Radio Broadcast Wednesday 06/17/2026

Classic Christianity – Living in the Present – Part 3 – 6-17-26

~ “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” Galatians 5:16-18

~ Those who have the Spirit living inside them are to be led by the Spirit Himself. We need to learn how to live by the Spirit, and stop depending on the flesh for getting answers to things today. The flesh always rears its ugly head, when we want something and we want it right now. Yet how often do we really take things to Him in prayer, and allow the Holy Spirit to actually guide our actions? It is so easy to be swayed by the flesh, and that is why we are told in the Scriptures to be led by the Spirit. This is more about allowing Him to lead, rather than us trying to be led by Him. And when a person is led by the Spirit of God, they are no longer under law, for the Spirit Himself lives in them and guides them in ALL Truth. This is sometimes a difficult lesson to learn, because Satan can so easily stroke the flesh to make it seem that it is okay to do something that seems right in the world’s eyes, but the Spirit is saying to your spirit, “No don’t do it.” Or He is saying to your spirit, “I want you to do this, based on the word of God.” Both are key points to remember and walk by faith in.

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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 emphasizes the importance of faith in Jesus for pleasing God, highlighting the destructive force of pride. He explains that faith involves agreeing with God on sin and His forgiveness, and that true faith is trusting Jesus’ fulfillment of the law and His offer of eternal life. Bob discusses the struggle between fleshly desires and spiritual living, advocating for a humble reliance on Jesus’ guidance. He underscores that faith leads to a change in action, urging listeners to replace worldly attachments with a commitment to Christ, and to trust in Jesus’ leadership for a fulfilling life.

“And so we place all this importance on what is not important. Solomon said, if you can make a living, have a place, a roof over your head, food to eat. You’re fortunate, you’re fortunate. We realize, guys, that our attitudes have to be changed. It’s got to be changed in regard to the law. You’re not justified by the law. The law will never justify one person. You can think, “Boy, I’m one law keeper.” No, you’re not. James says, “You violate one law in your whole life, you violate all of them. That doesn’t really put us in a real good position. So, Galatians says, live by the Spirit, you’ll not gratify the desires of the flesh or the sinful nature. What does that mean? It says that you’ve got flesh hanging on you, and that flesh has desires, they’re called fleshly desires, and those fleshly desires are contrary to godly desires, aren’t they? And they’re in conflict with each other. It’s like a war going on. So, that, as Paul says, the things you want to do, you don’t do, and the things you don’t want to do, you go out and do them anyway. That’s insanity, but you do them. So, he says, did he say clean up the flesh, and you’ll be spiritual? Go out and try to clean your flesh up. How many have ever tried to clean up your flesh? What do you find out about that? It’s like holding 10 corks under water, you get five of them down, five more popping up. You’re never going to get to the end of that thing. About the time you think you got it all down, you’re going to get them popping up all over the place, you can’t clean up your flesh. He said. The only solution to your flesh and the fleshly desires and the thoughts, because you can hide those things pretty easy, but your thoughts is to learn how to live by the Spirit. So he said, when you’re walking in the Spirit, there’s a byproduct of that, you won’t be fulfilling the desires of the flesh, that’s the byproduct. When? When you’re walking in the Spirit. When you stop walking in the spirit, what are you going to be doing? Fulfilling the desires of the flesh. He didn’t say clean up your flesh and you’ll be spiritual. He didn’t say that the desires of the flesh would go away, because those things are not true, he said. If you’ll learn to walk trusting Jesus by faith, trusting Jesus, trusting him for what? What I’m telling you, what I’m telling you, you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.” ~ 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 0:28
So in this case I don’t have to worry about the author, I know who the author is, and that’s why I can put faith in the word of God, and without faith He says it’s impossible to please God. Why? Because God says I’ve revealed what I want you to have faith in. I first of all revealed who I want you to have faith in when Christ Jesus was revealed to you, and now I have given you my Bible, so that you can know what to put your faith in and where to go to find truth, and so we look at that and say when the Holy Spirit points out an area of our life where we’re living contrary to faith, either an attitude or action, he is always there to point those things out to you. It’s not always pleasant when he does it, but that’s his job. His, the Holy Spirit of God, is always there if we’ll listen to him. But you see, what keeps us from listening to him or anyone else is pride, and we have to understand, guys, the unbelievable effect that pride has in our lives. It is a destructive force, pride of man. Pride is what caused Satan to rebel out of heaven. Pride is what caused Adam and Eve to sin. I don’t need to listen to God, I’ll listen to Satan. Pride is, is, is a force, guys. It is a force of destruction. And what does God say? I give grace to the humble, but I resist who? The proud. Why? Because the proud is too prideful to receive grace, and so we have to understand the truth of that, that the grace of God has to be absorbed by a heart that is willing to say I may not be right, or more correctly to say I probably am not right, and that’s why I need instruction. You see, pride keeps you. I don’t need instruction. You see that lot of times in kids. I’ve seen that with kids when they can hardly bounce a basketball. You try to teach them how to bounce a basketball. I don’t need help, I know how to bounce it. It’s all over the place, but I know where I know how to bounce it, because pride in little kids, pride don’t tell me I know. You don’t you don’t know, you’re not going to know for years and years and years how to play basketball. It’s going to take time and practice and experience, but you see, we don’t think experience has any bearing on education. But I want to tell you, information without experience, you may as well forget it. And so pride is a killer, and so that’s why he’s saying without faith in Jesus it’s impossible to please God, because if I don’t have faith in Jesus, it’s because I have faith in me, and that’s what creates this thing called pride.

