Real Life Radio

David Jay: Today, on Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: Man, I tell you, I don't care who you are, I'm included. We like God in a box. So, Pastor Jack, I don't. You do, too. You do, too, because you want to be able to tell yourself tomorrow what you think God's going to do.

David Jay: This is real life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I am David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's word, the Bible. 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 embraced 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.

Jack Hibbs: Words of Warning. And 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.

David Jay: Get Words of Warning by Charles Spurgeon for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/realradio. That's jackhibbs.com/realradio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called First Samuel and a message titled Ichabod. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first prophet. Samuel is now warning the Jewish people of the dangers of spiritually departing from God. You see, Ichabod literally means the glory has departed. This is the name a woman gave to her son after hearing of Israel's utter defeat, the capture of the Ark of the Covenant, and the deaths of her husband and father-in-law.

She dies shortly thereafter, and all because of sin, this baby is orphaned. So, today Pastor Jack asks us, how does the meaning of Ichabod apply to us today? The sins of our fathers and past generations can be broken with Christ as he comes into our lives. Heaven is possible, and we can be set free from sin when our savior is Jesus. Now, with his message called Ichabod, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Not only was Eli's influence heavy, but he had grown heavy and taking things that were not for him. Him and his sons acquiring it to self. And that's a very tragic thing. It says in verse 18 that he judged Israel for 40 years. Isn't that interesting how the number 40 I don't want to make too big of a deal on this, but if you ask a rabbi what is significant about the number 40, they'll tell you it's the number of judgment. What was the message when Jonah got burped up out of the great fish? How many days, Nineveh?

40 days. How long was Jesus in the wilderness being tempted by Satan? 40 days. It rained on the earth and flooded the earth with Noah. How long? 40 days. 40 days. 40 40 40 Here's 40 years. Don't want to make too big of a deal of it. Don't want to read or make too much of a devotional thing out of it, but 40 years I think this speaks of God's mercy. 40 years God was patient with Eli and these boys. It's a very sad thing. And could it be that Eli slipped into this concern for the Ark of God rather than being concerned for the witness of God?

Could it be that you begin to think, you know what? God's in that place. Oh, this gets really kind of scary to me because you know what? Do you understand what the Ark was? When he had heard about the Ark, he fainted and broke his neck or had a heart attack when he heard about the Ark. Not oh, God, his name has been blasphemed. And he croaks and keels over. No. The box that we can put God in has been captured. The box we put him in has been stolen. What are we going to do if God's out of the box?

God's already out of the box. God's with Samuel. God's not in the box. The Ark of the Covenant was a gold box. Man, I tell you, I don't care who you are, I'm included. We like God in a box. So, Pastor Jack, I don't. You do, too. You do, too, because you want to be able to tell yourself tomorrow what you think God's going to do. You think that God is going to handle your situation a certain way. You've worked it out. You've figured it. Listen, I do this all the time for both you and me regarding this church.

God, I got it. I got it from here. I I'll take it from here. Just get in the box and it'll be fine. It doesn't work that way. The moment you begin to figure God out, you're in trouble. And here's the toughest thing of all. If you are involved in Christian service, don't ever And this is our human tendency, and we try to disguise it with our robes that this is a cool I got it. I got the ministry under control. Listen, you in the ministry, you try to put God in a box. You would never confess it, but you try to say, you know what?

Next year we're going to do this. What we're going to do next time is look, nobody on this staff including me has a clue. We can plan our ways, but God's the one who directs our steps. I think personally, I think that we can plan a lot of stuff and God is not even in it. I hate to admit this, but if anybody's listening in, I'll admit it for their church, too. This happens with every minister and with every pastor, with every church. We plan to death the outreach. We plan to death the Easter service or the crusade or the whatever.

We can plan something to death so that God's not even in it anymore. He says, you know, I'd like to be quiet. Who who mentioned that? Isn't it Jesus knocking on the door of the church in Revelation trying to get into his own church? Behold, I stand at the door and knock. That's a great We use it out of context, you know, at the Billy Graham Crusades and at the Harvest Crusades or if we're evangelizing on Thursday nights at someone's door, we use it out of context. You know, to an unbeliever we'll say God is standing at the door of your heart and knock.

Now, I'm sure he is, okay? Don't get me wrong. But to use that verse, that's the wrong verse. That verse applies to the church that has backslidden and has thrown Jesus out of the of his own church. And he's trying to get in. Hello? Who are you? They're so busy and so involved they forgot who he is. Get in the box. The box is gone. And Eli hears about it, and he falls over dead and breaks his neck. Or I shouldn't say it appears to me that he has a stroke or he faints or whatever, and the falling over is what kills him.

His neck breaks. Apparently, that's what kills him. Who judged who, I wonder? Was it Eli judging Israel or did the God of Israel judge him? Verse 19. Now, his daughter-in-law, Phinehas's wife, was with child. She's pregnant. Due to be delivered, and when she heard the news that the Ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed down herself and gave birth. Wow. She immediately went into labor. Her labor pains came upon her. Verse 20. And about that time of her death, my goodness, she goes into labor and she's dying giving in childbirth.

