Join Bob George in this episode of Classic Christianity as he delves into the profound consequences of self-reliance and the root of all sin. Bob uncovers the dangers of wanting to become our own gods by determining right from wrong, reminding us of the catastrophic outcomes that follow such attitudes. As he guides listeners through the importance of spiritual death and rebirth, Bob emphasizes the transformative power of Christ and the comfort that comes from being freed from sin through His love.
SPEAKER 1 :
For Jesus.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. Through our Classic Christianity radio program and the books, Bible studies, CDs, and DVDs we have available for purchase online at bobgeorge.net, it is our desire and prayer at Bob George Ministries that you continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Let’s join Bob now as he gets started with today’s lesson.
SPEAKER 05 :
So you see what you have there is you have someone who is leaning on their own understanding and missing the whole point. The eating of the tree, that was the tree from the knowledge of good and evil. It was the tree that I’m going to eat of that says, God, I do not need you anymore to determine what is right and what is wrong. I’m going to lean on my own understanding. I am going to be God in regard to these things, and therefore, I really do not need you. I will determine right from wrong and good from evil. Only God can determine right from wrong and good from evil, but man says, no, you don’t understand, Lord. You’re kind of old and old-fashioned. You just haven’t been enlightened yet into our generation. And so we lean on our own understanding, determining right from wrong, good from evil, and that’s the whole essence. Now with that, sin entered into the world. And when sin entered into the world, man was left to his own. It’s as God is saying, if you want to play this game of determining right from wrong, good from evil, I’ll let you do it, and I’ll show you the results. You’ll produce your own results. I don’t need to produce them. You’ll produce your own. That’s like saying someone to us, I don’t need to mess your life up. You’ll do it yourself. Is that true or not, guys? I don’t need someone to mess my life up. I’m very capable of doing it myself. Aren’t you? And so God says, I’ll let you do that. I’m going to show you the futility of that sin. Because you see, to this gentleman, that’s such a minor thing. Such a minor thing. A minor thing of a created being saying to his creator, you don’t know what you’re talking about? A minor thing of a created being saying to his creator, who needs you? A minor thing for the created being to say to his creator, I’ll boss you around, I’ll tell you what to do and expect you to obey me? Minor? That’s not minor. It’s pretty major. And folks, it’s at the very root of all sin. Every sin you and I commit is a sin that the root attitude behind that is, I’ll do it my way. One of the most popular songs ever recorded. I’ll do it my way. Lean on our own understanding. Now it says, instead acknowledging Him and letting Him direct our paths. So he’s saying to us here, is there any encouragement from being freed from death to life? Does that mean anything to anybody, or is it just words? You see, folks, many times we have words in our heads, but have we ever thought through these things? I think one of the reasons that there is an advantage to seeing a corpse Seeing a loved one dead is to see how dead dead is. Because until we’ve seen death, we don’t know how dead dead is. And dead is dead. You can talk to that body. You could get up and tantalize that body, and it isn’t going to respond. It’s dead. It’s dead. And that physical death is a picture of spiritual death. We’re dead. Spiritually dead and in need of life. And what it’s saying is do you realize what you’ve been freed from? And the thing that killed you is the law and we still hang on to that and say we’re still under that when if you are, you’re under the death penalty of that. No, I’ll tell you what, Bob. I’ll tell you what, God. I’m going to keep what appears to be good and kind of alleviate this over here. In other words, I want to forget about death, but this thing over here, the caustic, I’m going to drag that over. And I’m going to be led by that because under here I can lean on my own understanding. And when I have God communicating to me direct, I can’t lean on my own understanding. I might try, but there’s always that little voice there that says, you’re really out to lunch trying to do this. Guys, we’ve been freed from death. Do we realize that? We have been freed from condemnation from God. Wherefore, there is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. And you say, why? Because I’ve been so good? No, because the law of the spirit of life set you free. from the law of sin and death. Now what’s he saying here? If there’s any encouragement from being united with Christ, in other words, you’re now in relationship with the living God. Is there any comfort from His love? Is there any comfort at all from knowing that God loves you perfectly? You see, I don’t have to sit and lean on my own understanding and try to mess around with the story of the Garden of Eden and try to rationalize all this stuff in order to know the love of God. God sent His Son to teach us the love of God. But you see, to the Jewish rabbi, he’s denied the source of love and just says, I want to wallow in the result of it. But I don’t want to acknowledge the source. Isn’t that something? Now, so he says, is