Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: May we learn all that God would have for us. May we walk with God, and may we continue to abide in Christ. And we'll make it all the way.

Guest (Male): This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs.

David J.: I'm David J. thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible.

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David J.: On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called First Samuel and a message titled "What Happens When We Fight Our Own Battles." Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of her prophets. So here in chapter 31, we'll consider how Saul fought his own battle and ends up defeated and destroyed. See, King Saul relied upon himself, so God had to let him go in his own strength and resources and he lost everything. Saul's repeated disobedience led to devastating results, including his life and the life of his son Jonathan.

So today in this final segment of First Samuel, Pastor Jack teaches us that God is our defense, and like David, we need to let God be God. It is His desire to lead us into victory. We just have to allow Him to lead the fight against our spiritual and moral challenges. Now with his message called "What Happens When We Fight Our Own Battles," here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: We can say thank God because 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, "Rejoice always." That's a command. "Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks." "Why, God? Why?" says the teenager. "For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." "Why do I have to be in at this hour?" We can dole it out. "You have to be in at midnight." "Why? Why?" "All things work together for good to those who love the Lord. Just be here at midnight." "Why? Why?" Because this is the will of God concerning you in Christ Jesus, that's why.

So then God says, "You know what, Jack? I want you to sit down." "But I want to stand up!" "Just sit down." "Why?" Because this is the will of God concerning you in Christ Jesus. "But Lord!" And there is an impossible declaration. "But Lord." Lord means we say yes to everything He says. That's what the Lord is. When the Lord says something, you ever watch a good English movie, the old kind, like Three Musketeer types? And the Lord, whoever he is, Lord Oliver something, comes walking into town. And he's the Lord. And what do people say to him? "Yes, my Lord. Yes, Lord."

It's always—you can't say, "No, Lord." He's either Lord or he's not. If he's Lord, we have to say yes. We have to agree. When we don't, he's not the Lord. I mean, he's always the Lord, but he's not being Lord of our lives because we're not letting him Lord. It's a tragic thing that Saul, as King of Israel, was to be the example, a man under God's control. He was not. He was to be a leader. He was not. Saul couldn't be led by God. He was to be an example to the nation.

Look at verses 5 through 6. Faith in God will not be translated or transferred or passed on when he leaves us to our own resources. "And when his armorbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell on his sword and he died." The place of the armorbearer was a very trusted position. This guy had the inside track on everything. This guy would have heard conversations. He would have been always alongside the king. He's supposed to stand there like he's not hearing everything. He sees and hears everything. He's sworn to secrecy. He's the armorbearer.

Wherever the king goes—the king didn't go anywhere without the armorbearer. He didn't even go to a meeting without the armorbearer because who knows if that meeting could have turned in a way of a terrorist attack or treason. It's amazing. You see, when God leaves us to our own resources, faith in God will not be translated. It won't be passed down. The armorbearer never got it. When Saul died, "That's it. I must be dead. I'm going to go, too." He had no faith in God like Saul had no faith in God.

When faith in God is not translated, disaster will breed disaster. In Exodus 20:5, the Bible says there, "You shall bow down to no idols nor serve them. For I the Lord am your God and I'm a jealous God and I will visit the sins of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation upon all those who hate me." That's key, by the way. If your father was godless and you're a Christian, his trouble will no longer—that chain breaks the moment you become a Christian.

But if that generation just keeps going and perpetuates another generation of disaster, it never breaks until Christ is interjected. Thank God. Aren't you glad? Man, I'm glad. You can come from the worst background ever, and you'll be following that background and God will visit the sin of the fathers upon the children until Christ comes into your life. And then all that's changed. When faith in God is not transferred, disaster will breed disaster. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 is a wonderful combatant against disaster and what breeds faith.

This is what we're commanded to do. "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and you shall talk of them when you sit down in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you get up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Wow.

Tell your kids and your grandkids the great things that God has done in your life, in the life of your church, in the life of your nation. Tell them. Tell them what great things God has done in history. What's important about that is the question that comes to me, question that comes to us: am I translating faith to my children? My kids. My kids are old enough now. They're not going to go to heaven on my faith. In a way, I can't point them anymore. They're old enough. They're 18 and 21. They're on their own. They've got to develop their own faith.

They were once walking under Lisa and my umbrella as faith went, but now they're older. They've got to develop their own faith. They've got to grow on their own now. We've done our job. It's over. We're done. We can be there for advice when they want it. Now we reserve our ministry to them in a way to pray. Now's time they make their own decisions now. Not that we just leave them alone, but what I'm saying is, what do you think you should do about that?

"Well, we decided we were going to go this way, but we decided to go that way." "Okay, and what happened? Count the cost. Think." It is scary, grown up kids and turning them loose, huh? The cool thing is, you know, when you grow them up in God, the cool thing is, "God, you know, look, you gave them to us, Lord. Only you can watch them. You know." Am I passing that on to my kids, faith? Am I translating faith to you and how I live my life, the things that we do as a church? Does it translate faith to you as a body?

