Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: My life, your life is being prepared by the events of our lives and listen, the Word of God in concert with the events of our lives, that we might understand God's ways.

Announcer: 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.

David J: Have you ever ignored a warning, only to regret it later? What if the warnings we so easily brush aside are exactly what we need to live a life full of purpose and protection? What if instead of seeing warnings as obstacles or interruptions, what if we embrace them as the love and wisdom of a God who wants to protect us from destruction?

How often do we dismiss the warnings in our lives because they challenge our comfort, our convenience, or our pride? In this month's featured resource called Words of Warning, Charles Spurgeon calls us to wake up to the seriousness of the spiritual battles we face every day.

Words of warning. Listen to the subtitle, everyone: For those wavering between belief and unbelief. You need this book. Everyone needs this book. If you're struggling with belief and unbelief, get it. Get Words of Warning by Charles Spurgeon for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/realradio. That's jackhibbs.com/realradio.

Announcer: On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called 1 Samuel and a message titled Getting the Victory in Life, Part 1. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of its prophets.

So here in chapter seven, Samuel prays for the people of Israel after they've suffered a devastating defeat and endured great insult to their pride. You see, it's a turning point for Israel. The people have been humbled, so they move from defeat and fear to an uplifting victory and a renewed trust in God.

So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that victorious Christian living tragically escapes many believers. They're not told that trouble will come and that their faith will be challenged. The key is to learn from the mistakes Israel made by continuing to serve the Lord wholeheartedly, not just for a while, but through all of our days we have on this earth. Now, in his message called Getting the Victory in Life, Part 1, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Father, we ask you, Lord God, that tonight would open up Your Word to our hearts. Father, that we look to Your truth and Lord, out of it, we might behold wondrous things. And so we ask, Father, now that You would bless because You're good and You're awesome. And we ask it, Lord, in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen. Won't you grab your Bibles and turn if you would to 1 Samuel 7.

1 Samuel chapter 7. It's a little chapter and with what time remains, we will go as far as we can tonight. 1 Samuel chapter 7. It says, then the men of Kirjath Jearim came and took the ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill and consecrated Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord. And so it was that the ark remained in Kirjath Jearim a long time.

It was there 20 years and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel saying, "If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you and prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve Him only. He will deliver you from the Philistines," or you could even insert there, the flesh.

So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths and served the Lord only. And Samuel said, "Gather all Israel to Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you." So they gathered together at Mizpah. They drew water and poured it out before the Lord and they fasted that day and said there, quote, "We have sinned against the Lord." And Samuel judged the children of Israel at Mizpah.

Now when the Philistines, or the flesh, heard that the children of Israel had gathered together at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. So the children of Israel said to Samuel, "Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that He may save us from the hand of the Philistines."

And Samuel took a suckling lamb, or a nursing lamb, and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Then Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel and the Lord answered Samuel. Now, as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord—I love it—thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day and so confused them that they were overcome before Israel.

And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and drove them back as far as Beth Car. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." So the Philistines were subdued and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel.

And the hand of the Lord was against them all the days of Samuel. Then the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Ekron to Gath. And Israel recovered its territory from the hand of the Philistines. Also, there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.

And he went from year to year on a circuit to Bethel, to Gilgal, Mizpah, and judged Israel in all of those places. But he always returned to Ramah for his house was there. Therefore, he judged Israel and there he built an altar to the Lord.

This evening's study is entitled, and I'd appreciate if you write it down because we all need it, and that is Getting the Victory in Life. Getting the victory in life. Man, I tell you, if you're a Christian, one of the first things that you realize as a believer in Jesus Christ is that now that you've accepted Him, there is no rose-strewn path for you.

You know what I mean? Wouldn't you be thinking that if you give your heart to Christ, everything's going to be smooth from here on out? Finally you got everything in order. Hey, I got God first in my life. I'm going to be following Him and lo and behold, everything comes against you. Have you noticed that? It's amazing. As you launch out to follow God, tragically many young Christians are not warned about this.

That if you make a step for righteousness, if you make a step to follow God, there is going to be an attack. That will not be unchallenged. But tragically, various and many Christians are left behind from experiencing a successful Christian walk. And that's sad and it doesn't have to be that way.