The woman who stood by her said to her, do not fear, for you have born a son. But she did not answer nor did she regard it. Then, this is just before she dies, she names the child Ichabod saying the glory has departed from Israel. That's what Ichabod means. Because the Ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And verse 22, and she said, the glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured. Do you hear that? God in a box is gone. What are we going to do?

I'm going to name my son. God's glory has departed. You say, well, Jack, that's pretty heavy, man. It is heavy. It's terribly heavy. Tragic, isn't it? It's terrible. How sad this boy. But isn't this what God prophesied through Samuel? This boy loses grandpa, his uncle, his dad, and his mom, and he's a half a minute old. He's an orphan before he ever gets started. All because of sin. Listen. Don't want to belabor this. I'll just mention it. The Bible says that God will judge the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Do you know that?

That is a fact and a truth and it happens now. And you might say, oh gosh, I knew that was what's wrong with my life. Stop right there. That curse breaks the moment you accept Jesus Christ. Oh no, you know, I'm the second generation and my father was a you know, was a mugger. My father was a mugger and I have I'm afraid I'm going to wake up and have mugger tendencies and it's going to be visited upon my children. I know this is coming. Stop right there. Give your heart to Jesus Christ and that curse is broken.

It's a fact. And listen. Don't want to get creepy on you here. But not only is that a spiritual truth that sin will perpetuate through the generations, but children, as we've mentioned in times past, and I don't get psych psychological on you, but a child will emulate what they see and what they hear. It's no, you know, weird kind of you've got a neurological, pathological, discombobulated view because your mother You know, she ate figs every Thursday when she was growing up, and now you have this tendency to burn down forest or something. I'm It's like, what?

No. You and I often do what our mom and dad did even though we hate it. We'll say, man, I'll never do that. And then you wind up thinking or doing what your parents did, learned response behavior. Man, I'm so afraid my dad was an alcoholic. My dad was an alcoholic. I'm so afraid I'm going to wake up tomorrow and I'm going just going to go lunch for the liquor store. I'm going to go running in there and take Don't worry about that. Are you a Christian? Yeah. He who has the son, he's been set free.

Jesus has set you free. Whoever has the son is free. Listen, you're free. Yeah, but I'm afraid I'm going to do that. No, listen, my friend. Say this to Jesus. Pray to God. Say, Lord, take away from me how I was trained by hearing and seeing to respond to events in my life. Instead of reaching for the bottle, may I reach for the Bible? Instead of running to the liquor store, may I run to the Lord? Are you afraid? Ask him. This is his will for your life. Well, you know, every time things go wrong, I I reach for the bottle.

You don't have to do that, my friend. That's a learned response behavior. You saw your dad deal with his problems that way as a little kid, so you do it. Are you teaching psychology? No, I'm talking about the sin visiting the child to the third and fourth generation. It's a learned response, but it can be broken through Jesus. That's the great thing.

David Jay: 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: Are you a Christian? That chain's been broke. That link's busted. Now, Satan will come, especially in the world that you and I live in right now with all of this junk that's on TV and say, you know, you're going to have these tendencies. Well, my friend, Satan is brilliant and so is little satanic imps that worked for him, his demons. And they say, well, you know what? Power of suggestion's incredibly powerful. We know this. We've been alive for thousands of years. And we know that if you just drop a suggestion into a human's brain, he winds up nursing that concept.

And then he begins to worry about it and wonder about it until the very thing that he might even loathe he winds up doing. Just because human nature is fallen. They know this stuff. Right now my daughter is reading C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. You ought to read that book, The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. It's about a quarter of an inch thick. And C. S. Lewis, brilliant author that he was, put you inside the mind of an apprentice demon talking to his trainer about how to get Christians to stumble and trip up and and how to get people to not come to Christ.

It's hilarious. You'll laugh. It's a great book. They know. As soon as somebody comes on, Good Morning America says, yes, well, in my research at Harvard, I have found out that if thus and so is happening in a person's life at some point time, they will do the other. And all you have to do is hear that and Satan too and goes, great idea. And watch out because now, well, you see, I really don't want to do what I've been doing, but it's my mom's fault and it 's my grandfather's fault. And it was, you know, Thomas Jefferson's fault, and it was the Queen of England's fault.

And so that's why I have to do this. Oh, you know what? Listen, right now I'm probably stepping on someone's toes right now. Stands still. Sit still. Let me jump on them for a second. Please listen. Don't get caught up into that trash, you guys, because it diminishes the power of the blood. It takes away from the punch of the gospel to set you free. I learned how to have an extremely short temper. You know that? My temper is miles long after 23 years of being a Christian. When I read David when I read in David's life and Samuel, as we will get to David's life and Samuel, by the way, I read that guy, that's my life.

That's me. He's impetuous. I'm like that. David, under the control of God, instantly can do a great thing for God. I can do that. I've seen it happen. Outside of God, I can instantly do a disastrous thing. I've done that, too. He'll be writing a psalm. Oh Lord, I praise you. And somebody comes running up, David, the Amalekites are coming and they've got this stuff. What? And Whammy's cutting guys's heads off. Praise you, Lord. Your love to me is more than What? What what was I saying, Lord? I mean, we'll get to him. I mean, you're going to you're going to associate with David.