Or are you attending a faithless church? What are we translating to this church as a body as a whole? What about you personally? When I relate to you or when you relate to another, what are we translating? What about nonbelievers? What do we translate to nonbelievers? There's a big thing. I know I'm being asked right now to comment on this Buddhist temple that's going to be built, I guess, down the street here. This big massive thing. You've been reading about it? And everybody, you know, "We need to protest! We need to write letters to the city of Chino Hills and tell them!" And I started thinking about that. And the first thought is, "Yeah, that's right! Yeah!"

And then the Lord goes, "This is America. They have their right to do that." "Yeah, that's true. Man, yes, you're right, Lord." So then, you know, after I calm down, the Lord begins to speak to my heart. And I don't know how this is going to go over, but to me, it's a total God thing. So if the Buddhist temple gets built down the street, do you realize what God's doing? He's bringing a bunch of Buddhists to town. "So I don't get it." We don't have to go to Asia. God's bringing Asia to us. We can save airline tickets and everything. We just get Bibles and tracts. The mission field's coming to us.

And I thought, "God, you are so good! That's wonderful!" And it's up to God and the powers that be if that building is built or not. But you know, thousands and thousands of Buddhists could come to the area. And I say let's lead them to Jesus. Let's give them hope in God. Let's give them the cross and Christ and Savior. Will we translate, will we transfer faith even to the world that you and I live in? Verse 6: "So Saul, his three sons, and his armorbearer and all of his men died together." All of them died because Saul was faithless.

It was never of God to have this happen. God did not want this to happen. This was Saul's kingdom. This is what happens when it's Saul's world and Saul's kingdom and Saul's ministry. When Saul dies, it dies. Why? Who was it built on? Saul. It's tragic. When David died, what happened? The kingship—in fact, Solomon took the throne and Israel enjoyed its greatest wealth and its greatest time of peace it ever had because the kingdom never belonged to David. It always belonged to God.

Not for Saul. When your ministry, when your life, when your family sinks because you're either removed or you die or whatever, it was all built upon you. And that's a wrong thing. It sinks. If any of you were watching the Travel Channel last night late, there was an amazing program on there about Japan's international airport. Did you see it? It's amazing! They built this airport in the middle of the ocean out there. And they brought in all this dirt, they made an island to build an airport on. They built this huge place. It's, in fact, it is the single most longest building in the world, the terminal.

Huge. There's only one problem. It sinks at least one foot a year. And since 1996, it has sunk in some parts seven feet, some parts 14 feet. They've had to add stairs to gates to go through things. They've had to re-engineer and re-engineer. And they interviewed the guy, if you saw him last night, and they said, "What do you think?" And he said, "We thought the ground on the seabed was more firm. We found out it was silty and sandy." Jesus said, "Don't build your house or airport on the sand."

And to make it worse, they put it in the ocean and then the typhoon came and wiped out half the place. And they had to rebuild it again. And now they're talking about building another runway next to the one that's sinking! But the program said, "They're calling in the greatest architect in the world, Jean-Jacques-Something from France, and he's going to fix it all." Crazy. Don't build it on the sand. You know what? I'll save them billions. Don't build it on the sand. Jesus said it's going to come down.

That's what happens when your life is so closed and shut up and you don't share it out and you don't put your life out to other people. When your life is over, it's over. Nothing continues. It's tragic. Second point, final point, all done. Verses 7 to 13: the world will be victorious every time. What happens when we fight our own battles, Christian? The world will win every time. The world will win. Why? Look at verses 7 through 9. When we are overcome with doubt.

If we're going to take this world by our own resources, we're going to be overcome with doubt because it can't be had. Verse 7: "And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those who were on the other side of the Jordan, that is the river, saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities and fled and the Philistines came and dwelt in their cities." In other words, they hightailed it out of there and they ran. Whenever we are overcome with doubt, the world will be victorious every time.

And listen, you and I will be overcome with doubt every time we take our defense into our own hands. Verses 8 through 10: the world will be victorious every time when we have lost our witness. When we've lost our witness. This is a fragile thing. "And so it happened the next day when the Philistines came to strip the slain," that is, take the goods, "that they found King Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. And they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent word throughout the land of the Philistines."

Listen, bad, bad witness. "To proclaim it in the temple of their idols and among their people. Then they put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths," that's their sexual perverted deities, "and they fastened his body to the wall at Beth Shan." If you turn your eyes to the screen, Beth Shan is one of our most favorite spots when we take a tour of Israel. It's absolutely spectacular. These photos do no justice to it. We'll sit in that theater. It's absolutely spectacular. That's massive, by the way. It can hold, I think, up to 4,000 people.

And this is where—this is the literal actual place where Saul's head was hung on the gates. There is a street, promenade, the colonnade, where still to this day during the ancient times, the mosaic streets are so incredibly beautiful. The shops are still, each where those pillars are at, those were inlets to shops where they had pottery shops. And you know this because they have unearthed the mosaics. And out in front of the store, they have the mosaic of whatever craft. We call it today hanging your shingle out if you're in business, that's your sign. They had them like that.

