Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen who wait for the morning, more than watchmen who wait for the morning. There's nothing like the morning coming when you've been up all night.

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

What do you do when heaven feels silent? When you've prayed, believed, even begged, and still nothing changes? When the person you love isn't healed? When the worst actually happens? When it feels like evil is winning? Where is God in all of that?

This May, Pastor Jack Hibbs' featured resource is *Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayer?* by Erwin Lutzer. It's an honest biblical look at the questions most of us are afraid to say out loud. Not shallow answers, but real hope, real truth, the kind that meets you right in the middle of disappointment and points you back to God's greater purpose, even when you can't see it.

If you've ever wrestled with doubt, confusion, or silence from God, this book is for you. *Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayer?* It's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/realradio. That's jackhibbs.com/realradio. Get your own copy of the Book of the Month, *Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayer?* by Dr. Erwin Lutzer, at jackhibbs.com/realradio.

On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues in his series called *Disciplines of Life* and a message titled "Disciplines of Despair." In our journey to develop a lifestyle that's usable by God, despair can sometimes overtake us. But when all seems lost, we can cry out to God who can save us.

Our deep discouragement or hopelessness can actually be used by God to grow us spiritually. Despair drives us toward Jesus, and when we realize that we can't fix things on our own, it creates a dependency on the Lord instead of ourselves.

So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that despair can settle us in for life. In other words, it's all about deciding to be with Jesus. In any circumstance or any dilemma, it's safer to be with the Lord than anyone else, in spite of our fears. Now, with his message called "Disciplines of Despair," here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Despair opens us up to His ways. You can't see Him rescue unless you're in trouble. Notice we're all going to be in trouble. The Bible says we were all experiencing and we shall experience tribulations and difficulties in this life. That's going to happen. It's happened. It's happening.

But He will deliver us His way. But you'll never know His mighty hand being stretched out to grab you unless you're in that pit of despair. And it's a strange thing in the Christian life. When things are going too smooth, maybe I'm—okay, let me back up. This is my personal thinking: Lord, things have been kind of smooth. Are we okay? I mean, come on, God, give me some hardship, will You?

Bring it down. I need to know that I'm Yours. Listen, if we just walked on water, we'd be light as a feather. We'd be so shallow we had no character whatsoever. We would have no depth. There would be no stability to our lives because it's been so smooth.

But when you go through a storm and you're filled with despair and you cry out, "Lord, save me," and His arm stretched out rescues you—wow! Why did you doubt? Sorry. This is bonus points. Years ago—you can read about it online, and I'll probably mess it up because it's about a 20, 30-year-old study.

I think it was University of the Sequoias up in Northern California. A university psychology department took the San Francisco wharf rat and they did a study on them. They took the San Francisco wharf rat and they put them in an aquarium, a bunch of them, and they were swimming around and they drowned.

They pulled them out and revived them. Brought them back, recovered them, warmed them up, fed them, got them all happy, and two days later put them back in the aquarium again and let them drown again. Pulled them out after they drowned and revived them. They did that over and over and over again. Because the first time they put the wharf rat in the water, it swam for 15 minutes and then it drowned.

Then they rescued it and revived it, put it back in the water, he swam for 30 minutes and then he drowned. Pulled him out of the water, revived him, put him back in the water, he swam for an hour and a half. Drowned. That stinking rat wound up learning how to tread water for three hours before he drowned.

What's the point? If a rat can be taught hope, can't a human being, can't we the children of God believe? If a rat can learn that His mighty hand will come, His outstretched arm will deliver me from this, then what about us who can say tonight everything He's delivered us from thus up till now? Has He not delivered us? Will He not deliver us? Yes.

If a rat can learn that, why can't we learn that? We're so funny because when the news comes, even though He's delivered us in the past, will He deliver us now? Jesus says, "Why are you doubting? Why are you doubting?" And then, because I know what's in the back of your head, I can feel it from here. It's, "Oh, yeah, but what if I'm going to die?"

