Radio Broadcast Wednesday 07/30/2025

Classic Christianity – Meaningless or Meaningful – Part 3 – 7-30-25

Meaningless or Meaningful – Part 3

The book of Ecclesiastes has much to say about what is going on today, with the lost world, when you understand that everything is folly apart from Christ Jesus living in you. There is no meaning and purpose in life apart from His Life living in you. This is what is being shown to us everyday today. At some point in time, you would think we would see things with our own eyes of what is really going on. Yet satan strokes the flesh today big time. It’s all around us. We see things with our eye gates, hear things with our ear gates, and we want to sow to the flesh rather than the spirit. There is nothing new under the sun. What was happening to King Solomon apart from Jesus, happens to Everyone apart from Jesus. Nothing new under the sun. So the most important thing, is coming to know Jesus, God, and have Him live His Life in and through you and me. Find out what that really means, and you will be living life by faith from first to last.

~ 1 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy what is good!”

But it proved to be futile.

2 I said of laughter, “It is folly,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?”

3 I sought to cheer my body with wine and to embrace folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

4 I expanded my pursuits. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made gardens and parks for myself, where I planted all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I built reservoirs to water my groves of flourishing trees.

7 I acquired menservants and maidservants, and servants were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me, 8 and I accumulated for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I gathered to myself male and female singers, and the delights of the sons of men—many concubines.

9 So I became great and surpassed all in Jerusalem who had preceded me; and my wisdom remained with me. 10 Anything my eyes desired, I did not deny myself. I refused my heart no pleasure. For my heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.

11 Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

The Wise and the Foolish

12 Then I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what more can the king’s successor do than what has already been accomplished? 13 And I saw that wisdom exceeds folly, just as light exceeds darkness:

14 The wise man has eyes in his head,

but the fool walks in darkness.

Yet I also came to realize that one fate overcomes them both. 15 So I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will also befall me. What then have I gained by being wise?”

And I said to myself that this too is futile.

16 For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, just as with the fool, seeing that both will be forgotten in the days to come. Alas, the wise man will die just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

18 I hated all for which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me. 19 And who knows whether that man will be wise or foolish? Yet he will take over all the labor at which I have worked skillfully under the sun. This too is futile.

20 So my heart began to despair over all the labor that I had done under the sun. 21 When there is a man who has labored with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and he must give his portion to a man who has not worked for it, this too is futile and a great evil. 22 For what does a man get for all the toil and striving with which he labors under the sun? 23 Indeed, all his days are filled with grief, and his task is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.

24 Nothing is better for a man than to eat and drink and enjoy his work. I have also seen that this is from the hand of God. 25 For apart from Him, who can eat and who can find enjoyment? 26 To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over to one who pleases God. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

…..

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.

~ “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:12

~ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one believing in Me, even if he should die, he will live. And everyone living and believing in Me shall never die, to the age. Do you believe this?” John 11:25,26
—

Pray to God:

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

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

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 discusses the importance of parental guidance and the consequences of disobedience, using the analogy of a child running towards danger. He emphasizes that true love involves obeying parents and living responsibly. Bob reflects on Solomon’s search for wisdom, concluding that material success and pleasure are meaningless. He shares a story about a young man in jail, highlighting the harsh realities of adult consequences. Bob stresses that the only lasting value is faith expressing itself through love, urging listeners to prioritize spiritual growth over worldly achievements and to use their influence to lead others to Christ.

—

~ “My friends, the only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love, according to God. You can do all these other things. We can do them all. They all sound good. We all have different avenues that we can work through. But in the final analysis, what God is saying is, what I’m looking for is your faith in me that expresses itself through love to others. God has called you told to be free, but don’t use your freedom to indulge the flesh you can but there’s repercussions. If you’re going to think like an adult, there’s repercussions, and they’re not good. The way of the Transgressor, transgressor is hard. It’s hard. It’s hard life, tough life, it’s hard. So there’s repercussions. So he says, Be Smart, not only to know wisdom, but to act it out that let this wisdom that God has given you become a part of your life, and to exercise it every day in your decision making. What is your decision making? What would love do? If I get to be a father someday, don’t my kids lie to me? Break my heart. Well, then why are you lying to yours? Why you lie to yours? If you want to love once your kid out using drugs someday? No, of course not. Then why you using them? Want your kid to be out drinking and carousing around? No, of course not. Well. Then why you doing it? Was it decision making that you and I can make if we want to count on wisdom, that’s what wisdom is, listening to the voice of God and acting upon it. They’re right or wrong?” ~ Bob George

