Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: Confusion leads to doubt. If you're going to write this in a chronology, confusion, if we allow it in our lives, if we don't deal with it with the Word of God, it will lead to doubt. Doubt can kill you.

David J: This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David J, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible.

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That's the Bold Faith Hawaii cruise with Pastor Jack Hibbs. As you explore the beauty of the islands of Hawaii, you will grow in your faith and knowledge of how the Word of God applies to your daily life. Once again, that's the Bold Faith Hawaii cruise, June 12th through the 19th, 2027. For more information, go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com.

David J: On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues in his series called Disciplines of Life, and a message titled "The Discipline of Disillusionment." The Christian walk is full of disciplines: the trials, the setbacks, the hard seasons that God uses to shape our faith from the inside out.

One of the hardest is when life lets us down and we feel like we've lost all hope. You see, disillusionment is that crushing feeling when something we counted on turns out to be false. It's actually stronger than disappointment, and it can shake us to our core.

But God never leaves us nor forsakes us. Today, Pastor Jack teaches that confusion can grow into doubt, and doubt makes us hesitate when God says "go." But receiving His Word into our hearts builds a faith that overcomes the world. Now, with his message called "The Discipline of Disillusionment," here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: The Bible says in Psalm 61:1, "Hear my cry, O God." Listen to the psalmist in his sense of disillusionment. "Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I."

You're supposed to pause right there. That's his prayer. He's crying out. He's disillusioned. He's overwhelmed. You wait, and you think about what he's talking about. There's a pause. Then you look at the next statement.

"For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah." Selah is Hebrew. It means this: pause and meditate on this. It means get it under your skin. Don't go to the next statement without getting this under your skin.

How do you fight off disillusionment? There are times in life, and it will come to you, where you'll sit down as Job did in a heap of ashes and just sit there. No one can understand you. No one can relate to you. No one feels what you feel. You can't even form words anymore. Have you ever been to that place?

You just sit in that moment and you say, "Oh God, where are You? I'm filled with fear. I'm filled with confusion. I don't know which way to go." And you wait. Selah. Wait. My soul waits for the Lord like those who wait for the morning.

In 1 John 4:18, the Bible says, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear," that's God's love, "because fear involves torment." Are you terrified? Are you fearful and timid? "But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."

What does that verse mean? It means that if you and I are tormented and confused and disillusioned, then we have not become dyed in the wool, as it were, in the love of God. It is present. The love of God is there, but I've not let it saturate my life. Why? I'm too busy texting, working, eating, whatever. No wonder why we have such a hard time.

If you're going through a trouble in life, the greatest thing you can do right now is grab a Bible and sit down and say, "Lord..." In fact, here's a bonus verse, coming right off the top of my head. It's John 15:7. Jesus said, "If my word abides in you, you may ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you, herein is my Father glorified." You just sit down. You let the Word of God come into your life. Why? Because that's what you're going to speak out.

If the Word's in you, it's going to come out. But when it gets into you, it changes the whole situation. James 1:12 says, "Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone."

God doesn't use evil to tempt people. So right now, if in your life you are fighting the disillusionment, just know this: it's coming against you to deceive you, to breed confusion. If tonight you're saying, "I don't know what to believe anymore. I was talking to some Mormons, and I was talking to some Jehovah's Witnesses, and I was talking to some Muslims, and I don't know what to believe anymore."

Listen, the enemy loves confusion. Get back to the Bible. Back to the Word. It's always your rescue. It's always your place to go. Psalm 127:1 says, "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain." What does that verse mean in light of disillusionment and confusion? "Lord, I need You."

Didn't Elijah, if you think about it, put himself in an awesome position on Mount Carmel when he was the only one up there? And all the prophets of the Asherahs and Baal, which were 850 in total if you count them all up there on the mountaintop. They're all there with the false gods and Elijah's there with the real God. He put himself in that position.

You say, "I want to see God move in my life. I want to see God shake the earth." That's cool, but you've got to put yourself in the place where God is going to shake the earth. You're not going to walk out on the street and say, "Okay, God, I want to see some action. Do something." He's not going to do nothing. What's He going to do that for? So you go, "Oh, wow, that was great"? No. You follow Him. Wherever He's going, there's going to be action.