Are you a Christian? Yes. So how do you think you're going to get to heaven? How do you go? "I just thought I'd live forever and never have to deal with that." You're going to die, man! Before you do, you're going to pay taxes, apparently a lot of them. And then after you die, your stuff has to pay taxes now.

But you'll be in heaven, so who cares? Think about it. I saw a bumper sticker years ago: "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." Why do we think like that? Because we fear that He's going to abandon us in the moment. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

That's truth, my friend. For the believer, that's a reality. And it's a shadow. I walked through the shadow. Death is a shadow, the valley's a shadow, the whole thing. You're just passing through. And you can't have shadows without a lot of big light.

Despair opens us up to His ways. Peter was the only one who heard those words when Jesus said, "Why are you doubting?" or "Why are you afraid?" Listen to this. Those are not the words of condemnation from Jesus. Don't think that Jesus rescued him and then spanked him and put him in the corner of the boat and said, "You sit there."

Oh, no, no, no way. Those are awesome words. You know what Jesus is telling Peter? He's telling Peter, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Jesus is telling Peter, "Good move, dude. That was awesome. Peter, you rock. Got your eyes off Me, saw how big the waves were, freaked you out. Here's a cool thing, Peter. You learned a huge lesson tonight on the water. Your faith just grew big time. Good job."

Jesus is not rebuking him. Jesus is saying, "Hey, man, do you see? You don't need to have little faith. Look at you. That's awesome. Believe. It's going to be great. You learned a big lesson." In the midst of your despair right now, think in your mind. Write that thing that's despairing to you. It's your desperation.

Jesus is saying, "Hey, this is the only thing in your life right now where you and I are—we're working on this. And I'm going to bring you through this, and when we're done, you will never be torn up by that again." What are you afraid of tonight?

Tonight right before I came down here, Lisa was reaching over to something outside and she thought she got a spider on her. It was hilarious. I wish I would have had a camera. Because she was doing this freaky dance. It was like spider dance. "Get it off me!" What are you afraid of? I hate snakes. What are you afraid of?

God says, "Hey, that thing—I'm going to work with that. I'm going to work with that in your life." Lord, I have a tendency to be afraid of this, or I'm scared of the other thing, or I've got this fear that someday someone's going to walk up and they're going to say, or someone's going to do—the Lord says, "I'm going to work on that. O you of little faith, listen, don't be afraid anymore. Don't doubt. I'm going to work on that."

Psalm 130, verse 1 says, "Out of the depths"—imagine this—his emotion and his spiritual pressure. He says, "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice," the Psalmist cries. "Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?" Boy, is that not true?

Imagine that. Pause right there. Keep it up on the screen. Imagine Peter steps out and he starts sinking, and if the Lord did not have mercy and only kept record of our sins, imagine that for a moment. Peter, you sinking? It's because you're a sinner. Almost down, Peter, almost underwater. It's because you're a sinner. He didn't do that.

Who could stand? "But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared"—or the word is *awed*. "You put us in awe. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope." There's your answer, everybody. "My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen who wait for the morning, more than watchmen who wait for the morning." There's nothing like the morning coming when you've been up all night.

I remember I took the pastors out and we got together—I think we got to the church at like 7:00 or 8:00 o'clock in the evening. And we drove around the town, the city, all night. The city, like we live in a city. We drove around the town. Drove around all the schools, parked out in front of the schools and prayed for them.

Prayed for the schools, prayed for the teachers, drove around our community, drove all over. Walked around, drove around. And when it was like about 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning, it's like, okay, somebody pray loud. And we got out of the cars and we walked up to the top of the hill in Chino Hills where the big oak tree is at.

The Oak of Mamre, that gigantic oak of Abraham's up there. And we got up there and it was cold and we're sitting there and the morning began to come. You're so tired and we're just talking about stuff, and I had told the guys I took my kids up here when we were just moved to Chino Hills. We stretched out our hands over these hills and the valley and we said, "Lord, deliver them into our hands for Your glory" in 1986.

