Real Life Radio

Guest (Male): Unjustly condemned, attacked, mocked, ridiculed, slandered. David's got a fugitive faith now and he's running. But God's going to make a man of great faith out of David.

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 through the Bible.

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On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called First Samuel and a message titled "A Fugitive Faith." Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel, and he was the first of its prophets.

So, here in chapter 19, we're going to see that David's faith was under pressure. You see, King Saul, because of his own jealousy, was out to kill David. But David, though loyal to Saul and to God, has to flee for his own life and enter a long time of being tested in the wilderness—a time where faith not only thrives in times of comfort but also in times on the run.

So, today, Pastor Jack teaches us that periods of a fugitive life are not meaningless but redefine our commitment to God's purpose. Even though David was being hunted, he did not abandon the call upon his life as the future king of Israel. Now, with his message called "A Fugitive Faith," here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: So Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as in times past. You have to see the scenario. All of the players, the three of them, they live in real life today.

Number one, you have the lunatic Saul. Number two, you have the guy that's being pursued; that's David. In the middle, can you hear it? Can you feel it? You have the Jonathan. Don't you feel it? Jonathan's the guy who will go to any length whatsoever. He's a peacemaker.

He's so sweet about it, though. He hears his dad. His dad makes another empty vow: "As the Lord lives, no harm will come to David; he's not going to die." Great, Dad. He goes and gets David and says, "See, you guys can make up now. It's okay." He's so hopeful. His heart is right. But it's not going to work out that way.

Jonathan means well. This is yet another indictment against Saul. David is right on; Saul heard that from his son. Jonathan is right on. You would think with these witnesses that right then Saul would pause and examine and consider and draw a conclusion based upon reason. You guys are right.

And you see, well, why didn't he do that? I mean, Jonathan makes a great argument. A couple of chapters ago, we heard a haunting declaration by Samuel. God removed His Spirit from Saul. Do you know what the definition of insanity is? In Old England, the definition of insanity was a mind without God. When a man or a woman has not God in their thoughts, they go nuts.

I'm sure they start foaming at the mouth and start chewing on trees. No, that comes later. They first make stupid decisions. They start erring in logic. Logic's from God. When a man is nuts, when he's insane by virtue of rejecting God, he has ill logic.

Norman Geisler said years ago—and I love it—that man dies when God dies. And he went on to explain himself. Man dies when God dies. How can God die? You're right; God doesn't die. It's true. But in the mind of man, in the mind of a man, God can become as good as dead to that man.

The moment that man has God dead in his mind, then that man will go kill another man. Man dies when God dies in the mind of a man. Isn't that true? In Saul's mind, God is so far away. He's powerless. Jonathan, he'd do anything to make up. And David, David's learning.

Put yourself in the shoes of David. Put his robe on as you go through this. He's learning more and more about human life, about authority, about God. And that's where you and I are right now in our lives. We're learning more. Isn't some of it painful?

Isn't it painful like David will find out that his own familiar friend will lift up his heel against him when David writes of that regarding Ahithophel? That's coming. How can a friend turn in another friend? How can a friend turn on another friend? Happens every day. It's painful, isn't it? It's tragic.

And so Saul says, "Oh, you won't be killed." Verse seven: Then Jonathan called David, and Jonathan told him all these things. "Look, my dad's cool with you; everything's fine." And so David enters back into the presence of Saul. Remember, by the time we've reached this verse now, Saul has already thrown the javelin at David before.

I don't know how that sits with you. Can you imagine going into your boss's office, and while you're not looking, he goes, "Hey, can you pour me a cup of coffee?" And you pour the cup of coffee and—whoosh! Oh, what's that? Oh, a fly on the wall, fly on the wall. Well, looked like you were aiming at me. Oh, it's nothing. You'd think twice about going into that office.

Well, verse eight: And there was war again in the kingdom, in the realm. And David went out and fought with the Philistines and struck them with a mighty blow, and they fled from him. Here you go again. Here comes another album. They're going to start singing: "Saul has killed his thousands, but David kills tens of thousands."

God blesses David at battle. David goes out, fights against the Philistines, whips them—that's Israel's arch-enemy—and not only whips them, but the ones that survive are high-tailing it out of there, running. You can hear their armor, they've jettisoned everything so they can run faster. And they're out of there. And David and the army return back, and everyone's just like, "Praise God, this is tremendous."

And what do you think Saul will do? "All right, that's my boy." Every bit of good news that comes in and to the life of David, Saul's going to hate him more. Jealousy and insecurity. Evil heart.

God's hand though, you know what verse eight means? God's hand is obviously on David. And by the way, when righteousness advances, friend, listen carefully, when righteousness advances, evil will not be far behind. This is a great thing in verse eight.