And so we have to understand what God is saying to us here, guys, and to understand the truth that I need to agree with God concerning my sin, as an example, when I sin, and we all do, you know, does anyone out there don’t think they sin? Now I’m not talking about, you see, our sins have been taken away from the eyes of God, but I don’t live up there, I live down here, and the reason they had to be taken away from the eyes of God is so He wouldn’t have to see my sin, he’s already taken it away. Do we understand that God took away your sins, all of them, at the cross 2000 years ago, never to see them again? Are we all together on that to understand the truth of that? Now down here where I live, do I ever get angry? You know that’s called sin. Do I ever do all kinds of things? That’s all that’s called sin. Can I talk mean to people? Yeah, that’s called sin. Can I worry? Oh, yeah, but that’s a healthy concern. We can rename these things, that’s called sin. You cannot worry and have faith at the same time, can you? Are we together on that? And so now should that, should that put us in the dumps? Oh, woe is me. I worried that I disappointed God.

You can’t disappoint God. In order to be disappointed, you have to have an unrealistic expectation. He never had any expectation about you at all, except to fail, so he never has had an unrealistic expectation about you and me. So, how’s he going to be disappointed in you? Never expected anything out of you to begin with, except that’s why he said, unless you abide in me. If you abide in me, then something’s going to happen. When you don’t, don’t be disappointed, that’s all you can do is fail. And so we have to understand the truth of this type of thing. So when I do blow it in some way or another as a result of putting my dependency on me instead of him, why I agree with God concerning that sin. I agree with him, and Lord, I acted like a jerk, act like somebody didn’t even know the Lord, and then you agree with Him concerning His forgiveness. Thank you, Lord, that you took away those sins at the cross. Thank you, I’ll never be accountable for that sin to you. There’s no condemnation awaiting me who belongs to Christ Jesus. That’s something in it, guys, because there’s always a consequence to sin, but not with God, not with God. He said, “No, there is no condemnation awaiting you who belong to Christ Jesus. Why? Because the law of the spirit of life, when I made you alive in Christ, that law surpassed the law of sin and death. You came into this world dead under the law that the wages of sin is death. Consequence of sin is death, and I came to give you life, and to give it to you abundantly, and all salvation is is recognizing that I’m dead spiritually, and Lord, if you came to give me life, then I want you to come into my heart and give me life, because I don’t have life on my own, and I want you to give me whose life? Spiritual life already got mom and dad’s life. Now I want yours. And you’re born again, you’re born again, thanking him for the fact that he took away your sins, never to see them again. And you’re thanking him for the fact that the consequence of sin is death, and you’ve replaced that by the law of life. And I am now alive in Christ, and I am alive eternally in Christ. Important guys, I’m not only alive, I’ve been made alive eternally, and so I thank God for those things.

What is faith saying? I believe that that’s true. It’s not only true in an intellectual sense, but it’s true to the point that when I die and go before God, and He would say to me, “What have you done to deserve to be here? I said, “I haven’t done anything, except I trusted your Son.” And if Jesus is not the one to give you and me eternal life, we’re all going to be dead. There isn’t going to be any salvation. If Jesus is wrong, we’re all goners, we’re all goners, we’re going to be spending our life in some place called hell if Jesus is wrong, and so I’m putting all of my faith, so to speak, on the fact that Jesus is right and that Jesus is who He claimed to be God, and that Jesus came as God to this earth and walked on this earth for some 33 years and fulfilled the law in its entirety by walking in perfect love through his entire life and love is the fulfillment of the law and that Jesus fulfilled the law for me who couldn’t fulfill a 10th of it and therefore having fulfilled the law, was able to usher in this New Covenant of grace that we stand in today, the grace of God that says, “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest and peace for your soul.” And you and I put our faith in those statements, we put our faith in the word of God that says, “Come to me,” and I say okay, and I come to him, and I’m born again, and that’s the good news of the gospel. We agree with him concerning those, that’s all faith is just saying I agree. Did we have anything do with any of that? No, we just agree, or we disagree.