Jot it down if you would. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 1 through 3 says, "And I," Paul says, "brethren, could not speak to you as to ones being spiritual people, but as unto carnal people, as unto babes in Christ." That's not a good looking people, that's little immature people. Hey man, babes in Christ.

I knew some friends in the college and career group at Calvary Costa Mesa 20 plus years ago. And they used to walk around, these guys were hilarious because they wanted a wife and they would be talking often and they would say, "Oh, you know, boy, I met this girl and she was, I saw her at the prayer meeting and oh, she's a babe in Christ."

And I had to laugh because Lisa and I were the only ones married in that entire group at the time. And we even went to a retreat one time and I stayed with the guys and she stayed with the girls. And they came up to us and they said, "Thank you for doing that because it means so much to us that you would part ways for the weekend and be concerned for us that way." Well, I don't even know if we were concerned about that as much as it was cheaper for us to go to that retreat that way.

But close to a thousand people in that college and career group. But Paul says here, "I couldn't speak to you," to the church at Corinth, "as being mature people," but he says as carnal, as babies, still nursing on the simple things of the word, having not grown into the deeper things. He said in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 2, "I've wanted to feed you with milk, but and with solid food, but until now you were not able for until now you were not able to receive it. And even now you are still not able. For you are still carnal," he says. "For where there is envy and strife," that is divisions and factions and cliques, "among you, are you not carnal and behave as mere men?" And the word there "mere men" is those who are unconverted.

Paul says to the Corinthian Church, you're acting like unconverted people. You should be acting like believers. And so many Christians even tonight are caught up in a, oh, defeated, can I say that, hindered Christian experience. And yet it's God's will that all of us experience a victorious Christian life.

We're going to start with our first point this evening, jot it down if you would. It's found in verses 1 and 2 and that is our lives are being prepared by God. Getting the victory or the victorious life, know this, our lives are being prepared by the Lord. It says here, verse 1, they took the ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill and they consecrated Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord. I would highlight the words there "to keep".

Number one, verse 1 we see that our lives are being prepared and that is that we might understand God's ways. To understand His ways. My life, your life is being prepared by the events of our lives and listen, the Word of God in concert with the events of our lives that we might understand God's ways. Remember last time Israel had just received the ark? Remember what happened to the Philistines who had it for a while? They got hemorrhoids.

And they said, get this thing out of here. They made an offering, trespass offering unto the Lord. They got it out of their land. It came into the first Israeli town and the people rejoiced. But remember, some people looked inside the ark and God struck them dead.

And they said, hey, let this thing go from us. This is a very sad and sorrowful day. And so they call for the men of Kirjath Jearim, a city very close to Shiloh where it once sat in the temple. The original resting place of the ark in Israel was at Shiloh, not Jerusalem. The Shiloh temple location preceded Jerusalem.

So they call for men from a city nearby. All of the situations, Israel is mourning because many people had been killed because they failed to take God seriously as the ark came back. They began to treat the ark as a trinket, as maybe a good luck thing. But understand this, God is preparing Israel. He's preparing your life because the same Holy Spirit who wrote this Bible is alive today right now in your life.

Isn't that exciting to know? I love that truth. I want to hold on to that truth. Because the truth of the matter is, the Holy Spirit wants to speak today. This Bible says of itself that it is alive. It's able to pierce between the thoughts and the intentions of our hearts and of our minds. It's the living word.

Announcer: You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: So verse 1 teaches us that we need to understand God's way. They had the ark, but they couldn't use the ark. And so the word there, "keep it" or "to keep it", this guy Eleazar, he's just the custodian of it. Israel's got the ark but they can't use it. They're scared. They're afraid. They had misappropriated the ark.

And so as Proverbs 16 verse 18 teaches us, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Israel has now been humbled by God. And that's a tough pill to swallow for any of us. Has God ever humbled you? Is God humbling you right now? Oh, it's a painful thing. You ever been to the woodshed when the Lord takes you out there?

It would be easier if He did physically spank you. Sometimes He takes us out to the woodshed, sometimes it's because of pride. Israel had gotten arrogant and haughty when the ark came back. They treated it ill. They didn't reverence the Lord. So in fact, God had placed Israel on probation. Israel had been grounded, so to speak.

