Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: The days are coming when it's no more pretend Christianity. It's the real deal that will survive. And those are great days. We're not afraid of those days. But we need to strengthen each other in faith so this body needs to come together that we might move forward.

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.

Are you trying to make sense of a world that feels like it's spinning out of control? Do you see what's happening but wonder what it actually means? In Happening Now, Pastor Jack Hibbs takes today's biggest headlines and brings them into focus through the truth of scripture. From global conflict to cultural confusion, nothing is off limits, and nothing is without biblical clarity.

This isn't about fear. It's about understanding. It's about seeing the times we're living in through God's word, not just the news cycle. Each episode equips you with truth, perspective, and confidence in what God has already declared. So instead of reacting to the world, you can respond with wisdom and faith.

Watch the latest episode of Happening Now at jackhibbs.com. And don't forget, there's a whole library of previous episodes you can watch at any time. That's all at jackhibbs.com. Because when you understand the times, you can stand firm in the truth.

On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called The Disciplines of Life in a message titled The Discipline of Doubt. Now, the Christian walk is full of disciplines, trials, and setbacks, but it's those hard seasons of life that God uses to shape our faith from the inside out. So when we doubt, we're open to one of the most dangerous enemies we face as a believer.

You see, every single one of us has wrestled with doubt at some point in life. Maybe it was before we became a believer, or maybe it crept in after we'd been following Jesus for years. Those nagging questions, the moments that we wonder if God really cares about us, and if He's really there when we're in pain.

So today Pastor Jack teaches that doubt must be confronted head-on. We can't ignore it. We can't pretend it's not there. Doubt is a killer that will systematically destroy our faith one bit at a time. It's why we have to face it and fight it with everything we have. Now with his message called The Discipline of Doubt, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: You're looking at a guy who doubt ravaged the first three years of his Christian life. We'll talk a little bit about that tonight, but of course, a lot about the word. But we are in tonight our 28th study, or 29th study in the Discipline of Doubt.

So if you grab your Bibles tonight and turn to Matthew chapter 28, which is the theme verse in the Disciplines of Life series. The Discipline of Doubt and there's not a person in the hearing of my voice who has not had to contend with the issue of doubt and what it means and how it affects your life. Matthew chapter 28, hold your finger there and go a little bit to the right to John chapter 20.

Matthew chapter 28 and John chapter 20. The Discipline of Doubt, the topic in this series of ours in the Disciplines of Life. Matthew 28 and Jesus said to them, Jesus spoke into his disciples and he said, all authority is given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, 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've commanded you, and behold I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. And then a little bit over to John chapter 20, a beautiful portion of scripture because it applies to our lives in such a profound way and for that, from time to time. John chapter 20 verse 25.

The other disciples therefore said to him, that is to Thomas, we have seen the Lord. And so he, Thomas, said to them, unless I see his hands and the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and put my hand into his side, what does it say? I will not believe.

That's Thomas. That's his great contribution to Christianity, and I mean it is great. Thomas makes a declaration that all of us around the world tonight can be grateful for. Thomas asks the question or maybe was feeling the feeling that many of us from time to time have felt.

And we would want to be the last ones to admit it, but there's times maybe before we were a Christian or after we had become a Christian even we've asked that question, I won't believe unless. We've said those things like if I were God I would have. Well, I don't know why the Lord is doing this. All of those statements that you and I make are statements surrounded in rooted in doubt.

And we're going to see tonight and we're going to hear tonight how doubt is a killer. There is no doubt that doubt causes more pain and suffering in the lives of people than we can ever imagine. Doubt causes great grief to affect you and I. Have you ever wrestled with doubt? And I mean wrestled with it.

I accepted Jesus Christ on June 20th, 1977, and I was so excited that night and it had nothing to do with the music blessing me. By the way, Keith Green was at the piano the night I accepted Christ for those of you who are 150 years old, you remember him. But Keith Green was doing the worship, Greg Laurie gave the message, and I responded to the gospel.

Not because it felt good, it wasn't because it was a wonderful night and everything seemed right, it was the exact opposite. It was a horrible night. I was so convicted. Greg Laurie was teaching in Revelation chapter 20 verse 11 and I was convicted because I knew that I was one of those people that would inherit hell. I was living a fast track straight to hell.

And I was convicted and I was sweating and I was scared. But I knew I had to go forward. And I accepted Christ. I had no doubt about that. I accepted Jesus and then from that moment on, you would have thought like most people they have this wonderful honeymoon with God. Everything's right.

It seems like there's a rose-strewn path along their way. Everything's great. They just seem to skip through life after becoming a Christian. I lost my job. Everything went down the hill after I accepted Christ. The world was shaken underneath my feet. I lost all my friends. I thought they'd be happy for me, I found Christ. They said, "Get out of our lives. What, are you a lunatic?"

And I had nobody. And I read the Bible every day and I got into the Bible and I was studying the Bible. I was buying commentaries and reading all about great things that God has done. And for three years' time, instead of my faith increasing, what happened was I went through a great, great dark time of wondering, "Oh God, after learning and studying about you, how could you love me? How could you ever forgive me?"