So, I’m not sure that, Lord, I was taught if you become a Catholic, you’re saved, or you’re taught wrong, and you hang on to that belief, and you’re going to end up in hell. I was taught that if I become a Muslim, you’re wrong, and you keep hanging on to that belief, you’re going to go to hell. You can have faith in that. Those people have faith, don’t they? You got faith in that, but you keep putting your faith in that, and you’re going to end up in hell. I believe Buddha can save you, that you got faith in that, but I want to tell you something. You keep your faith in that, and you’re going to end up in hell, according to what? This book that I put every ounce of confidence on my eternal security in, that what this book recorded about Jesus is true. If it isn’t, I’m going to hell, and so are you. That’s how stringent this faith is. What you have and who you have your faith in determines where you’re going to spend eternity, according to the word of God. Narrow is the way. Why is the way narrow? I used to read that narrows away, that means only the good people get there, only those who are good enough people, like my dad, they’ll get there. Me, I’m not sure, only the good people, that’s what that narrows the way means. It’s just, just a very few people are going to be good enough to get there, that, and what it means, and that isn’t what it means at all. Narrow is the way is the fact that only a few people are going to have sense enough to believe what Jesus said. The rest of us want to work for it. Rest of us want to get up and work, say, ‘No, I went to church, I tithed. Big hairy deal. What if you didn’t have a church to go to? What if you didn’t have any money? You discounted by God, thrown out. Don’t think so.

You see, pride is what keeps us. Why is the gate narrow? Because pride keeps us from humbling ourselves and accepting that I can’t get there on my own, you know, the gate that they talk about, the going through in Israel, the camel, they talk about a camel can’t get through the needle, the eye of the needle, that’s a gate that if a camel is loaded up with his with with the stuff he’s carrying, he can’t kneel down, he can’t get through the gate. In order for the camel to get through the gate, you have to take off all the load off of his back and to go in naked. Then he can get through the gate, and that’s exactly what it’s talking about in regard to salvation. Until we’re willing to put down all of the things that the world has told us, that the way you’re going to get to heaven is by being at this or being that or being this or doing this and doing this and doing this, you have to put that aside, you have to take it off your back and you’re going to get on your knees and crawl through that gate as a humble servant of Christ Jesus. And so we agree with God concerning our need to turn in faith and to walk in the spirit, that’s exactly how we’re going to please God. Without this kind of faith, it’s impossible to please Him.

Exchange your attitude of unbelief, because guys, again, you can be saved, you can, you can have come to a point where in your life where you said for me to get to heaven, I realize there’s anything I can do or say, and so I’m going to turn to you, Jesus, to get me to heaven, but I’m going to take care of my life in the meantime, and a lot of times that’s said I’ll see you in heaven, Jesus, because I know I’m saved, but I’m going to run my own life in the meantime. He says, ‘No, Bob, that ain’t going to work. And when we come to Christ, we’re all self-sufficient, aren’t we? All of us are self-sufficient when we come to Christ, and so we’re self-sufficient lost men. We get saved, we become self-sufficient saved people, and that’s what God has to do, is to knock that self-sufficiency out of us. You know, it was about 18 years from the time that Paul was led over the wall to escape from being killed until Barnabas went and got him. As about 18 years, 18 years, that’s a long time. And you say, what in the world was God doing with Paul? Probably pounding pride and legalism out of him, 18 years, so if he hadn’t pounded all of us out of us yet, we still got, we got a few years to go many times. So don’t get discouraged.