So expect this; evil will not be far from you, far from David. Christian, listen up, I do mean this to be encouraging to you. I don't mean this in any condescending way by no means. But for those of you, for those of us who are on what we would call frontline ministry, those of you who are in the call and worship and children's ministry and you're serving in the church—parking lot service, all these things, security service—whatever you're doing for the kingdom of God, you will be attacked.

Because if righteousness is advancing, evil will not be far behind. It will be nipping at your heels. But here's the thing: we all struggle with this. Every time in my life, I would assume in your life, when there's an opportunity to advance the kingdom one more step. And have you all learned, have we all learned that it's one step at a time? It's just a bunch of little steps in a battle, but eventually, you get to the end.

The moment you say, "Hey, I'm going to do that for the Lord," expect your car to blow up. "Well, that's why I don't serve." Now all the enemy has to do in your life is go "boo" and you just go "waaah!"

You know what? God will never let the enemy blow up your car bigger than God can bless you with a car repaired or brought back into your bosom, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing kind of a car. "So, man, I'd really love to serve, but I'm afraid, you know, that I might get attacked by some demon or something."

How about this? How about taking the Bible for face value, stand up and hold it in your hand and scare the snot out of demons and all that kind of stuff? Well, how do I do that? Oh, you know what? Sign up for something, share with somebody. When you go home tonight, you're going to get gas or whatever and somebody says, "Miserable night, isn't it? It's freezing."

Tell them, "I don't know, God's in control, man!" Something. Watch what happens.

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: Tell them, "I don't know, God's in control, man!" Something. Watch what happens. Somebody's going to go, "Are you nuts?" Or they're going to say, "What? You must go to Calvary Chapel." But I would rather put a dent in the kingdom than wait around for the kingdom to put a dent in me.

Look, the kingdom, the dark kingdom, is going to try to put a dent in you anyway. In fact, it's already got dents in it, in us, by it. We need to get up and advance and put some dents in it. I told you before, I love this. I read this in a book a long time ago. I can't remember what book; that's the problem being over 40—I can't remember where I read it.

But the cool thing was that when Paul encountered those seven sons of Sceva. They all, remember, they wanted to have the power of Christianity without Christ. They wanted to have the power of God without being born again. So they said, "Hey, we can do this."

So let's go find—can you just see these guys? I'm sorry, but they just look like stinkers, you know what I mean? They look like ornery guys, these guys. And they go, "Come on, let's go find somebody who's possessed. Come on, let's see how it works. Okay, there's a guy, he's possessed. Okay. In the name of Paul and in the name of Jesus whom he preaches, come out of him!" And they stand there.

And then the demon—I would have loved to have seen this—the demon speaks through the guy and says, "Paul we know, and Jesus we know, but who are you?" And the Bible says that out of this possessed man leapt these demons onto the brothers and began to brutalize them and tore off their clothes, and they ran naked away.

The kingdom of darkness is ready and willing to attack. They are, in fact, all they have to do to attack and advance is for us to do nothing. But if we say, "You know what? I'm tired of getting kicked around. Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. I am going to lend myself to God to be used however God wants to use me."

And you know what? If my car gets a flat, then God's going to have to fix it; it's His car now. If I get sick, if I lose my job or whatever, God's going to have to provide for me and take care of me, because I'm going to do it for the Lord. And you see what's going to happen. Your car will probably not blow up. You probably will not lose your job or your probably will not this or that because the enemy's a liar and he keeps us bound in fear. And he threatens us all the time.

When righteousness advances, expect the enemy to attack. And I don't know how to tell you other than when you step out, your faith will grow because the spiritual thing called Christianity is proven to you in such a manner you can't buy it. You can't offer money and go out and try it. You can't do it with money. Those seven sons had to learn that.

It's a relationship. Well, Jonathan had that relationship as David did, but tragically, Saul missed. Verse nine says: Now the distressing spirit, a demonizing spirit, notice, from the Lord. You say, "Well, does God send evil to him?" God opened the gate to let the evil come because why? Saul unlocked the gate.

You got that? Don't sit here and blame God about verse nine. "I don't like the way that works out." Saul unlocked the gate. And there's a demon rattling on that gate, and God just says, "You know what? The knucklehead unlocked the gate, go get them."

Now this demonizing spirit from the Lord came upon Saul as—listen—as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. Class, look at that! He's got a spear in his hand. He's holding the spear. He's holding the spear. He's holding the spear. He's holding the spear in his hand.

He's not only got the gate unlocked, he's like hoping something comes through the gate. He's holding the spear in his hand. In a moment, you're going to see Saul throw the spear. Well, how did that happen? He had the spear in his hand. Saul, time out, get away from the spear.

