed that day. Within a few moments, he was talking to Amy, and Amy solidified her relationship with Christ the same day. He took two people that, whose were lovely people, we were, we were nice people, but we were off into terrible direction, and he took us and molded us into a singleness of purpose that has lasted through these last 40 years, almost.

After that occasion, the one person that you want to, one group of people that you want to get to with this good news is your parents, and you know, I just thought everybody would be tickled to death with this. I was this most exciting thing that ever happened to me, so I can hardly wait to talk to Mom and Dad. Well, they were about as excited about that as the Titanic sinking. Their comment to me was, what do you mean you’ve been saved? Why, we had you in church all your life. It’s like saying, don’t you remember sitting beside me, sleeping. What do you mean? What do you mean? You’re going to get baptized. We had you baptized. Anybody relate to those things? Boy, all of a sudden I was into something I didn’t know I was going to get into. I thought they were going to be anxious about this, but instead of that, there was there seemed to be a little bit of rebellion.

To my dad, was the one I wanted to get to more than anybody in the world, because I knew my dad didn’t have very long to live, I knew that my dad, as I said earlier, was a decent human being, but I also did not believe that he was saved, that he knew Christ Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Knew about him just like I did, but I didn’t think he knew him. And so, even though Dad was as sick as he was, and very hard to travel, I brought he and Mom from Indiana out to California, and arranged an appointment with Dr. _____. I thought, well, he did pretty good with me. We’ll see what he’d do with Dad. I’ll never forget, guys, as long as I live, I can still.. it’s as vivid in my memory as anything that I know of sitting in Dr._____ office in Arrowhead Springs California with my dad and Dr. _____ sharing the gospel, and then asking my dad if he wanted to pray, and I remember my dad saying, Dr. _____, I certainly would love to pray with you, but I want you to know before we do that I have led a good life, and I have tried to be a decent human being. All that is true, and, and, and the stained glass windows that we have in our church back in New Castle, I bought those for the church, and he named a couple of other things that he had done, and my heart sunk on me as I thought, my dad does not know the Lord. And so nothing happened. Dr. _____ gave him a book to read, and and and, and, you know, when you’re dying of cancer, you’re not really very interested in educating yourself. So, I didn’t know whether Dad was reading that book or whether he wasn’t, but I did know one thing, that he was lost. Had an interest to think, very interested in what had happened to me. When I went back to Indiana. He called the pastor over to talk to me, so he was excited. Something’s happened to Bob. I don’t know what it is. Something’s happened. Well, the pastor didn’t know either. He thought I’d gone out to lunch too.

So there, there again. You say you mean a pastor doesn’t know the Lord? Absolutely, absolutely. Just because you’re a pastor doesn’t mean you know the Lord, just means you went to cemetery or seminary, and if the seminary that you went to doesn’t teach salvation through grace in Christ Jesus, what are you going to know? And so it wasn’t the fact that Dad was adamant about anything, he just didn’t know, but I continued with that, trying to get information as little as I could back and forth to Dad, but just didn’t seem like anything was happening.

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Bob George 14:33
I flew back to Cal to California, and Amy and I that evening got a phone call from my brother and sister, that Dad had gone to be with the Lord, and the first words that came out of my life, my mouth were, ‘Praise the Lord.’ I know where Dad is. I know that his suffering is over. I know that there’s more and more trials, there’s no more tribulation, that God, or my dad, is at peace with Jesus, and I’m going to see him again someday. So that was 39 years ago today, so this will always be a special time of remembrance for me in regard to my dad. He played a big role in my salvation, whether he knows it or not, because I saw the example through his life that I couldn’t live, so there was a sense in which Dad was standing there saying, here’s what a person can live like, and I’m looking there saying, yeah, but it ain’t me, and that’s what prepares you for God, that same thing the law is for, therefore the law is there to show you what perfect righteousness is, so you look into it and say that’s right, but I can’t do it. He says, now you’re ready for salvation. The law can’t save you. All the law can do is kill you. Jesus was an extension of the law, folks. Christ came as an extension of the law. The law showed you thou shalt not do, and Jesus came and said, “I’m going to get under your skin. The law says don’t commit adultery. I say unto you, if you’ve looked at a woman with lust in your heart, you’ve already committed adultery. And James then amplifies that by saying, “If you’ve violated the least of these my commandments, you’ve violated all of them.” Well, what hope do you have? Then none apart from Christ. None. It’s what prepares you for salvation.

So all of these things in life that we have starts preparing us for a day in history when we finally give up and let God. Now that ties in to a passage of scripture that we’re going to go over, finally get to in the third chapter of Philippians, beginning in verse 12, where Paul says, Not that I have already obtained this or have been made perfect, but I press on to take hold for that for which Christ took hold of me.