As long as God is active in this church, I'm going to be here. When He moves on, I'm moving. If He's not moving here, I don't want to be here. Wherever He's going, you can bank on this: He's going to be doing something. Imagine all the crowds. Jesus is preaching and teaching, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers. No wonder why Josephus tells us at one point there's 100,000 people following Jesus. 100,000 people.

They saw stuff because they didn't go to some theater or rig it up that way. They followed Jesus. You want to see stuff? Follow Jesus. Keep your eyes on Him. How do we get clear of confusion? 1 John 5:3-6 says: "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

There is no heaven, no salvation, no eternity for you if you do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. "This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth."

Point two tonight: the discipline of disillusionment is this. Disillusionment deceives us by generating doubt. Notice the buildup. Confusion leads to doubt. If you're going to write this in a chronology: confusion, if we allow it in our lives, if we don't deal with it with the Word of God, it will lead to doubt. Doubt can kill you.

Whenever I think of doubt, this is how my mind's wired. I think of a situation that happened when I was so young. I was soloing. My instructor thought I was ready to fly the plane by myself. So he signs my logbook, puts it in the back of the seat behind me, and he steps out of the plane. We're on the ground. He steps out of the plane and says, "Okay, you're ready to go."

I can't exactly describe to you all the sensations I was having at that moment, but you are expected to go fly that thing around the county and bring it back down while he stands there and waits. It's the first time you've ever been alone. When you get ready to go, it's do or die. If you hesitate, if there's doubt, then either you were not paying attention, and at that moment you wished that you would have been paying attention.

Doubt will fill your heart. You pull into position and the tower says, "2-6-9 Juliet, cleared for takeoff." And you push in that throttle. You start going and you start thinking. You think thoughts you've never thought before. "What if this thing doesn't get off the ground? What if the wings don't work? What if the engine cuts out? What if a dog runs across the runway? What if I have to go to the bathroom?" Everything comes up in your mind.

It's that moment you pull back for the first time all by yourself. It's just you and God. You take off. "I can do this!" But if you hesitate, the runway's only so long. Doubt will cause you to hesitate. Hesitating is never good when God said "go." Waiting is a great thing. Don't confuse waiting with hesitating. God says, "Wait upon the Lord," and so you say, "Okay, God, I'm going to wait. I'm waiting." Then when He says, "Okay, now go," you don't hesitate.

David J: You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. To learn more about this ministry or to catch up on some previous episodes, go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And now, let's get back to today's message. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: When the Lord says to Moses—he's got two and a half million Jewish brothers and sisters behind him coming out of Egypt—and the Lord says, "Moses, pull into position and hold. Moses, standby. Wait. Moses, you're cleared for takeoff."

Do you know what Moses did when God said that to him? God says, "Go!" And Moses turned around, "Hey everyone, I want you to see the salvation of God!" And the Lord says, "Moses, Moses, what are you doing standing here speaking to the people? I said go!" Then he gets into the water, and then the rest is history.

Wait upon the Lord, but when the Lord says go, you go. Doubt will keep us from going. Doubt is what you and I hear all the time in our heads. "It ain't going to work. I'll look like a fool. Nothing's going to happen." Do you hear that in your head? Yes, you do. We all hear that. That's why we don't sign up for stuff. "I'm not going to do it. You sign up, I'm not going to do it. I can't." We don't want to fail because we have doubt.

1 Peter 1:3 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," that's your foundation, "to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away." Thank God. You need to write that verse down if you just looked at your stock portfolio there. If you looked at Wall Street, you're going to want that verse.

"And it's reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials," disillusionment, "that the genuineness of your faith, being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Man, that's awesome.

I don't want to beat this with a stick, but all of this stuff about buying gold, buying silver... I wish I was a billionaire because I would have commercials come on right after that guy's commercial and say, "The Bible says your faith in God is worth more than gold and silver. And you can have all the gold and silver in the world, but if you don't have faith when the Lord comes back, you ain't got nothing but gold and silver, and you can't eat it."