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Bob George 14:02
But we need to exchange our attitude of unbelief, because guys, think about for a minute, we say to somebody, look, God will care for you. I mean, if He knows the hair on your head, and for some that’s not hard to count the hair on your head, that doesn’t take Him too long with some of you, but He knows the hair on your head, he feeds the swallows or the birds of the air, feeds them. He said, “Do you see anybody in want? See anything in want out there? They’re not in want. I’ll take care of you, but we say, “Well, yeah, God, you’re going to take care of me. But what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And we worry, and we sit around, and we worry, and we complain, we get into dumps, get down on ourselves, all of this kind of stuff. Folks, that’s not faith, that’s not faith at all. That is counting on yourself. I’m going to have to do something, I’m going to have to do something. Yeah, you do have to do something. Have faith in Christ, and let Him lead you. You know, I’ve seen people interviewing for jobs just all over the place that said, “Have you trusted Jesus to lead you to where He wants you to go to work?” Well, no, He didn’t know anything about jobs. He’s not in the employment business, and that’s kind of the attitude, you know. You might not say that, but that’s kind of the attitude. Listen, if you’ll trust Jesus to lead you, He’ll save you a ton of time. A lot of shoe leather will be saved if you’ll trust Him to lead you where He wants you to go, and He’ll do that. Didn’t He say, “I live in you to guide you.” Well, what do you think he’s doing? Did he fall asleep? He’s living in you to guide you into how much truth? All of it. That’s his job to guide you into all truth. You say, well, how do I know? What are you desiring? He said, delight yourself in the Lord, and he’ll what? Give you the desires of your heart. So how do you follow the Lord? How do you know that the Lord is speaking to you? Well, I’m delighting in the Lord, I’m walking by faith in Him. I certainly am not in rebellion toward Him, and I’m sure He’s not going to lead me to something that’s not in the Scripture. And so I got this desire to do this, so follow it.

I was in business, had a big wholesale business in Los Angeles. I think I think in Los Angeles you could make a living selling worms. I mean, it’s so big you sell anything out there, so it’s a good business, but when I came to Christ, I had this insatiable desire to go into full-time work. Now, this is nonsense. People make any money in full-time work, and I obviously had my business because I was interested in money. That’s before I came to Christ. Wanted to be a millionaire, isn’t that something? How we want to be a millionaire? I don’t know why that word is so big, millionaire, anymore. It’s not that much. You ought to be a billionaire, maybe that’s what I shoot for. But a big rich billionaire. Have you ever seen how happy rig rich billionaires are? Howard Hughes seemed to me he was a little miserable. Anyway, you know the story of Howard Hughes lived as a recluse, looked like a hermit, had had money do anything he wanted to do. I don’t think that money made him very happy. What do we use our money for? Get drunk, buy all the drugs you want, buy all the women you want, that’s about it. Wine, women, and song. You don’t have to be rich, get that. Just depends on high class, how high you want to go in high class. Don’t have to be rich, but we have that idea. If I just get rich, I’d be so happy. Guys, some of those miserable people I know are people who have more money, and they know what to do with, and so that ain’t going to make you happy. It’s better than being poor. I want to admit that it’s better being poor, but the issue is it doesn’t make you happy, because happiness or joy comes from the Lord. It doesn’t come from what you have.

And so we have to get our attitude exchanged. We have to exchange our attitude of this unbelief for an attitude of faith in Christ that then results in a change of action. When my attitude, I’m going to byproduct of my attitudes. Let your attitude be like that of Christ Jesus, who, though He was God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He humbled Himself there again. Catch that He humbled Himself. Have we humbled ourselves, or are we still wanting to walk around showing people how many big cars I have, and how I got a 20,000 square foot house, and I got a great big pool, and you know, you can splash around in a hot tub, and I got this, and I got this, and I got this, and I got this, and you know, people like that, they brag about everything that they’ve said they’ve gotten. I mean, a lot of people in New Orleans thought they had a lot until that storm came and wiped out every single thing they had ever owned, and you want to know when you get into that kind of a deal, what you miss, your pictures of your kids and your mom and your dad, they’re gone. Am I right or wrong? If I could save one thing in my house, I’d grab the albums, the memories of your family.