Guys, when our kids were small, we lived in California. We used to sometimes go to Yosemite, and you know, there were a lot of rocks and that type of thing, and so sometimes why I would take Bob, and we’d go rock climbing. I would not have thought to say to Bob, “Bob, come grab hold of my hand and I’ll take you rock climbing. Why? Well, because if Bob was holding on to me, being a young boy, and his foot slipped, he’d let go of my hand and fall to his death. So, what I said was, “Bob, come and I’ll take hold of your hand and we’ll go rock climbing.” Now, it’s interesting because I would have fallen to my death before I’d let go of my son, but when I held on to his hand, he also was holding on to mine. Now, apart from my strength, his holding on to mine would have meant nothing. He did not have the capability of hanging on. You’ll see pictures sometimes of people that are hanging on to a bridge or something, they’ve fallen off and they’re just hanging on, and people are trying to rescue them, to rescue them, and finally they just say, I can’t hang on any longer, my hands are too tired, I can’t hang on any longer, and they let go and fall to their death, because we can’t, but He can.

What he’s saying to us is to hold on of that for which Christ took hold of me. God took hold of you. God grabbed my life 39 years ago. God took hold of me, and even though there are times when probably I don’t hang on to him, he always hangs on to me, and will never ever ever not hang on to me, and so all it’s Paul’s saying is there, hang on to him, he’s not saying that you’re hanging on to him is what’s going to keep you together, it just says it’s a natural response to someone taking you by the hand is to hold their hand, that’s as good as you can do, it ain’t going to accomplish your salvation, but you’re going to have something involved in it. Hang on, and that’s what it’s saying to us, is hang on, hold on to that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. God is the one, folks, He’s the one who sought us out. It was God’s will that none should perish and all should come to repentance. God is a loving God. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

Well, then, how come the world doesn’t come to Jesus? Because the world has a will. We have choices. I can choose to follow Christ or I can choose to follow. The world. When I choose to follow the world, I’m lost. When I choose to follow Christ, I’m saved. It’s like a guy on these trapeze that you see, and they’re out there going out on the trapeze, and here comes the other bar, and he’s wanting to go to the other side. He knows that on the other side is salvation let’s say. He knows that where he came from, swinging out, is not salvation, and he knows that the only way that he’s going to get to the other side is by letting go of this bar and grabbing a hold of the next one, but he won’t let go. He’s afraid to let go, or thinks that no, I’m going to become a religious nut, or whatever else is coming along, but I don’t, I’m not going to let go, and so he just goes back to where he came from, or in some cases even back further. Then there’s the ones who swing out and say I know that I need to grab a hold of the bar, and so he grabs a hold of the bar and hangs on to this one, and where is he going to go? Nowhere. Nowhere. That dude is stuck in space. He isn’t going back, and he isn’t going forward. He’s just stuck out in space. What’s called a double-minded man, that is unstable in all your ways. You have more stability by being a total lost man than you do dangling between lost and saved. Now, for that person to get to the other side, you’re going to have to let go, and when you let go and grab a hold of the other bar, you swing to your destination, and then you wonder, what in the world was I waiting for? Why was I hanging on to what kept me in bondage? That’s the thing that got to be, why didn’t I see? Why did it take 36 years for me to see these things? But I couldn’t see. I was blind to them.

So, folks, where it says take hold of Jesus, He has taken hold of you. Take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me. Hang on, because He’s hanging on to you. Recognize the truth of this, folks. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God. Trials can’t, tribulation can’t. death, can’t life, can’t nothing in all this world can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He grabbed hold of you, and He is not going to let go of you. You may try to let go of him, but he is not going to let go of you. You are his, you’re his child. You are perfectly loved by God. And so, folks, grab a hold of that, hang on to that. You’re not always going to be loved by each other, but you’re always going to be loved by God.

And so there is no excuse for a person saying, well, my parents didn’t love me quite as much as I thought they should. My husband doesn’t love me, my wife doesn’t love me, and a kid, who cares? I mean, I don’t, I don’t mean to sound flippant about this, but folks, if you have the love of God, you don’t need that other love. If you get some of it, that’s fine, but if you got all of it, it still would not meet the need. I have people who grew up in some of the most loving homes that you would ever want to see in your life that are an absolute mess. Adam, Eve didn’t have too bad of a home, and yet they fell, and so quit excusing yourself with your past. That is merely saying it couldn’t for sure be anything wrong with me. It’s got to be my parents, or the fact that I had a mother. God forbid that you had one of those, or I was potty trained too early. That’ll do it every time, or any other excuse that comes down the pike. It says, forget the past, forgetting what is behind and strain forward to what’s ahead. Forget the past, regardless of how you were raised, forget it. You got today to live for today. I’m loved by God, and that love of God fulfills the deepest need of my heart, and there is no human love that can compare with that there. Is no human love that can meet that need, that’s a spiritual need that had to be met by Jesus, and if that’s the case, rest in it, hold on to it, hold on to what Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Remember, my friends, you can’t press on to something new. If you’re holding on to what’s old, let go and to recognize the truth that God is for me, who can be against me. And if the whole world turned against you, I still got God on my side. That good news, guys.

Let’s pray together, Father. We want to thank you for the truth of the gospel. I want to thank you for the family that you allowed me to grow up in, not perfect in all respects, but who is? They set a great example. I thank you for my dad, for his life, his love, his devotion to us. I thank you for reaching down and touching his life the way you did, as well as my mother and sister and brother and their families. I thank you for Amy, and what an influence she has been on so many of us, and for her family as well. And I pray, Father, that each and every one of us will learn to let go of everything except you and to press on to that high calling of Christ Jesus, and I pray these things and thank you for them in the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

Announcer 27:11
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 will 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.