And pride will always be a precursor to discipline or disaster. In 1 Peter 5 verse 5, the Bible says, "And be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble." Ah, this word can be acted out in that when God resists the proud, oh, what do the proud have in common in a type or in a symbolic way? It's like a rooster.

People will say, look at him, he's as proud as a rooster. You ever seen a rooster walk around? They strut that big chest out there. We used to have a rooster in our backyard and I beat it up terribly because it attacked me. It got really big and huge, it was like the Corn Flakes rooster, it was gigantic, beautiful thing.

And what happened was the hens that we had running around the backyard decided that it was time to start laying eggs. I didn't know it, but he knew it, that his hens were now bearing eggs and it was his turn now, I guess, to make little chickens. And I walked out one evening into the backyard and this rooster was huge and he took off after me and he was coming and it's a pretty scary thing to see a mad rooster that's that big. This guy was just huge, Rhode Island Red rooster with the big green tail.

And he hit me with those spurs on the back of his leg. They were about two inches long. And we had raised this chicken from a little tiny naked thing, you know? And he kept coming after me. So what I did was I took him over to Tom Messer's dairy and his milking hands wound up having him for dinner that night. I thought, praise the Lord.

That rooster would stick his chest out and then come after me with a vengeance. The funny thing was, in a way, I was sticking my chest out. Two prides going at it. Two arrogant people or guys or things going at it. But the truth is, he needed to be humbled. And so I had him humbled. And pride goes before a fall, or in his case, pride cometh before the pan. And he didn't recover from that.

Our lives are being prepared by God. Our lives are being prepared by God, not only that we might understand His ways. What's going on in your life? Listen, I know you're protesting it, I know that you're against it, but God is doing what He's doing in your life because He wants you to understand His ways.

And you say, "Well Jack, I can come right back at you and say that His ways are past finding out." Yes, that's true. The full mystery of who and how God is and what He does will never be known to us until we are in His presence. But He, in a very deliberate way, has only revealed to us enough, I say enough, to get us by in this world.

But I stress the word enough. Oh, I wish I knew this or how come God or whatever. My friend, the things that are going on in your life have all been prepared by God that you might understand more His ways. And His ways are found out in the Bible. If and when you go through something in your life, Christian, listen. If you're going through or when you go through something in your life and you cannot point to a Bible verse that applies, then you better keep searching your Bible until you find a Bible verse that applies.

Because the thing in your life that is going on has been engineered by God to get you to find that verse of promise to apply to that situation so that you might know His way. If you don't seek Him in your difficulty, in your trial, you won't grow spiritually. And what a terrible thing that would be.

It would be like a tape. You play it, you rewind it. You play it, you rewind it until you get it. But once you get it, it's time to move on. Listen, many people have been Christians for 20 years, but they have one year Christian experience for 20 years.

I'd rather be a one-year-old Christian with 20 years experience than a 20-year pew potato who doesn't do anything with his faith, doesn't grow. Can say that he's a Christian, but he's got nothing under the belt. Never ventured out. 20 years as a Christian, one year experience.

No, no, no. Give me a Christian with three years of being born again, committed to God, and I'll show you a Christian that's got three years of walking with Christ, but 20 years experience. That's what God wants to do in our lives. That's why in Daniel 11:32, it says that those who know the Lord shall carry out great exploits.

Isn't that wild? You say, "Well golly, Jack, that's not going to happen to me." God wants that to happen to you. Why are you even thinking that way? "Because I'm nothing." God uses nothing. "I'm just a fool." Be a fool for Christ. "I've got a lot of problems." He uses crackpots. The Bible says that we're vessels made of clay.

He wants to use us. He wants to humble our hearts. Verse 2, so it was that the ark remained at Kirjath Jearim a long time. It was 20 years it was there. That's a long time. It's in this guy's house, 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. The Bible says that they lamented after Him. To cry out with a loud and long cry, to bemoan the very situation. To cry out, to bemoan.

In Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 2, the Bible says, "And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness to humble you." In Deuteronomy 8, verse 6, the Bible says it was the Lord who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you.

Now I want to help you out here. There was a slide that the media group was supposed to put up a moment ago. I want to show it to you if they have it, about Israel lamenting and crying out. Let's see if they got it. Do they have it? There it is.

Now look at that. And all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Is that guy lamenting or what? Why lament like that? That look is going to be on our face every time we get our eyes off of the Lord.