Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: You don't have to go through the veil. You don't have to walk through a gauntlet to achieve God's attention or to get His glance or His notice. As a believer, the Bible says the Holy Spirit dwells with us and in us. And that's why Jesus says, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

David J: 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.

Guest (Male): Three years ago, the Real Life Network launched with a clear purpose: to bring truth to people wherever they are. Since then, we've seen God do so much through this growing platform. Viewers around the world are watching news, sermons, interviews, documentaries, conferences, cartoons, and other biblical worldview programming designed to help believers fast forward their faith.

And RLN continues to grow. With the addition of our new Articles page, viewers can now find timely, biblically grounded insight on today's most important issues. There is so much to thank God for, but we believe there is still much more ahead.

He's used us in amazing ways. He's used you in amazing ways. I believe that the Lord is continuing to open doors and we're going to continue to move forward. So my prayer is that RLN will keep reaching more people with truth and equipping them as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and pointing them to this generation for His glory.

David J: On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called "Disciplines of Life" in a message titled "Discipline of Disease." Now, sometimes sickness or disease is something that God can use for our learning, and not something just random or meaningless. You see, illness really can have a purpose.

These struggles can draw us closer to God and as we're hurting and asking why, well, that can push us to depend upon God more deeply and with more sincerity. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that everyone suffers in life. That's true. But for the believer, we suffer with a purpose. Even something painful like disease can be used by God to build our character, strengthen our faith, or maybe to impact others through our testimony.

So before we jump into the message, I had a chance to sit down with Pastor Jack and talk with him about it. Let's get into that. Pastor Jack, here's something that I'm about positive that almost every Christian that's been at it for even a little while would ask this question. What do you say to a believer who's been praying for healing and hasn't seen it come yet? What do you say to that person?

Jack Hibbs: Well, first of all, the Bible makes it very clear that there are sicknesses that do not lead to death and destruction. The Bible talks about this. Jesus talks about this in John's gospel. There are diseases and sicknesses that the Bible says are a direct result of sin. There are sicknesses and diseases that are part of this fallen world. Our water's contaminated or the air is contaminated, and you could actually drive yourself crazy trying to figure out which one is what.

And I wouldn't recommend that. What I would say is this: if you've been battling something that's persistent—now, I personally have something that I've had for nearly four decades. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I've got to watch my health. But why doesn't God take it away? Well, I've learned over the decades to learn that in my weakness, God manifests His strength.

And so there's a way to approach these things. Number one, ask God to heal you. Number two, thank Him in advance for what He's going to do. Number three, ask that His will be done, and leave it with Him. He heard you, He knows, and trust Him. We cannot inform Him of our condition. The doctor doesn't know what's wrong with us more than God knows.

So let our requests be made known to God and then trust Him with the outcome. But always be thankful. No matter what our condition is, we are to be thankful for everything. Why? Because God's watchful eye and hand is upon everything, whether we understand it or not, whether it feels good or not. Father knows best.

David J: Excellent. Love having you in the studio with us, Pastor Jack. Let's look into the disciplines of disease and jump into it.

Jack Hibbs: Matthew chapter 28 and then put your finger right there, Matthew 28, and go to John chapter 11. Matthew 28, John 11. And we are continuing on part 24 in our 31-part series, "The Disciplines of Life." And tonight we come to the discipline of disease.

And what does that mean, the discipline of disease? Disease has been defined as something that is foreign that attacks your body. It's something that can attack your mind. I would like to also add being Christians, because we are now alive and awake to the spiritual things, it can be that something that in the spiritual sense attacks your very soul.

But as we talk about disease, you can write down in your notes that disease meaning all manner of gross illness, something that is life-altering by way of sickness and physical setback predominantly so. But there's a discipline to disease. There's a discipline to suffering that we're going to learn about tonight and we all can benefit from this.

But in Matthew 28:18, Jesus said to His disciples, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world."

What an awesome statement. Who said that? Jesus said that. And Jesus is saying in Matthew 28 that He, though He be enthroned in heaven right now, He is with us everywhere we go, all the way through to the end of the world. He's with us. How does He do that? How is He with every one of us right here, right now, and then when the service is over, we all go to our places?