Though I knew he had. I had this great struggle of doubt about is God every day wanting me with him anymore? He said, "What kind of sins were you doing after?" You guys, I accepted Christ, man, and I walked with Jesus. In fact, I was praying all the time and I was just studying all the time. I wasn't doing anything wrong.

What I'm telling you is this. Doubt began to creep in ever so gently, if I can even say that. Ever so calmly. A friend of mine, a pastor in Seattle, says Satan is a gradualist. And I have known that to be true in my life and you know it as well. And when we come to the discipline of doubt tonight, we're going to be studying about a topic that is key to every one of our lives.

Because listen, because of doubt some people don't believe in God. Because of doubt some Christians struggle in their Christian experience. And because of doubt great men and women of God have fallen into great, great depression or great darkness because they lose their focus on what God is calling them to do or what God has said to them.

And so listen tonight, keep this in mind. And I'm going to be very, very direct with you tonight if you don't mind. We need to encourage and exhort and stir one another up in this area of faith because faith is the only thing that will combat doubt.

And the function of the physical body, if you think about it, it's a miracle. It's beyond our ability to map in totality. But your physical body is working in great unity just for you to sit here and pay attention. Your body, your muscles, your brain, your chemistry, it is miraculous how your human body comes together to cause you to live a normal day.

Do you realize how much grace it takes for you to get through one day? Just for your stomach to be working right now, your mind, your ears to be working. Your body's working together and we know that when one part of our body hurts, our whole other part of our body's affected. You can break your baby toe, your elbow doesn't hurt, but your whole body limps because your baby toe got broke.

What is that all about? And in the body of Christ, listen, for all of us, we have got to break this Western mindset of thinking that we live and exist and die unto ourselves. You guys, I tell you, and I think you're starting to catch on with the way the world is going, that you and I in the household of faith need one another like never before, and that's going to increase.

The days are coming when it's no more pretend Christianity. It's the real deal that will survive. And those are great days. We're not afraid of those days. But we need to strengthen each other in faith like the body comes together so that we might move forward. So this body needs to come together that we might move forward.

And when somebody is hurting, we pick them up. We limp with them. Listen, I mean this compassionately. We need to limp with them for as long as it takes to get them to run with us. You don't limp the rest of your Christian life because of doubt.

We're going to talk about this tonight. Number one, jot it down if you would. The discipline of doubt. Doubt must be confronted head-on. Doubt is a great danger. It must be confronted. First of all, mark it down that doubt must be confronted head-on because listen to this. Doubt, and if you're an atheist tonight or if you're an atheist watching tonight or you're listening right now, you need to understand something.

Doubt is an amazing testimony to the fact that you should have faith in God. Does it make sense? If you doubt, you cannot actually doubt properly unless there's the opposite of doubt. That's like people say, "Well, how can there be a God when there's so much evil in the world?" Well, that's right.

How can there be a God or a good God if there's so much evil in the world? My friend, you cannot have evil in the world without good. In fact, if you think about it, evil is good gone bad. If a man kidnaps somebody and holds them against their own will and tries to pursue some sort of control or power over that person, do you understand that what that person, that evil madman is thinking is good gone bad?

He wants somebody with him. That's not a bad thing. He wants somebody to spend time with him. That's not a bad thing. But because good has gone evil, that's bad. You cannot have bad, you cannot have doubt unless there's good and unless there's faith. And the discipline of doubt is to understand that and to confront it head-on.

Doubt, I hope you'll see tonight, is a very, very dangerous thing. Number one because mankind is a spiritually designed creation. No mistake about it. Mark it down. You are a spiritually engineered creation of God. Yes, the Bible says you are created in the image of God, but you, a Christian or non-Christian, you can be on your way to heaven right now or as lost as whatever.

Inside of you is a spirit that will live forever. Daniel chapter 12 says so. John chapter 5 says so. Can you imagine for a moment, think about it. Every human being that has ever been born will exist eventually in eternity, in an eternal heaven or an eternal hell.

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: And by the way, let me tell you, I don't care what you hear on Good Morning America, Jesus says there's an eternal hell no matter what crazy people are talking about. And by the way, isn't it very smart of Satan to get people to believe that there is no hell when he wants people to go there and God doesn't want you to go there?

So what a great, great PR tactic for Satan to whisper in the minds of false prophets, oh by the way, there's no hell. It's all good. Well, what a snooker that is. Confronting doubt head-on because we are spiritually designed creation. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 regarding the totality of how God made us.

He says in praise Paul does for the Thessalonian church, he says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your," notice the order he puts it in, "may your spirit, soul, and body," and he goes on to talk about be dedicated unto the Lord. Look at the order. Spirit, soul, and body.

Why? Because listen, Adam and Eve were spirit, soul, and body. And then they sinned. And they became body, soul, and spirit. Say how do you know? Because the Bible says that in Genesis 2:17, that in the day that you eat of the fruit that God says don't touch that, don't disobey me in this, you will die.

What did he say? The day that you eat of it, you will die. They went, Adam and Eve, they went from spirit uppermost, soul in the middle, soul, psyche, your mind, the way you think. Your mind, by the way, is at the mercy of either your spirit or your body. If your body does all of the seeking for you, your mind will be body-minded.