there any comfort in his love? Is there any fellowship? If there’s any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and in purpose. So there’s two things there that he wants us to deal with. I want to be a oneness in spirit, and I want a oneness in spirit and love in purpose. What is the purpose? What did Jesus say the purpose of the Holy Spirit coming to live in you and me would be? He said, first of all, when the Holy Spirit comes, he will what? Guide you into all truth. Are you indwelt with the Spirit? Then what should be our heart’s desire? Number one is to be guided into all truth, not leaning on my own understanding, but allowing God to guide me into truth. And then to guide others into truth. Taking the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, make them known to me. What do I desire in my life? To have the Holy Spirit of God make known the things of Jesus. That should be our desire, should be our attitude. So he’s saying to us to be like-minded, having the same love, and being one in spirit and in purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition. Well, what is selfish ambition? I’m going to do something in order to get something. Is that not selfish ambition? I’m going to do something. I’ll be nice to you because I want you to do something for me. Do we see that in the world today? Well, of course you do. Of course you do all the time. I’ll be nice to you, get what I want, then I’m going to dump you. Has that ever happened in human experience? Absolutely. Absolutely. So it’s called selfish ambition. It’s called, I’ve got an ambition to make me better. He says, don’t do anything with that. Is that leaning on your own understanding? What’s human understanding say? Man, if you don’t look after me, me ain’t gonna get looked after. Isn’t that the world’s philosophy? Do unto others before they do unto you. The golden rule. He who has the gold rules. That’s the world’s mindset without question. Competition. Ah, that’s good. Go get it before they do. Isn’t that the way the world runs? He’s saying don’t do that with selfish ambition. So again, what should our work habit be? Work as unto the Lord. whether your boss is watching or whether he isn’t, work as unto the Lord. Paul deals with that, doesn’t he? To work as unto the Lord means you work honestly, you work diligently, you don’t just give what you must, but you go beyond the call of duty. It’s an attitude. It’s an attitude of servitude. And you don’t do that so that you’ll get. You do that because that’s what serving is all about. A Christian should be the best worker on the face of the earth. And unfortunately many times from what I’ve seen, I don’t mean the ministry, but I mean what I’ve seen in the marketplace is sometimes they’re the worst. And so there’s an attitude that if I’m going to be a Christian in the marketplace, I’m going to be the best worker there is. And I’m going to do my job diligently. And I’m going to fulfill my responsibilities diligently. Why? Well, that’s what the Lord says. I’m not doing that out of selfish ambition. I’m doing it in order to serve. Now it says to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. So what does he call conceit? Thinking of yourself more highly than you ought. Calls it vanity, doesn’t he? And that’s what it is. It’s vain conceit. And there’s nothing real to it. But he said, in humility, consider others better than yourself. Now this is the whole deal. Now guys, how are you going to do that when your attitude is that all bosses are bad, all owners are rotten, the attitude that you have going on in the world today that they don’t deserve to have anything so let’s us get it, That’s a mindset, isn’t it? That’s a mindset that we have. And what he’s saying here is that’s not a mindset of a child of God. In humility, when you’re considering others better than yourself, that didn’t have a poor self-image. It’s to have an attitude of servitude. Well, you mentioned that today as an example. In marriage, wives serve your husband. I tell you, all you get is, you know, look like you just ate a skunk. God forbid I’d have to serve somebody. Why? That’s for the unenlightened. It’s leaning on your own understanding. Be like a man. You should support your wife. Let her go make her own way. Those are not attitudes of servitude. They’re attitudes of vain conceit. That with me, if you think I’m going to serve him or her, you just watch. I’m not a servant. I’m God. I just haven’t recognized it yet. Folks, these attitudes he’s talking about, he’s saying, is there any comfort at all in being over here? You certainly didn’t get over here because he had that attitude. If Jesus would have had our attitude, we’d all be still lost. Can you imagine being God and seeing someone, some little peyant down here spitting in your face? If it had been me, I’d have tramped on him, wouldn’t you? I’ve said many times, it’s a good thing I’m not God. There wouldn’t be anybody saved. Isn’t that right? That’s the way we are. Boy, I don’t deserve to be treated that way. Not old King here. That’s the way we are, isn’t it? I don’t deserve that. Well, if you got what you deserve, you’d go to hell. If you got what you deserve from God.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amy George’s book, Goodbye Is Not Forever, is a wonderful story about her life in the Ukraine during World War II. This book will inspire you as you read about the struggles and hardships of wartime and the faithfulness of God throughout it all. Get your copy of Goodbye Is Not Forever today at BobGeorge.net.