Bible Study Booklets

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
Young people, you do a loving thing when you listen to your parents. Why? It was made that way. God gave you parents to guide you. Why? Because when you’re young, you need guidance. You know a kid that doesn’t know he’ll run right into that ocean if you let him, wouldn’t you? I mean, that’s why parents are out there tenaciously watching their kids. Why? Because the little morons will run right into the ocean and drown, get a kid close to an edge, fall over. That’s why you need guidance. That’s the role of a parent, is to guide a child until he’s old enough to think on his own. And again, I think the guidance is to teach them to be a good adult, to teach them how to live responsibly. You’re not walking in love when you’re disobeying your parents. You’re not walking in love when you’re doing things that hurt your parents. That’s not love, and there’s your problem is you haven’t grown up enough to understand the importance of what God says that the only thing that matters, all this other stuff isn’t going to matter. I don’t care what your achievements are. What God says that the only thing that counts, remember study that last week is what faith expressing itself through what? Love, loving one another doing things that are loving, doing unto others as you would want others to do unto you. I’ve asked young people sometimes, do you think when you grow up you’re going to have kids? Yeah. Would you like to have kids? Yeah. What if your kid was doing what you’re doing? What would you do? Beat them to death. That’s probably true. Probably true.

I teacher was king over Israel and Jerusalem. I about the highest position you can get into. I devoted myself to study. There are some people who think, well, I’ll find it through study, and I’m going to explore by wisdom, all that is done under heaven. In other words, I’m going to take a look at all the things that are done on this earth and explore what is the wisdom of it. It’s that’s my assignment. I’m going to observe all of the things that are going on and then observe what’s causing them, what’s bringing those about. What a heavy burden God has laid on men. He said, I have seen all the things that are done under the sun. He said, I’ve seen it all. All of them are meaningless, chasing after the wind. What a twist twisted. What is twisted cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

My friends, as a thinking person, we have to start thinking that there are repercussions to our actions, and sometimes these repercussions are pretty severe. I remember a number of years ago that I visited the jail with Dr Eric Criswell, who was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas for a number of years, and we visited a young boy whose parents were Christians. He was Jewish by natural birth, became a born again believer and his wife, and they had these children, and this boy was in jail. He was in jail for using drugs and selling drugs. That’s what happens to you as a child, that you think this is fun, but you’re going to be judged by adults. You may think it’s fun and get laughed at by kids, but adults are going to put you in jail, and you live in an adult world. You don’t live in a kid world. When it comes to punishment, you live in an adult world. An adult world don’t think you’re cute, so they’re going to put you in jail. And Bobby was in jail. It’s a sad thing to see a kid that you taught in Sunday school and who claimed to know the Lord sitting in jail like an animal caged, like a bird in a cage, caged behind bars, in some cases, allowed to be free an hour a day shower with all the rest of the guys who are looking out after you see. Sexually abused in jail. I remember leaving the jail that day with Dr Criswell, and in His way of saying to me, the way of the Transgressor is hard, and that’s true, the way of the Transgressor is hard. Why? Your punishment isn’t going to come from kids who laughed you into trouble. It’s going to come from adults who don’t think you’re cute. The way of the Transgressor is hard. There’s consequences to your actions, and we have to learn that. That’s something that young people have to learn. Old ones have to learn as well. There’s consequences to our actions. Now, if we thought through that every time, we probably would do very little wrong, but we don’t. Why? Because we’re idiots. Solomon doesn’t say that in those words, but he does indicate it that we’re not that bright. Why? Because we don’t think through the consequences to our actions, and there’s very few things that what we do that don’t have consequences to them, and those things need to be taught to our youth, because you’re not going to live in a kid’s world very long. You’re going to be living in an adult world, and you better learn how adults how adults think and how adults deal with transgression.

What is twisted cannot be strengthened. You can’t change it. What’s lacking can’t be counted. I thought to myself, look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone else who has ever ruled over Jerusalem before me. I’ve experienced much of wisdom and knowledge. There are people who’ve experienced a lot of knowledge, they’ve gone to school, they’ve gotten a lot of teaching, he said, but I want to guarantee you haven’t even touched what Solomon had. Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom. So he said, I not only studied about wisdom, but I’ve applied myself to the understanding of wisdom. In other words, I not just want to know about something, but I want to experience what this wisdom is, and also of the madness of folly. But I learned that this, too is the chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and the more knowledge, the more grief, the more knowledgeable and intelligent our scientific community has become, the more atomic bombs we have built to blow the daylights out of one another. That’s how brilliant we are. Our scientific world has become so smart that we’ve learned how to destroy humanity.