If your spirit is seeking the things of God and the things above, then your soul, your mind, will seek the things that are above. Watchman Nee in his great book, Spiritual Man, Watchman Nee says that the soul is the mistress of any man. Why? Because your mind will go in whatever direction it's being led.

And your body is leading, your fleshly appetites, or your spirit is pursuing the Lord. One or the other. Isn't that great? Kind of makes it simple, huh? We are spiritually designed creations of God and doubt is a factor in our lives no matter what you might say about it. And again, if you're an atheist, you've got to confront head-on this issue of doubt.

And you might think, "Well, I can't believe in God. I've got too many doubts in my mind." Well, I highly recommend you get those doubts confronted because just because you don't believe in the existence of God doesn't make him go away. The second thing is because mankind has been created for faith.

Man, created in the image of God, has been created for faith. Church, listen tonight, you and I were designed to exercise faith. Jesus came and taught us, didn't he? In the gospels, faith. Didn't he tell the disciples, "Why don't you guys make the people sit down in groups and you feed them?"

I love that. I mean, I love that because I'm 2,000 years removed from it and I get to poke fun at the guys for coughing and choking and saying what are we going to do. But doesn't God work in your life now? Doesn't he work in your life often or daily about faith? The issues of life require faith.

Pressures, dangers, relationships, challenges. Just your own heart. Those of you who are Christians tonight, one of the greatest, if not the greatest drive of your soul, of your spirit, of your body even, is to present yourself, as Romans 12:1 and 2 says, to present yourselves a living sacrifice to God.

And you take that seriously. Mankind, human beings, have been created to exercise faith. Why do you think there's so many cults in the world? Why do you think there's so many religious systems in the world? You cannot go anywhere in the world without finding a temple, a totem pole, an altar. You can't.

Inside of every human being is a passion, a desire to worship God or gods or trees or things ignorantly because there's a pursuit inside. And look at us tonight. How is it that God, how is it that God would save you and I tonight? Isn't it amazing? Think about it.

Tonight we were singing and worshiping and praising the Lord. That's by the mercy of God. Don't think for a moment that if God had not touched your life that you would just be pursuing him on your own because you're so doggone good. We would be bowing to the totem poles. We would be bowing down to the altars or the stone images of this world or temples made with human hands.

Listen to this. In fact, I'm going to ask you right now regarding faith and all, can you turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 9? Turn to Mark chapter 9 and right around verse 16. Listen to this, follow along with me. Mark 9:16. And he, Jesus, asked the scribes, "What are you discussing with them?" he says.

Then one from the multitude, verse 17, answered, "Teacher, I brought you my son, who has a mute spirit. And wherever he seizes him, this demonic attack comes upon him, he throws him down, he foams at the mouth, he gnashes his teeth, he becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast him out, but they could not."

And Jesus answered him and said, "O faithless generation. How long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me." And then they brought him to Jesus and when he saw him immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.

And Jesus asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" and he said, "From childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything," listen to this man, "but if you can do anything have compassion on us and help us." Do you think God's going to walk away from that cry?

And Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." And immediately verse 24 says the father of the child cried out, circle this verse 24, and said with tears, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief." Can you not relate to that? Oh God, I believe in you, but help my unbelief.

Listen, you cannot deny God. You know he exists, but the situation in your life is seemingly out of your control. And yes, it is out of your control and what does God require of you and I to do? Oh God, oh Lord, if you'll do anything, help me. And tonight doubt answers back to me and says, "Oh Jack, I've already asked God two times, three times, a thousand times."

Keep asking. Keep asking until God says all right, wait, or don't talk to me about this anymore. You know he told the apostle Paul, don't talk to me about this anymore. Paul said he prayed three times for the Lord to heal him, and after the third prayer God says don't talk to me about this anymore.

My grace is going to be perfected in your life. This is for a purpose. Can you hear that, Christian? Think about it. I'm going to confess right now. First of all, I want to ask you a question. Why are you so quiet tonight? I need some amens and all that kind of stuff, you know?

I think I'm going to go Pastor a Pentecostal church some place. But I got to tell you, alright, I'm going to bring it down. Come on now. During worship, I was praying, literally, I just said Lord, draw me closer to you, but with mercy because Lord, you know I'm a weak man.

When I say weak, this is exactly what I meant. God, I want to get as close to you as you want me to get to you, which I'm sure is like glued to you. Can we just do it without pain? You know, I'm praying for the guys here because we're, I don't care what a man acts or looks like, we are absolutely wimps when it comes to pain.

We watch our wives give birth, we faint and fall over. God draw me closer but in mercy, Lord be gentle. I want to be glued to you, but can you just do it like nicely? And in that sincere prayer is doubt, because the Bible tells me that God knows exactly what I can handle and not handle.

It's just that his observation and mine are totally different because Lord, I stubbed my toe, come on, how bad can this get?

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called The Discipline of Doubt. Thanks for spending some time with us today. You know, 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 us as believers and deepen our faith. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

This Independence Day season, 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.