SPEAKER 05 :
So we have funny attitudes that have to be renewed, do they not? And that’s what he’s talking about here. Do nothing out of these vain conceited. Humility, consider others better than yourself. In other words, don’t think that it’s lowly to be serving someone in love. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped and something to be held on to. He said he made himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. You notice he refers to that as making himself nothing. Isn’t that strange how we think we’re something? Now being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and he became obedient to death, even death on the cross. And because of this, it says, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but how much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. What does that mean? It means in humility. When Paul used those identical words of fear and trembling, when he said, when I came to you, I did not come to you with brilliant words and lofty ideas, but I came to you with fear and trembling. In other words, with total humility, because I wanted your faith to stand not in some man’s brilliant ideas, but in the Lord Jesus Christ. So when it’s talking about work out your salvation, what’s he talking about there? Work out what’s been worked in and do that in humility, right? For it’s God who works in you to act according to His good purpose. So God is working in you. And when you’re serving one another, that’s God working in you. God served you, served one another, and that’s God working in you. That’s working out what has been worked into you. If we don’t have love for others, it’s because God has never been able to work in His love towards you. Why? You haven’t led Him. If I’m still trying to earn God’s love, how in the world is He going to get His love into me? Because I can never earn it. And unless you’re totally deceived, how in the world could you ever think that you really have earned God’s acceptance. But folks, I want to tell you, that’s what the self-righteous world is. The self-righteous world, you talk about being deceived, think about that for a moment. Think about it, just for a moment. Look up at the sky. Yesterday I was looking up at the mass universe, the sky, the clouds, the immensity of this. Your mind goes back to pictures taken back from space of this little ball, dangling out in space. You’d think at least God would have a string hanging on or something to secure it. There isn’t anything to secure it. It’s just dangling out here, isn’t it? And the God who made that, the God who made that, think of the immensity of that God. And yet He’s a God that we say, well, He doesn’t know for sure what He’s doing. No. I know more than he does. We have to realize, folks, that God is at work in you and me to act according to his good pleasure. He has wisdom. He’s given us wisdom, and he gives it to us so that we can share it with others. Now, well, here’s one that’s easy for us. Do everything without complaining and arguing. That shouldn’t be a problem, should it? How you doing with all this? I’m ready to say amen and go home personally. Now how come we should do everything without complaining and arguing? So that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in what kind of a world? A crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run and labor for nothing. Well, what’s he saying to us? Complaining and arguing in the workplace? Complaining and arguing at home? Complaining and arguing all the time? What is that? Well, he says, you’re not going to be looked as without fault in this crooked and depraved generation which you and I live, if we’re acting just exactly like the depraved generation in which we live. So if there’s any group of people that should not be griping and complaining all the time, guess who it should be? Why, yeah, you and me, Christians. Boy, that’s a hard one, isn’t it? My husband doesn’t understand me. That’s slob. Well, there’s a lot of complaining going on in marriage, isn’t there? We just complain all the time. Think about that for a moment. That you got an idea that a man is going to be like a woman. Or to think like one. Or a woman’s going to think like a man. Now you want to talk about being deceived. You just try to bring those two together. Impossible. A woman, I tell Amy sometimes, are we looking at the same moon? I mean, it’s like one’s looking at it from the front and the other’s looking at it from the back. And you’re supposed to be looking at the same moon, but you’re not looking at the same moon. We see things totally different from each other. But you know what time does? Sometimes you learn to kind of get a kick out of that and appreciate it and learn to love it. That’s woman. I look at that and say, that’s the way women think. Isn’t that cute? And she says, that’s the way men think. Isn’t that dumb? I mean, she had the audacity the other day to tell me she thought she was