I thought, with my heart, come now and I’ll test you with pleasure and find out what is good. That’s the bigger temptation, pleasure, and that also proved to be meaningless. Laughter, I said, is foolish, and what does pleasure accomplish? I tried sharing myself up with wine and embracing folly. My mind still guiding me with wisdom. My mind was still guiding me with wisdom, but I was trying to get drunk be happy. Now what was he learning? It doesn’t work. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives. My friends, you seek pleasure. You seek sexual pleasure. You seek pleasure in perverting your mind with alcohol, and in this day and age with drugs, it’s insanity to think that’s going to bring you happiness. It doesn’t bring you happiness at all. Person goes out, gets smashed, get drunk, wake up the next day with a happy hangover. You kidding? Can’t even walk, can’t even think, that oh, boy, did I have fun last night. You go out and seek sex. After a moment of pleasure, you’re ready to go home and to the dumb girl who’s sitting there thinking this guy’s in love with me. That’s crazy. If he’s in love with you, he’ll wait. And if you loved her, you would wait. Am I right or wrong? Because you see that pleasure is very, very fleeting. Comes today, gone tomorrow, very fleeting. All of it’s fleeting. That’s what he’s saying. All this stuff that you’re chasing is meaningless. It’s all temporary. For a temporary fix, you’ll ruin your life, stupidity. But do we do it? Yeah, for a temporary fix, we will absolutely ruin our entire life because it doesn’t last. If it lasted, you doing. Have do it again. Do it once, take care of it. It’s fleeting, fleeting, fleeting, not worth it.

I thought, with my heart Come now, I’ll test you with pleasure and find out what’s good said, it proved to be meaningless. Laughter is foolish. Why is that? Well, because people will laugh you into hell, but they won’t laugh you out of it. Nothing wrong with joy. Joy comes from the Lord. But there’s a lot of stuff that we can do that’ll make you laugh, but it’ll also send you to jail. Got to have wisdom to know just how funny you want to be. I used to live for laughter. That was my big thing as a lost person, was to sit around my buddies and telling these jokes always clean. You understand, these jokes. And everybody died laughing at me and thought I was the funniest thing I’d ever come down to Pike, and I just sat there, just smug as could be. And he loved me. They loved me. Then I became a Christian, didn’t tell dirty jokes anymore, and I lost all my friends. That’s how fleeting it is. Fleeting they like you if you’re doing what I want you to do, and if you don’t, you’re a goner. So just accept that. What do you do? Get new friends. That’s what you do. You go get new friends, because your old ones will laugh you into hell. But as I say, they will not laugh you out of it.

Now he said, here’s another one we do to try to keep busy. I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself. I redecorated the house 16 times. I went out and bought new ones. I always wanted a bigger better house, and as soon as I got a bigger better house, well, guess what I was doing, looking for a bigger better one. You’re always looking for something more. So he built houses. He planted vineyards, gardens, beautiful gardens. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them, I made reservoirs of to water, groves of flourishing trees, irrigation systems. He did it all.

I bought male and female slaves, and had other slaves who were born into my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women, singers and a harem as well. The delights of the heart of man, I became greater by far, than anyone in Jerusalem before me. And in all this, my wisdom stayed with me. He keeps saying that he were doing all this dumb stuff he just got through saying that it doesn;t amount to anything. He said, things that wisdom stayed with me. Well, what was the wisdom? It’s all vanity. It’s coming to the truth of something. This is all vanity. It’s all vanity. Boys, the things that I thought were so important in life play such importance in are meaningless when you’re lying here like this, dying of cancer.

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Bob George 14:31
He said, I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. Guys think about that. Well, I can get anything I want. I got the money to buy anything that I want to buy. You just think it and I can get it. Boy, would you think? Well, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Would it be? Not according to him, because you want more. I refuse my heart no pleasure. There was no pleasure that I desired that I didn’t fulfill. My heart took delight in all my work. Over, and this was the reward for all my labor. And yet, when I survived all that my hands had done, or surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind, nothing was gained under the sun. What are you going to do at the end of your life? Say, what have I achieved? What have I left behind? Have I left behind some wisdom to pass on to my family, to my friends? Have I been diligent in recognizing in my own heart that the only thing that counts is man and his relationship with God? Have I realized that really the only thing that counts for a man is his relationship with God through a relationship with Christ, Jesus? Have I realized that of all the good things that I can do for you down here physically, that the greatest thing I can do for you is spiritually.

My son in law was telling me of a gentleman that worked with him in the medical profession. He could have been as successful as you could be in the medical profession, but one thing that he did was he led this gentleman to Christ, and a number of months after that, this man died, and he had an opportunity of doing the eulogy at his funeral. If nothing else is ever done, as great, as you may do in the healing profession, the one thing that God, we remember he, you led my son to me. You led him to me. Every one of us have a sphere of influence. Every one of us have people that we know we every one of us have neighbors. Every one of us work with different people. Every one of us are out in this universe, connecting to somebody and my friends, the greatest thing, the most eternal thing that you’re ever going to be able to do for those people is to tell them about Jesus. That’s eternal. All of this down here is temporal. John, in his medical profession, can heal a body, but that body’s going to die. And so if you can lead a person to Jesus, you’ve just done something eternal. It’s not that you discredit what you do down here, but the issue is it’s meaningless, because sooner or later, you’re going to die. That’s why these people get all hung up in healing and healing and healing. You’re going to die. I don’t care how many legs you grow on or anything else, you’re going to die someday. So why are you all hung up on healing? If you get healed, fine, if you don’t, you’ll get healed eternally. That’s not the issue is what we have down here. The issue is, where are you going to go when you do die? Because you’re going to and I want to tell you something, whether you’re young or old, hell is not a place to reside. That’s a scary place that you don’t want to go to if you’ve got a brain in your head. And that’s a big if.