This is where Saul's head and body were put with many of his men, Jonathan and the others. And this spot is actually my most favorite place to visit when we're in Israel because the excavation is so incredibly overwhelming and massive. That is just one portion of it. This is where they put Saul's head on the gate, on the fence. And there his life comes to a conclusion. And that's a tragic thing because he had lost whatever witness. The nation had lost its witness. Israel, apparently, had looked like it was over.

Whenever we try to take things into our own hands, then the tragic outcome is that we will lose our witness. Let God defend you, Christian. If you forget everything tonight, remember this: let God be your defense. It's hard. Listen, it's hard because the temptation is to speak up. When ten people come to you and say false things about you, the temptation is so strong to start defending yourself. When they come attacking you, when people say things, you just say, "Lord, I commit this into your hands. Deal with it. Deal with them. Deal with this. There's no way that I could fix this. You must do this."

And church, listen, Christian, God knows the truth. Are you willing to let him be God and let him work it out? Yes, you know what? Sometimes I can tell you from experience it takes years. But you wait. Because the moment you get into that battle of defending yourself, you know what God does? You send him a message: "Lord, I don't need you. I'll take it from here." And he just backs up. Doubt will creep in, fear will conquer you, your witness will be lost because you know what? No matter what you say, by the end of the day, it will be all turned around. Guaranteed.

Let God defend you. Let him be your strength. Let him be your defense. Verses 11 to 13: the world will be victorious every time when we travel alone, that is, we go without God. "Now when the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul," these are good guys, by the way, "all the valiant men arose and traveled all night and they took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and they came to Jabesh and burned them with fire, cremated them. Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh and they fasted seven days."

This terrible tragic road to perdition ends. His life is over. And Israel is on the ropes. The Bible says in Proverbs 14:12, "There's a way that seems right to a man." By the way, it's right to a woman too, Mr. and Mrs. Mankind. There's a way that seems right to the human being, to the adult, to that teenager. There's a way that seems right, but the Bible says in Proverbs 14:12 that way ends in death.

We'll end with this: Saul's life. He pushed and pushed and pushed the limits of living without God, traveling without God. And his life ends in a horrific suicide, a tragic life. I believe, this is my opinion, I believe that Saul is a man who had, in the Old Testament economy, God's hand would be upon him, but he refused it every time. He took God's hand off. Remember this book: he took God's hand off. He did his own thing. After a while, God says, "Okay, okay. My Spirit will not always strive with man. Okay, you don't want me, you don't want me."

Saul continued. The locomotive continued on, apparently good. But when it came to the end, all with him perished. They all died. You say, "Well, Jack, what were they supposed to do?" You know what? Somebody in those ranks should have, if they would have been exposed to faith, could have stood up and said, "Wait a minute, let's trust in God. I remember a day when this country or this nation, a little boy killed a giant many years ago. If it happened once, it can happen again. We know that Joshua had consulted God and the sun stood still. It happened once, it could happen again."

Maybe your life is like that. It's ruined, we can't recover from this. Wait a minute. People have come back from worse things. If it happened once, it can happen again. Grab faith in Him. Trust in Him. But if you continue like that, it's like getting on this freeway. You go out here, go down the toll road, get on the 5 freeway and you head south. And you keep going south and you'll go through all of those areas of Orange County, San Diego County, and you'll cross the Mexican border. Keep going. You go down into Baja California. You keep going.

You go south, south, you'll travel the longest peninsula in the world. Greater than the Sinai Peninsula is the peninsula of Baja California. You'll have the Pacific Ocean on one side, the Sea of Cortez on the other and you'll be going down and you're going straight and you're going down, down, down south until you go through Cabo San Jose, until you get to Cabo San Lucas and you'll get to the end of that highway and what does it say at the end? At the end of the road, it said "Land's End." I mean, there's a sign there. It says Land's End.

And if you keep going, you'll not only get wet, you will fall into a trench and drown because you will have driven right off the North American continent. All because you failed to stop. Saul would never stop to consult God. He made every decision without consulting God. He did everything on his own and his life ends a tragedy. Personally, I do not believe Saul ever saw heaven at all. I think his life is a tragic story of rebellion against God, which the Scripture says is as the sin of witchcraft. What a tragedy.

May we learn all that God would have for us. May we walk with God and may we continue to abide in Christ. And we'll make it all the way. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this book. What a tremendous lesson in faith this book is. Lord, Lord we thank you that your timing's perfect. And God we don't understand everything, in fact, there's not much we do understand. But we know that you sit on the throne and that all good things come from you.

And so Lord, we commit these Wednesday nights, this flock into your hands. And we're happy to be called your kids. In Jesus' name, and all God's people said, "Amen."

David J.: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called "What Happens When We Fight Our Own Battles." Thanks for being here today with us. 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: 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.

Guest (Male): US strikes. Israel on alert. Iran escalating. Does anyone else feel like today's headlines sound straight out of Bible prophecy? Jesus told us these days would come, not so we'd panic, but so we'd be prepared. That's why we created the Prophecy Pack. Understanding God's plan for the future, a practical guide to help you live ready. Don't just watch the news, understand it through God's Word. Get your Prophecy Pack now for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com.

David J.: Hey, thanks 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 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.