It's amazing. It's it's amazing. We'll connect with him. The thing is that's tragic. This woman this daughter-in-law of Eli's, she says the glory's departed. The Ark's gone. The golden box is gone. That's it. It's over for us. I'm going to name my kid. It's over. That's your Your name is Zero Glory Not a Over. You are a nothing. Your life, your name speaks of the day that God left. The interesting thing, the word in the Hebrew, the glory has departed. The word in the Hebrew is not departed as much as it means the glory of God has the glory of God has been neglected and refused.

Isn't that interesting? God didn't go anywhere. He was rejected. And she says his glory's departed. Not true. God had raised up Samuel. God's glory hadn't departed. But when you follow around a box, my friend, the little glory's long since departed in your life. But God will always have a Samuel. God will always be at work, always. He'll always have his man in the earth. Always. He'll always have his woman on the job at the spot, always. Where are you? Wherever you're at. People are at your job and they're cussing up a storm or they're sexually messing around with the people on the loading dock or the boss is forcing himself on this person or she's robbing the till from that store and all the stuff and cheating and all this changing the numbers and and there you are in the midst of all this stuff.

And you could look around. If you see God in a box, you could say the glory's departed from this company. The glory's departed from this family. The glory's departed. Ichabod. And God says, will you calm down and put a sock in it? I've got you here. You're my Samuel. You're the person here in this company for this reason. Be careful. We need to be careful about this. No, God's glory had not departed. In fact, as we get out In fact, chapter five we're going to take next time when we're together, we're going to take chapter five and probably six together at one time.

I know you think it's impossible, but we're going to do it and I tell you it's going to be something because these guys these guys, these Philistines who take the Ark, you got to read ahead. It's the best. These guys take the Ark. We've got the Ark. Israel, you lost your box, and we've got your God. And God's going, this is going to be cool. Their idols God breaks their idols that they worship. And the men, oh, it's great. I can I can I can't even I can hardly wait to tell you. Don't read ahead.

Maybe It's too It's too fun. Too wonderful. Follow him. Don't put God in a box. His glory is not departed, not at all. In fact, it's just getting warmed up with what he's going to do. Father, we ask you that you would take your word and Father that we would learn as Paul teaches us in the book of Romans, all these things of the Old Testament were written down for our learning that by them, that is to know them, to understand them, and to apply them, we might through patience inherit the promises. And so Father, we learned tonight that you're not in a box.

We learned tonight, God, that all glory belongs to you and you alone. We learned tonight, Lord, that we need to realize that we are a people, that we are a person in whom dwells the Holy Spirit. And Lord, your Bible says that you will never leave us or forsake us. That's great. Wow. So Father, tonight for those who have battled, Lord, with sin in their life and have been defeated and beat up by it, they love you, but they're just so joyless because they've been robbed by the flesh and the enemy. Lord, I pray tonight that right where they're at, they would say, Lord, I want to be renewed.

This encouraged me. Lord, I need this. I need the spirit of Samuel in my life. Father, thank you for your word. And most importantly, how wonderful it is to know that Ichabod could never apply to the believer's life. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus name and all God's people said, Amen.

David Jay: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called Ichabod. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called First Samuel, a series highlighting the prophet Samuel who was called by God during one of Israel's darkest ages to bring the people back to a heart of true worship. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Guest (Male): So, as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you'd like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com/knowgod. That's k n o w God. And there you'll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you'll find in knowing God. Don't miss out. That's the know God tab at jackhibbs.com.

Jack Hibbs: Hey everybody. You know, everybody here on the team thought it'd be kind of fun if you actually kind of saw or heard what goes on behind the scenes. After all, it's called real life and this is what we do. Take a listen.

David Jay: So, I heard somebody say of this week and it was I thought it was interesting. Um she was saying that pain is just pain, right? Pain is not going to do anything.

Jack Hibbs: Yeah.

David Jay: It's just there.

Jack Hibbs: It's like a megaphone. It's announcing.

David Jay: Yeah. It's announcing. Pain cannot take you out. Pain cannot rob you uh unless we sit around and complain about pain. Think about it. It's actually not the pain that could be ruinous to our lives. It's our attitude toward it. So, if somebody is going through financial woes and that's all that's all they complain about, that's all they're focused on is how bad it is, then they're probably going to get stuck in that drain. Um and again, it goes back to the weather. If it's if it's hot or cold outside, dress for the weather and and realize, you know what?

This is a season. It's going to pass. And we need to practice that. We do that in everything else in life. When we are full, we do not eat. When we are hungry, we eat. When we're cold, we go and get warm. And when we're warm, we go and get cold. And so it's just us realizing God's got this. He really does. I think our big crime imposed upon ourselves is thinking for some real dumb reason that God doesn't know what I'm going through. I mean, that just puts us through undue pain and sorrow.

Jack Hibbs: Yeah.

David Jay: 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.