going to write a book entitled, Men Say the Dumbest Things. She was going to use me as an example. Well, he’s saying to us, quit complaining about those things. You’re not going to change it. Complaining doesn’t change anything, so quit complaining about it and be a person who learns to accept things the way they are. The things you can’t change, you accept the way they are. And learn to realize that God can teach you something in those circumstances. But we don’t want to learn. See, I want to lean on my own understanding and say, Lord, I don’t want to learn in there. I don’t want to work out my salvation here with fear and trembling and humility. I want to get my own way. You don’t understand how important it is for me to have my own way. And so many times we lose relationships, we lose relationships, Security and jobs, we lose all kinds of things because of our own patience that we’re not going to wait for God to do something. I’m going to lean on my own understanding and take things into my own hands and then we end up blowing it, don’t we? Well, let’s turn back to Ephesians. Ephesians 4. Verse 17, I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. So he’s saying to us that there are many of us who have futile thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge every kind of impurity and with a continual lust for more. Have you noticed how your flesh is insatiable? Someone once said it’s like a goat. It’ll eat anything you give it. Your flesh is insatiable, guys. People will come in and say… Oh, well, a little marijuana isn’t going to hurt you. Well, if it was just a little marijuana, maybe it wouldn’t hurt you. The only problem is that a little marijuana wants more marijuana. And as you keep wanting more and more and more, after a while, the effects become cumulative. And after a while, in order to get the same kick, you’ve got to use more. And after a while, marijuana, how much you use it, doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go to another one. And before long, I’m into crack and I’m into all kinds of drugs that destroy your mind and your life. And the subtlety of that is Satan said at the beginning, one little puff won’t hurt you. Maybe you can smoke it like the president and just not inhale. Now folks, we have to understand that that little thing, one isn’t going to hurt you, is where it all begins. Isn’t it? One little drink isn’t going to hurt you. Tell that to an alcoholic. How did he start? With one drink. You young people in here will be tempted all over the place in your life. Just try one little thing. And folks, I want to tell you, you try it once, you’re subject to trying it twice. If you can try it twice, you can Try it three times and four times and five times and pretty soon that little thing has got you hooked. And you’re in the process of destroying your lives. So don’t listen to it. See, that’s one of the beauties of being a Christian. I don’t have to fit into the crowd. It doesn’t make any difference what the crowd wants to do. I know I’m not going to lean on my own understanding. I got God’s wisdom available to me. and God’s wisdom says why would you want to get your mind all messed up on that when you can have your mind renewed on me they say that alcohol eats up brain cells I have none to spare I’m having enough trouble with the ones I got Now, folks, I’m not saying this to get down, you know, don’t you drink. I’m not talking about that type of thing. I’m talking about how the subtlety is that it won’t hurt you. The answer to that is that’s not necessarily true. It might. I don’t know what it’s going to do. It might destroy my life. That’s why I’m not going to take the chance. And the greatest thing that you can deal with with your youth is don’t take the chance. something that can destroy your life why take the chance now let’s go on I insist on the Lord you must no longer lives the Gentiles we talked about that verse 20 you however did not know come to know Christ that way surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is where in Christ Jesus You were taught in regard to your former way of life. Now all of us had a former way of life, didn’t we? Could you as a Christian have a former way of life as a Christian? Yeah, you could, couldn’t you? In other words, could you be a child of God and yet live like you didn’t have a brain in your head? Can we? Any of you ever done that? So there’s a former, and what it’s saying is there’s a new life available to you. It’s not just new life in Christ, but as a child of God, there’s a new life available to you. In other words, you can be a child of God still leaning on your own understanding, can you not? So he says, no, you can be a child of God. You are saved, but you’re leaning on your own understanding. And there’s a newness of life available to you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
SPEAKER 04 :
Put Jesus first in your life and turn your life around.