If you don't want something to happen, get away from the spear. "Well, I don't know what happened to my marriage. How did this happen?" And you sit there and you go, "Okay, let's talk about how it—let's talk about everything up until this moment." And then you find out, I can't believe your marriage stayed together as long as it did. You left every gate, door, and window open for the enemy to come in and attack.

"I can't believe my kid's hooked on drugs. I was so bummed out, then I came home, I just had to drink a martini to calm myself down." Do you do that often? "Every day, life is hard." And you're scolding your kid for getting an OD. He can't afford the martini, but he can get free drugs by the pusher down the street to get him hooked. And you're going to scold your son for popping a pill?

There's a spear in your hand. Saul is sitting there with a spear in his hand. The distressing spirit from the Lord came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. You say, "Well, that's stupid." People do this all the time. He wasn't doing his nails with that spear.

He was waiting to see David. And David was playing music with his hand. They're in the same room. Can you imagine? He's got a spear in his hand and David's got a harp in his hand. He's playing music. Isn't that just a perfect picture of how opposite these two men are?

Here's the amazing thing: the people wanted Saul to be their king, but God chose David to be the king. God's kings play music. They have instruments of comfort in their repertoire or arsenal. Yeah, of course David was a bloody man. He was a tremendous warrior. But he was not a murderer until he got his eyes off of God, didn't he? Then he killed Bathsheba's husband.

But God's people, he has an implement of comfort while Saul's got an implement of war. And so David was playing music with his hand. Then Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away from Saul's presence, and he drove the spear into the wall. So David fled and escaped that night.

By the way, this begins a fugitive run by David that will last some 10 years. David, from this point on in this study, David will be almost nomadic as Saul now gathers his armies to find and hunt David like a dog. A fugitive faith is what I call this. David's got faith in God, but boy, he's got 10 years. He's got 10 years of running from a madman.

Some of you may be going through a situation in life, "When is this ever going to be over in my life? When is this ever going to be done in my life? When am I ever going to be done with this chapter of my life?" Take great comfort, my friend, read the Psalms often. Read them daily if you can, will you? You're going to be reading Psalms predominantly from a man who was pursued for 10 years every day of his life. Unjustly condemned, attacked, mocked, ridiculed, slandered.

David's got a fugitive faith now and he's running. David fled. But God's going to make a man of great faith out of David. In James chapter 1, verses two through eight, you can turn there if you'd like, mark it in your Bible. James chapter 1, verse 2 says: My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

Now when I first read that, I had an argument with God because I thought, who cares about patience? I don't care about patience. So knowing that the testing of your faith will produce—I don't care about patience. So Lord, don't give me any trials. That's not how the Christian life is, I learned. But let patience have its perfect work. Just relax. That you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

If any of you lacks wisdom, notice that wisdom is right here in the context of patience. Let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in—what was it?—faith, without doubting.

David J.: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called "A Fugitive Faith." Thanks for taking the time to tune in today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called First Samuel. It's a series that highlights the prophet Samuel who was called by God during one of Israel's darkest times to bring the people back to a heart of true worship. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: Hey everybody, this is Pastor Jack here. First of all, I want to thank you for being part of the ministry. I know that you pray. Just that alone, lifting up this ministry and asking God for His favor is an incredible thing. Thank you so much.

Listen, I want to encourage you. Right now, in the Christian community all around the world, there's the great debate all of a sudden. Is Israel for real? Should they really exist? Should a Jew be continued to be viewed as a Jew? Has the Bible now replaced Israel with the church?

A lot of people are hurt, a lot of people are confused. And I want to encourage all of you. Listen very carefully. I'm not only not bothered by this time that you and I are going through, I embrace it for this reason. Those who know the Word of God understand God's Word. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me."

And so I want you to know, don't get caught up in the podcasts or in the streaming program of this and that or that person's famous name or that other person's famous name. "Well, they said, she said, he said." Don't do it. Get into the Bible more and more as you see these days becoming more confusing.

Friend, please listen. If you do not, you will be swept away by the opinions of men. And the Bible warns us that much of that will be none other than the doctrines of demons and the propagation of evil spirits. Whenever there's confusion, whenever there's fear, God is not in that.

So this is a word of encouragement to you. It's also a word of exhortation. Stick to the Bible, nothing but the Bible, so help us God. In fact, in light of that, let's all pray together.

Father God, we ask You for the gift of discernment. Lord, that we would be a people who know the truth and that truth sets us free. Father, that we would walk in the light as You are in the light and that we maintain our fellowship with You. Lord, help us. We are all being distracted by the rhetoric and things of this life. So make us wise, give us discernment.

And Lord God, we pray right now that Your body, Your true believer, wherever we are in the world, would experience Your tremendous favor and grace and Your great encouragement. In Jesus' name, amen.

David J.: 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 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.