So we're talking about that and we stood in the same exact spot and we did the same thing as the sun began to rise. And as soon as the sun came up, everything changes. It's like, all right, yeah! Yeah! All right, you're on! Why? Hope. New mercies. Despair evaporates when you set your eyes on the Son of His righteousness. He's amazing.

And so also this: it's very clear that as Peter began to sink, he cried out. The word *cry* here is that he cried out for his life. His life was coming to an end. And Jesus says, "Why did you doubt?" I love the confidence of Jesus. And I love the reality of the Bible. You guys are almost done, so listen. You need to grab onto this.

I know this sounds nutty, but I spend a lot of time in airplanes, which I hate. Have you ever seen them when they say—right before you take off, they point to the exits. You follow the lights and they do this stuff and then they'll say stuff like this: "In the event of a water landing..." Oh boy, sounds great, doesn't it?

"In the event of a water landing," they'll tell you your life jacket will deploy automatically. And they'll tell you that upon entering the water, the strobe light will automatically illuminate on your shoulder. Gosh, that sounds great. Can we do that? Upon entering the water, your life jacket will automatically inflate and there'll be a light that goes off.

"Sharks, here!" I'm sure it means to a shark, "Hey, eat at Joe's." "Hey, look, Bob, there's another guy in the water." Anyway, I hope you don't have a flight tomorrow morning to Hawaii or something, but leaving for Honolulu, you know. But imagine: in the event of life's difficulty, when you enter the water, Jesus the Lifesaver will appear immediately.

And the Light of the World will illuminate and rescue you. But I always get a kick of how those flight attendants are so confident. "In the event of a water landing, you put your seatbelt on and you just duck your head when we impact. It's going to be great." And they're just so—in the Christian should be like that in this world.

"Hey, you know what? When the moment of death comes and you're going to die, okay, all you need to do is call out to the Lord and remember all the things that He's promised you and He'll show up for you. You know what I'm saying?" Man, we trust in the craziest things. "Oh, man, I feel better, I got my life jacket on." You're going down, man!

And then the Bible says, "I will be with you; yea, I will uphold you. I will put you upon a firm rock and I will see you through. Neither death nor life nor any created thing will be able to separate you from the love of God." And we're like, "Oh, no, can we believe that? I don't—what do you think?" But we have our life jacket on in the airplane. It's unbelievable.

Finally this: despair settles us in for life. Well, you say, "You act like it's a positive thing, despair settles us in for life." No, it means this: that despair causes you to make a decision. The darker, the more dangerous, the greater the sink rate of you and your dilemma, the greater God comes through.

When our daughter was eight months old, the pediatric hematologist told us she's got a 50 percent chance of life, 50 percent chance she's going to live or die, only God knows. And we waited for that night. What do you do in those moments hit? Lisa and I prayed, prayed, prayed and then realized she belongs to Him anyway.

Have you ever come to that point? Your house belongs to God, your husband belongs to God, your wife belongs to God, your kids belong to God. Everything you have belongs to God. When we wake up to that reality, it's like, it all belongs to Him. She belongs to Him. If she lives or dies, He gave her to us for eight months.

Think about that. When you decide to be with Jesus rather than go down in the sinking boat, and we tend not to venture out in things. We find ourselves glued to the seat because of fear, or because of the unknown, or doesn't make sense to get out of a good boat, as we talked about before.

And in the end, listen to this. You know what's embarrassing? In the end, everybody was saved. They all got to the shore in the end. But Peter's the only guy who could say, "Hey, James, want to touch these feet? They walked on water." Only Peter could say that. How was it, Peter? How was it? It was awesome.

Only Peter can say that. Do you understand that, you guys? Only Peter could tell you what it's like to walk on water. He listened to Jesus and stepped out of the boat. For the rest of his life, people could have said to Peter, "I want to ask you something about that. How was it?" Think about it. He got the chance to boast in the Lord.