How does God do that? He does that by the person of the Holy Spirit who has been commissioned by Jesus Christ to be the One who indwells the believers. You never are alone as a believer. And I don't know about you, but that brings me great comfort. Great comfort to know that wherever I go, whatever I do, Jesus is there.

And I need you to understand tonight, listen carefully, that the more you practice the presence of God in your life in true, simple yet profound reality—it's profound because it's your intercourse with God on a continuous basis, but it's simple because the Lord has allowed Himself to be available to you at all times. There is no longer any more going through a process to get to His presence.

You don't have to go through the veil. You don't have to walk through a gauntlet to achieve God's attention or to get His glance or His notice. As a believer, the Bible says the Holy Spirit dwells with us and in us, and that's why Jesus says, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." You'll never be alone. And I want you to remember that as we talk about suffering and what disease can bring to us.

And then John chapter 11, this is our text for tonight. John 11:4, but look at verse 3 and we'll read into verse 4. John 11:3, "Therefore Martha and Mary sent to Jesus saying, 'Lord, behold, he whom You love,' speaking of Lazarus, their brother, 'is sick.' And when Jesus heard that, He said, 'This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.'"

Will you mark that in your Bibles, that the Son of God may be glorified through it? All of us need to memorize that. Now, in this case, it's Lazarus. He's sick. Jesus is down about 30 miles from Bethany to Jericho down in the Jordan River Valley. And for Jesus to leave Jericho and get up there through that mountainous terrain—that many of us have made that drive up from the Jordan River Valley up to Jerusalem—Bethany's just right next door, about three miles away.

Jesus would have taken a couple days to get there. The announcement comes: your good friend's sick. Martha and Mary, that's the sister of Lazarus. Jesus, whenever He was in Jerusalem, He always stayed at their house. Lazarus, obviously a good friend. Martha, obviously a good cook from what we've seen in scripture. And Mary, a good listener. That's what we know about them. They loved Jesus.

And so when the messenger came, they said, "The one whom You love is sick." And Jesus makes this announcement: "It's not unto death." Now think about this for a moment. The sickness that he's suffering with is not unto death, yet you know the story, right? Jesus waits until Lazarus dies before He heads in the direction to help him.

What in the world is going on? Is that just like how you and I experience suffering? And as this word we look at, disease, that when we're really sick, isn't it something that we naturally want to struggle with God? Because one moment experiencing disease and sickness is enough too long. I've had enough of this. You've been sick for half an hour, I can't take it anymore.

What is going on? Jesus is telling us, the Word of God is telling every believer tonight that the sickness, the disease, the suffering that you and I go through, listen, sometimes it will carry out and be elongated before relief comes. Sometimes it's quick. Sometimes people are healed miraculously. Sometimes people are healed over what God has prescribed through just medical treatment.

You say, how does God get involved in medical treatment? Didn't man do that? No, no, no. Man can only offer up what God has already created. If you get a shot of some vitamin, God made the vitamin. He has all kinds of ways that He can bring a healing if He so chooses. And we've all seen every type of healing, and I'm grateful that I can say that.

But there's also—listen, and you're not going to like this next one—and yet that's the very thrust of tonight. There is a sense when God does not bring the healing we define as healing into a believer's life and that believer dies. And we go, "Man, where was God?" Well, why do you even think like that? He was right where He was supposed to be.

The bumper sticker that says "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die" is applicable. Let's be honest, it's in our lives. Oh man, I can't wait to get to heaven, I just want to see God. Do you really now? Because it's going to happen one of two ways. One will be the Rapture—amen, may it come tonight, hallelujah, Jesus—where we bypass death, we meet the Lord in the air and wow, no death pains. Wow, Rapture, awesome. May it happen tonight.

The other thing is death itself. We could though, the way our government's going, we could be killed by taxes. That's coming. Could be a third thing. But the disciple whom You love is now sick. And Jesus makes this radical statement: "It's not unto death." Did Jesus not know that Lazarus was going to die? No, He knew.