And so we place all this importance on what is not important. Solomon said, if you can make a living, have a place, a roof over your head, food to eat. You’re fortunate, you’re fortunate. We realize, guys, that our attitudes have to be changed. It’s got to be changed in regard to the law. You’re not justified by the law. The law will never justify one person. You can think, “Boy, I’m one law keeper.” No, you’re not. James says, “You violate one law in your whole life, you violate all of them. That doesn’t really put us in a real good position. So, Galatians says, live by the Spirit, you’ll not gratify the desires of the flesh or the sinful nature. What does that mean? It says that you’ve got flesh hanging on you, and that flesh has desires, they’re called fleshly desires, and those fleshly desires are contrary to godly desires, aren’t they? And they’re in conflict with each other. It’s like a war going on. So, that, as Paul says, the things you want to do, you don’t do, and the things you don’t want to do, you go out and do them anyway. That’s insanity, but you do them. So, he says, did he say clean up the flesh, and you’ll be spiritual? Go out and try to clean your flesh up. How many have ever tried to clean up your flesh? What do you find out about that? It’s like holding 10 corks under water, you get five of them down, five more popping up. You’re never going to get to the end of that thing. About the time you think you got it all down, you’re going to get them popping up all over the place, you can’t clean up your flesh. He said. The only solution to your flesh and the fleshly desires and the thoughts, because you can hide those things pretty easy, but your thoughts is to learn how to live by the Spirit. So he said, when you’re walking in the Spirit, there’s a byproduct of that, you won’t be fulfilling the desires of the flesh, that’s the byproduct. When? When you’re walking in the Spirit. When you stop walking in the spirit, what are you going to be doing? Fulfilling the desires of the flesh. He didn’t say clean up your flesh and you’ll be spiritual. He didn’t say that the desires of the flesh would go away, because those things are not true, he said. If you’ll learn to walk trusting Jesus by faith, trusting Jesus, trusting him for what? What I’m telling you, what I’m telling you, you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.

What do we turn to? Alcohol, drugs, women, men, bar scenes, all of those things to do what? Fulfill the desires of the flesh, and I want to tell you something, guys, those desires are as strong as horseradish, so don’t ever think that those desires are just minimal. They are strong, and Satan ensures that they’re strong. But I want to tell you something. The Spirit is stronger, and if we’ll learn to walk in truth, if we’ll learn to walk in the Spirit, what does that mean again? Listening to Jesus, listening to his word, when you got to thing, should I, shouldn’t I go to the word and find out, he’ll tell you, should I do this or should I do that, go to the word, he’ll tell you, when you’re doing that, you’re not going to be fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and those desires of the flesh are what ruin our lives, guys. Most lives are ruined by poor decisions. In your life and my life, I’m going to be a direct byproduct, and my life is going to be a direct byproduct of my decisions that I have made, and I can look back on my life and think of decisions that I’ve made some good and some horrible, and the results of them, some of them you live with for the rest of your life, you can’t escape it. But the issue is that I can put it behind me because Christ has put it behind him, but I’m a byproduct of decisions, you make a dumb decision as to who you marry, you’re going to live with that byproduct. You live a, you make a decision, I’m going to go shack up with somebody, you’re going to live with the byproduct of that. You’re going to make a decision, I don’t need to do what God says, I’m going to live together instead of get married. You’re going to live with the byproduct of that. There’s a consequence to everything. There’s a consequence for being bad, and guys, there’s a consequence for being good. The consequence for being bad is obvious. The consequence for being good is you’re probably going to be alienated from everybody you know, except people who also want to follow Jesus. That’s a truth.

My dad was one of the most moral men I ever knew. He’s a frustrating example to me. Couldn’t figure out how anybody could be that moral. Now I don’t know what was going on in his head, but outwardly a very moral man. And he said that to me back then. He said, Bob, there’s a consequence. There’s a consequence when you do evil. There’s a consequence when you do good. He said, the consequence for me is I never get invited to go any place by all my lawyer buddies, they all go out fishing and open up the beer kegs and get drunk as a skunk and come home and say just couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t catch fish, too drunk to get their worm on the line. They never invite me. They said, I’d like, he said, I’d say no, but I’d least like to get an invitation, but that’s a consequence, and that is true. When I came to Christ, and again, thank God nobody told me to stay out of the bars. I thank God no one, because had they told me, I’d wanted to go in, but I didn’t belong there anymore. I didn’t belong there anymore, and as a child of God, I certainly didn’t need to be drinking anymore. I’d had enough in 36 years, I’d consumed enough for a lifetime, and I didn’t think I needed any more. Also, somebody told me that it kills brain cells, and I didn’t have any to spare, so I didn’t need that anymore, and I’m glad for that, because that is not the lifestyle of a child of God. If you need booze, then you don’t need Jesus. That’s why you turn to booze, because they don’t need Jesus. But you find out that you need Jesus, then you don’t need booze. You don’t need them both. You got to determine which one you need. Do you need Jesus or booze? Remember the song, I’d rather have Jesus. That’s true. Which one do you rather have, booze or Jesus? Drugs or Jesus, women or Jesus? Because you can’t have them both, and that’s the decision making that we have to do in our lives. They’re not easy, they’re not always fun. Some of them, it’s hard. Those old habits are hard to break, but the issue is that you’re not having to quit something without replacing it with something. When you replace it with Jesus, you’ve got it replaced, and when something is replaced, the old is easier to get rid of. Walk in the Spirit, guys, and you’ll not gratify the desires of the flesh.

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.