And when God calls you to step out in something, you ought to step out. In the end they all—in the end they all made it to the shore, but only Peter could tell the story. Your moment of despair—you're going to get out of it, you're going to make it, and you're going to be able to tell the story.

It settles us in for life. I got a picture today emailed. I want you to see it. It's about security. This is the cutest picture. Do you know what that is? That's a porcupine. That's a baby porcupine. Now watch this. He has no idea—apparently he thinks that his little quills are painful, but they're not. They're like hair right now.

He doesn't have to defend himself. He's got a big mama to take care of him, but he doesn't know that. So he's a cute little guy. Now watch as he gets a little bit more—he's thinking, "I'm going to be protected. I'm going to protect myself." Next slide. Look at this. I'm kind of—okay. What's he doing? He's going inside. He's a porcupine.

Isn't he cute? You put a little hot sauce on him, he's so cute. Next slide, next slide. There he is! What's he thinking? "I'm safe in here. Ain't going to get me now. I'm all right." People hiding out like that in fear. "I'm okay. I'm just hiding out. I'll live like this." You can't live like that. He can't walk anywhere.

He can't eat anything. He can't—he can't go anywhere. He can't do anything. He can't go anywhere. He can't do anything. He can't walk. He can't—nothing. He can roll, but who's going to push him? Look, people, get out of your despair. Call upon the name of the Lord. Watch what happens.

Call upon Him. Despair settles us in for life, and that is: it causes us to come to the reality of grabbing God's word and saying, "You know what? I am going to stand upon the rock. God's promises will never fail, and I'm going to choose now to believe that. And I'm going to tell my soul, 'Soul, get up and stand upon this truth.'" My friend, you grab a Bible verse tonight that ministers to your heart in your despair, and you stand on it. And you watch what happens.

Father, we thank You for Your truth and for Your word. And right now, while we're here now, every one of us have got a need. And despair sometimes walks down our street, sometimes it stands out in front of our house, sometimes it starts to make its way up the driveway. And that would be terror enough. And sometimes it knocks on the door. Sometimes it creeps through the window.

All because we have let it, Lord, be so powerful. We've allowed it to be that big. We've allowed the waves to become so big and the shadow so dark that we've gotten our eyes off of You. And we're asking You, Father, in Jesus' name, as a church, as a people, and as a person, as an individual tonight, that in the name of Jesus we pray now for the filling of Your baptism power of Your Spirit in our lives.

Lord, come upon us with Your great wisdom, Your great power, and Your outstretched arm. And, Lord, that You'd pick us up from the miry pit. And, Lord, that You'd set us firm upon the rock. And tonight we would leave this place saying, "I will follow the Lord. I will believe His word. I will be strong in our Lord Most High."

Father, we thank You now. While our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed tonight, if you're not a Christian and you're going through it, you're in the pit of despair, and you are going through it in life—you need to right now pray right where you're at. You need to say, "Lord, I'm asking You now to take control of my life, to take control of my despair."

"I'm asking You, Jesus, to save me from my sins and from my decisions and from my life. And I'm asking You, Lord, to come in and be the great victor, the King of my life. Jesus, I believe tonight that You died on the cross and rose again from the grave, just as the Bible says, and I give You my life."

And you tell Him that right now right where you're at. You make a decision for Jesus. Nobody needs to hold your hand and nobody needs to burp you or somehow coddle you right now. You know what you need, and you know you need Him. Father, bless them now, we pray. And all God's people said, amen.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs. Here on Real Life Radio and his message called "Disciplines of Despair." Thanks for being with us today. This message is part of Pastor Jack's series called *The Disciplines of Life*. It's a series highlighting 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.

Daniel Cohen: Daniel Cohen here from Israel. If you love Pastor Jack Hibbs' fearless approach to teaching God's word, you'll love the Real Life Network. It's built for warriors who want the truth—God's truth. On *The Daniel Cohen Show*, we bring you stories the mainstream media downplays. It's time to start getting your news from people you trust. And it's totally free. Sign up now at realifenetwork.com.

David J: 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.