It was not unto permanent death. Lazarus, though he may die—Jesus knows this—Jesus had a plan. I'm going to raise him from the dead. Why? So that the Son of God and God Himself would be glorified. Listen, Christian. Tonight we're Christians. And you say, "I'm not a Christian, Pastor, my friend brought me in here tonight." I'm going to assume you're a Christian anyway, I'm going to talk to you like you're Christians.

Here's the awesome thing: everybody suffers in life, everybody. The thing is, for the believer, we suffer with a purpose. We've got a tailormade, custom-made prescription regarding suffering. And when we talk about these things of disease, what I mean by that is an overall great illness. I'm not talking about a cold. I'm talking about things that challenge us to the core: pain, death, suffering, and sorrow.

And it wouldn't help things if I were to tell you that it's just part of life. I don't like when people say that. Well, you know, death is part of life. I hear that in funerals and stuff and it's like, what? Don't you know, you guys know, right? Tell me you know that death seems like to me a ginormous interruption. It doesn't seem right. It doesn't feel right. And look, I'm not even the one that's dead. I'll go to the funeral and I feel like this is not right. It's a very strange thing, and it should be a very strange thing.

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: God did not design you and I to die. He designed us to live forever, but we do die. Why? The Bible tells us in the book of Romans that death comes because of sin brought into the world through Adam and Eve originally. We do everything we can to continue it on. But the human part of us, naturally—and I mean this with all affection—when someone says, "Well, you know, death just happens in life," that's not a good enough answer for us.

We want to know a deeper answer, and so we should. But here's the amazing thing: it's not a good enough answer to tell me that death just happens. Inside of every one of us there is this question that says, "Why? How come? How can I beat death? Why does it have to be this way?" And the lamentation at a funeral or the loss of someone, or when you see maybe your loved one suffering with a deep, great illness or disease—and listen, for my definition, this works for me.

I don't know if you a human, me, can really know love until you reach that point where you have a husband or a wife or a child, and when they're sick, you with all true innocent passion get on your knees and you plead with God. Have you ever been there? And you say, "God, give me their disease, give me their sickness, but let them go." Have you ever been there? In my opinion, that's true love.

Parents know that. A husband and a wife might know that. A brother and a sister, a sibling might know that for each other, that you would lay down your life to liberate them from that sickness or that disease. And maybe when we donate blood or bone marrow or whatever it takes to try to propagate life or some vital part of us, I think that's a great, great display of love.

But down deep inside, when we talk about disease and suffering, we have this question. And I want you to think now for a moment. I don't want to sound philosophical, but I want you to be listening to this. How is it tonight that if you struggle with "how come this is going on in my life, and God, why are You doing this to me," or maybe tonight you're not a believer—or you're listening in or you're watching right now, you're not a believer.

And you're saying, well, and listen, have we not all heard this? "Well, you Christians, you have this God of love. If you have a God of love, then why is there so much suffering in the world?" You know what's amazing about that question? How do you know to even ask that question? Think about it for a moment. The very frustration that we hear you express proves that you know better.

My question to you is, how do you know better? What gives you—remember the world you might live in, you live in an evolutionary, humanistic world where you crawled out of a mud hole a billion years ago, and now you've got two eyes on your face and a nose and an ear, and you're walking around, and then you say, "This is wrong." How do you know that's wrong?

I'll tell you how you know it's wrong. The Bible says in Genesis 2:16, "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'" Every human being knows right and wrong, good and evil, instinctively. Why?

Because we are a people who were created in the image of God. And when we see something deep down internally, we can distinguish that's right, that's wrong. And even the unbeliever can say, "That's not right." And I agree with you. A man pulling out a gun, shooting people and going off and being evil like that, it is wrong. But that moral rudder inside of every human being has been something instilled with us by God.

It's an effervescent of the Garden of Eden left over in us. It's an interesting thing. So listen, a God of love allows this? No, my friend, take your logic all the way through to the end. You being able to question what's right and what's wrong is proof that you are created in the image of God, so that you judge what's right and wrong and you're able to pick up the Bible and the Bible agrees with your assessment.