The greatest thing... you make fun of gold, but that's going to be the currency. You know what? So what? I read my Bible all the way through. The end of my Bible says there's going to be a day coming. You want to be rich? First of all, put faith in God. Number two, if you don't want to put faith in God and you want to go through the Tribulation period with your hair on fire and stuff like that, the Bible says you better have a lot of wheat.

So start buying... go down to Wonder Bread, get a bunch of bread, because the Bible says you're going to have to work all day for one slice of bread. Think of that. I'd rather have faith in God. Why? Well, if I get shot, get old, drop dead, get hit by a truck, lightning strikes me, fall off this pulpit and break my neck, it's an insurance against everything. Think about that. What do you have? Aflac? I heard that. I can hear everything from up here. Aflac! Jesus, man, it's Jesus.

Satan hates our faith. He hates our faith so much. I read it in the opening. We'll read it in totality. Matthew 13:18: "Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside," off to the side, didn't care too much about it.

"But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy." They're all happy about it, and you're happy for them. But watch this. They immediately receive the Word of God with joy, "yet he has no root in himself," doesn't let it Selah, doesn't let it grow deep, "but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word," they mock him for being a Christian, "immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."

Satan hates your faith. Charles Spurgeon said, and it's a wonderful quote: "When we doubt, we are putting faith in Satan." That's the world he traffics in. So, how do we overcome doubt? Matthew 14:26-31: "And when the disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, 'It is a ghost!'" In the Jewish mind, right before you die, the proof of your impending death was that you would see a ghost before you die. That's why they shouted, "It's a ghost!" Translation: "We're all going to die and there's no hope for us."

"And they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'Be of good cheer!'" What an awesome contradiction. Jesus is walking along. "Hey, what are you guys doing? Be of good cheer! Come on, man." Imagine. He's not going, "No, guys, no, no, no, no!" He's just walking along on the water. "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid."

And Peter answered and said to Him, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." Why did Peter say that? Was it a God moment? Did God put it in his head? Probably. Peter says, "Call me. If it's You, call me." I think Peter's saying, "Get me away from these guys. Get me out of this boat. I don't want to be in this boat with these guys."

We just go from thinking we're going to pass from one world into the next in death. You come walking on the water. I want to be with You any old day, even if it's walking on water, than in a boat with a bunch of screaming maniac panic people. I can't take it. Peter's just like them. They were all crying. Yes, but when you see the light, you don't want to hang around that anymore.

When Jesus says, "Be of good cheer, it is I, don't be afraid," the last thing on earth you want to do is hang around with people who are absolutely terrified at their shadow. "Come on, let's go!" "It'll never work." "No, come on, let's go, let's follow Jesus!" "It'll never happen. You're going to get killed. Watch out, you're going to poke your eye out."

Peter says, "That's it, I'm coming. It's safer with Jesus on the water than in a boat with all these crybabies." It's amazing. Doubt is dangerous. So, how to overcome it? Receiving the Word of God into our hearts. The Bible says faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. Romans 10:17. So, determining "I am going to receive the Word of God." Tonight, tomorrow morning, get up and you say, "I'm going to receive the Word of God right now." And you're going to read it.

Number two is putting ourselves into a place where faith has to be exercised. We read the Bible. What are we reading it for? If we're not determined to put it into practice, then read the newspaper. When we read the Bible, we're supposed to put it down after we're done and put on our gloves and strap on our helmet and go out into this world. That's why we're in the Bible. It makes all the difference in the world.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called "The Discipline of Disillusionment." Thanks so much for being with us today. This message is part of Pastor Jack's series called Disciplines of Life. It's a series on the disciplines that God builds into the Christian life: the trials, the setbacks, and the hard seasons that He uses to shape a believer's character and to deepen our faith. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

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Hey, thank you again so much for listening. And if you'd like to hear or see more of what we do here, you can always go to jackhibbs.com for all the latest on what's going on with this ministry. And please, if you're ever in the Southern California area, come see us at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. We'd love to see you there in person. It has been so good to be with you today, and I pray you find yourself in the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. See you on the next episode.

This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.