My friends, the only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love, according to God. You can do all these other things. We can do them all. They all sound good. We all have different avenues that we can work through. But in the final analysis, what God is saying is, what I’m looking for is your faith in me that expresses itself through love to others. God has called you told to be free, but don’t use your freedom to indulge the flesh you can but there’s repercussions. If you’re going to think like an adult, there’s repercussions, and they’re not good. The way of the Transgressor, transgressor is hard. It’s hard. It’s hard life, tough life, it’s hard. So there’s repercussions. So he says, Be Smart, not only to know wisdom, but to act it out that let this wisdom that God has given you become a part of your life, and to exercise it every day in your decision making. What is your decision making? What would love do? If I get to be a father someday, don’t my kids lie to me? Break my heart. Well, then why are you lying to yours? Why you lie to yours? If you want to love once your kid out using drugs someday? No, of course not. Then why you using them? Want your kid to be out drinking and carousing around? No, of course not. Well. Then why you doing it? Was it decision making that you and I can make if we want to count on wisdom, that’s what wisdom is, listening to the voice of God and acting upon it. They’re right or wrong?

He denied himself nothing. Refused my heart, no pleasure. He said to His heart, the only thing that took the light in was his work. You know, that’s true. It talks about that later. That’s that’s the thing that’ll keep you going. That’s why I wonder sometimes why people want to quit working. Your mind just gets idle. I got enough trouble in my mind without it being idle. When I surveyed all of my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve. Said, everything’s meaningless, chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun.

Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom and also the madness of folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what he has already done? What’s his successor going to do that I haven’t done? I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness, and the wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in darkness. But I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both, they’re both going to die. Whether they walk in darkness, walk in light, you’re going to die. Then I thought in my heart, the fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise? I said in my heart, this too is meaningless for the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered in the days to come, both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man must also die. What’s he saying? Whether you’re wise or whether you’re a fool, it has nothing to do with how you’re going to ultimately be remembered. So the issue is, do you want to walk in love right now? That’s, that’s the whole issue. He’s saying, forget about your inheritance. Forget about what people are going to think about you. They’re not. I tell people, if you’re worried about what people are thinking about it, forget it. They’re not thinking about you, thinking about ourselves. But live in love. So he said the only thing that matters is love.

And folks again, when we begin to see, like we talked about last week, how well we’re doing in this love department, we realize we’ve got a lot of growth to do. We realize that we’ve got a lot of learning to do. We’ve got a lot of yielding to do, to realize that if I’m going to experience coming out of me things like love and joy, joy, not happiness, joy from God, long suffering, all of those qualities that come from God, I am going to have to learn to depend upon him right now. Guys, in our human experience, it’s a cumulative effect. You can learn and build upon that learning experience and build and build and build and build. You can accumulate. You get a little knowledge here, you get more, and it all builds. That’s human. But when it comes to the spirit, there’s no building. It’s moment by moment. There’s no building on my past experience. It’s how am I going to respond to you right now? It doesn’t matter how I responded yesterday, I might have responded wonderfully yesterday and be like a mule today. So we can’t count on so called experience. We have to make a decision moment by moment to yield to the God who lives in you and let him express his life in and through you and me, then we’ll love on each other. How? As Christ loved us, don’t use your freedom to indulge the flesh, but use your freedom to do what? Serve one another in love.

Let’s pray together. Father, allow us to take these truths and to think in our hearts. Hearts. How can we begin to apply them? We disagree with each other. Do we ever take time to really discuss the foundation of those disagreements? Why we disagree? Is it always important to be right rather than be loving? Many times we live in a atmosphere that, brother, I know it, and you don’t, and here’s how the mustard is spread. We’re very, very arrogant people, and we need to be humbled by the truth of the Word of God, because there is no other source to go to for information except leaning on our own understanding or going to the Word of God to try to find wisdom from the Word of God, Father, help us to yield to you and to be willing to yield to you, not to lean on our own understanding, but in all things, to acknowledge you and allow you to direct our paths. And we pray these things in Christ’s holy name and for his sake. Amen. 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.