What you and I do not agree on is the source of the evil or of the good. You cannot have evil in the world without the presence of good. You cannot have light in the world without the presence of darkness. There must be a difference. You can't have love without hate, and you can't have hate without love. The amazing thing is that in God, all these things are holy, beautiful, and wonderful.

There's light, there's love, there's care and compassion. And on the opposite side, there's darkness, there's hatred and murder. And when we consider the discipline of disease, how do we deal with people who love God and yet are suffering from cancer or have illnesses and things going on in their lives? How do we deal with that? I want to march through that tonight. Number one, jot it down, church, is this: understand that life happens in a broken world.

Life happens in a broken world. John chapter 10, Jesus said the thief—He's referring to Satan, by the way—the thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Satan's agenda is to destroy, to kill, and to steal. He says, "I have come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly." Verse 11, "I am the good shepherd." Notice the difference. There's the thief and there's the good shepherd.

And the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. The thief takes life. Understand that. So life happens in a broken world. And I see this as a great, beautiful contradiction because as a believer, I see great hope. In this world of evil, in this world of sickness and disease, there is the counterbalance of God's amazing and awesome plan. Number one, life is subject to suffering in this world.

We need to understand that. Just write that down: life is subject to suffering. We don't want to sign up for it, we don't want to hear about it, we want to avoid it at all costs, but it's true. Why? Because you and I live in a world that is fallen. And yet life continues on. It's an amazing thing. God has made life enduring. He's made it resilient.

In fact, when you think about the entire messianic ministry of Jesus, it was fulfilled in scripture. Isaiah 35 is a tremendous chapter about the messianic ministry of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 35:4 says, "Say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear! Your God will come, He will come with vengeance,'" that is to defend you, "'with divine retribution; He will come to save you.' Then will the eyes of the blind"—listen, this is the ministry of Jesus.

By the way, it's also a reference to the Millennium when He returns. "Then the eyes of the blind will be opened." Did Jesus open the eyes of the blind? Yes. "And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped." Did Jesus open the ears of the deaf people? Yes. "Then will the lame leap like a deer." Didn't people get up and go dancing into the temple because He healed them? "And the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert."

That's a reference to the Millennium, that's when Christ returns. But when Jesus came, that's why the scriptures say that if you can handle it, the Kingdom of God is here now when Jesus was ministering. Wherever Jesus is, the Kingdom of God is at, and He brings healing. But life is subject to suffering in this world. Without Christianity, without the Bible, without God's Word, there would be no hope in this world.

Think about that. I know people don't want to hear this, but a lot of people today are blaming Christians for everything that's wrong in the world. And by the way, that is always true before persecution historically. You always blame the Jews before the Holocaust breaks open or breaks out. That's the way it goes. You always blame the Christian before they start killing Christians. But let me tell you something.

Without Christian compassion, love, and care, where would the hospitals be? You wouldn't have Yale, Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, George Washington University. You'd have none of those things. All founded, they were Christian seminaries for the raising up of pastors. Did you know that? And go all around the world, even in pagan countries, and the greatest care and treatment that you'll get is that old missionary outpost with the cross on top of the building.

And everybody will pick up their family that's sick or whatever and walk to that missionary outpost all around the world today. Why is it? Isn't it interesting that King Hussein—King Abdullah's dad, King Hussein—when he had cancer, where did he go? Did he go to the hospital in Cairo? No. Did he go to the hospital in Syria? No. He didn't even go to the hospital in his own country of Jordan. Where did he go? He got on his private plane and flew straight to Newport Beach and went to Hoag Hospital for treatment. Hoag Hospital, a Christian hospital.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called "Discipline of Disease." You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called "The Disciplines of Life." It's a series that highlights the disciplines of a Christ follower and the high cost of sharing our faith with others. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

This Independence Day, don't just celebrate. Stand for what this nation was built on. Our Faith and Freedom collection is bold patriotic apparel that declares your convictions and starts conversations, perfect for July 4th and all summer long. Order now and we'll include a free Happy Birthday America kids guide, a faith-centered resource for the children and grandchildren in your life. Visit jackhibbs.com or call 877-777-2346.

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, that's 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.