Real Life Radio

Guest (Male): That is so good. And he’s given you things not because you've deserved it, not because I deserve it, not because we've earned it, but because he's good.

Guest (Male): This is Real Life.

Guest (Male): 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.

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Guest (Male): On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues now with his series called First Samuel and a message titled When Faith Fails. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of the prophets. So here in chapter 21, we'll consider how David is now living like a man without God as troubles begin to appear.

You see, when our faith fails us, our old life makes a comeback and we struggle with the truth. David is on the run, fleeing from King Saul. Now he's in a spiritually very weak place: fearful, desperate, and unsure of God's protection. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that even when David's faith is weak, God still provides. David gets the consecrated bread and the sword of Goliath, which tells us that God doesn't leave us empty-handed when we're struggling. Now with his message called When Faith Fails, here is pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: No man lives unto himself, the Bible says. No man dies unto himself. Well, I’m just doing this little thing. If you're in the body of Christ, we're in this thing together. Well, what can this thing do for me? I'm not going to call any names. You'll figure it out yourself. But I remember hearing a certain president say that what he did in private was none of our business.

I have two issues with that, big ones. The day that that news came out, certain stock that I have on the New York Stock Exchange went way down. That affected me personally. When the news of his escapades went public, that affected me. Then I began to think of how high treason was committed in the Oval Office, which is our office in our house that I pay for, you pay for.

A portion of your check every week goes to painting and carpet and lighting for that house. And you don't bring someone in off the street that could have killed him. She could have killed him. It could have affected the world. Well, no, what he does in his own private time is his own business. Not when you are a public servant and not when you're a Christian.

You say, well, Pastor, you don't mean me because nobody even knows I go here. I mean you because if you're advancing with Christ and you're growing strong with Jesus, there is a supernatural emanation of blessings that will flow out from your life. When you're walking and serving God, you're going to be affecting the people around you.

If you've got the joy of the Lord, which is your strength, it's going to affect the people that are sitting over here. It's going to happen. If you over here are depressed, you’re bummed out, life is crushing in on you, and you're sequestered in your spirit, you're really going through a hard time, people around you they’re going to notice.

God will—I mean, what am I telling you for? We’re the body. When Jim, when you're down, I know it when he's down. When I'm down, Jim says, "Hey, what's up? Can I pray for you?" This is the work of God among his people. It’s the way the Spirit of God moves. So many church growth seminars talk about, "We need to be a community. We need to make community."

Well, you don't make community. The Holy Spirit makes community. It's the love of God when you begin to care for one another. I don't want to get off the path, but maybe it's not off the path. I don't know. A couple of neat brothers came into my office yesterday to just ask if this church would pray for them as they go to India in March. They want prayer coverage. They want prayer support. And their vision got me so excited that I want to go to India.

And then I've been praying for this thing already. What is that? How does that happen? What is that all about? It's God moving. You and I as believers can't live as an island. It's impossible. I don't care what Paul Simon says. It doesn't work that way. We struggle with the truth when we are struggling with faith.

Not only that, verses 4 and 5, we’ll downgrade the things of God when we begin to slip away. And the priest answered David and said, "There is no common bread on hand. This is the showbread. This is the priestly bread, the bread that was commanded by God through Moses. But there is holy bread. I mean, we don't have any Twinkies. We've got no pita bread. We've got nothing except the holy bread dedicated to God."

Now this is a very cool thing that happens, even though the context is somewhat interesting. Jesus sets us straight on it. The priest says, "If the young men have at least kept themselves from women." Then David answered the priest and said, "Truly women have been kept from us for a space of about three days." That means they haven't been with girls in a space of three days. "And the vessels of the young men are holy. And the bread is in effect common, even though it was sanctified in the vessels this day."

Bottom line is this. David is not a priest, neither are the men with him. If you know the Old Testament, the bread was to be dedicated to God. And then after the bread had hit its shelf life before the throne or the altar, I should say, of God, then who ate the bread? The priest, not David, not his men.

But this priest is smart enough to know something that many people do not today know that Jesus even taught us in the Gospels. The priest looks at David, looks at the men, and gives these men bread, the holy bread. First of all, it's dedicated to God and it is given in the law that it be so.

Jesus tells us in the Gospels to the Pharisees, who were acting like they had the corner market on righteousness. Jesus turns, remember, when they're walking across the field, a couple of his disciples they grab a handful of wheat. Have you ever done this? It's so cool. If you haven't, maybe do it this summer or this fall when it comes about if you're vacationing. Grab a handful of wheat.

Jesus's disciples grabbed a handful of wheat. They began to rub the wheat together. You blow the chaff away and there's these beautiful golden kernels. Throw them in your mouth and begin to chew them. It's fantastic. You know what it turns into? A gum, a wheat gum. And you can chew it all day long. It's very neat. Tastes great. Good for you.

So they're doing that and the Pharisees are going, "Ho, ho, Jesus look, your disciples," here's what they accused them of, "Your disciples are breaking the Sabbath because they're harvesting on a Sabbath." They were eating. They were grabbing wheat and eating it because they were hungry. And Jesus says, "Leave them alone. Haven't you read in the Bible?" I love what he says to them. "Haven't you read in the Bible that when David's men were hungry, they took of the showbread and ate of it?"

Do you know what Jesus was saying? Do you know what this priest here is saying the same thing? Jesus and the priest are saying the same thing to David. The sustenance and the sustaining of human life is far greater than the law. Life supersedes the law. Doesn't Jesus, doesn't the Scriptures say that the Sabbath was created for man, but man was not created for the Sabbath?

The law was to promote and to teach God's righteousness before man, but not at the expense of the loss of life because God's giving of life supersedes the giving of the law. And even in David's failure, God is being good. Isn't God good to us in our failure? When our faith fails, does he ever just wipe us off the face of the earth? No.

Oh, this hurts. Has he ever blessed you when you're walking in a place you ought not to be walking or your faith has failed and you're living in that place? Has he ever blessed you and you just go, "God, I don't deserve it"? Isn't his goodness that leads you to repentance? Has he ever embarrassed you with his goodness? I don't deserve this.

Last night I was in a board meeting with a church up in Northern California and the guys had asked, "Hey, how's it going down there?" And it was so instant to be able to respond to them. Better than we all deserve, that's for sure. That was my answer. It's true. You say, wait a minute, Pastor, speak for yourself. I'm doing pretty good. I think I deserve a little bit more. Oh, be careful.

God is so good and he's given you things not because you've deserved it, not because I deserve it, not because we've earned it, but because he's good. But be careful. David answers and says at the end of verse 5, "And the bread is in effect common, even though it was sanctified in the vessels this day." David, be careful. It's holy bread. Not only will we downgrade the things of God when our faith begins to fail, that is, we begin to justify things, we begin to slip away from the Lord and trouble ensues.

Guest (Male): 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 is Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: We begin to slip away from the Lord and trouble ensues. And we begin to put the things of God on a lower shelf, so to speak. And when that happens also, we'll begin to manipulate other people. Look at verse 6. "So the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no bread but the bread of the showbread, which had been taken from before the Lord in order to put hot bread in its place on that day when it was taken away."

David takes the bread. What normally David would have steered very far away from, compromise is being made. The second thing we see is in verses 7 through 9, that when our faith fails, troubles will appear. Look at verse 7. This is an amazing verse. Maybe when I read it and we looked at it, you asked the question, "What in the world is that verse doing there?"

Verse 7 is called a parenthetical insert. It appears out of place unless you read the entire book of First Samuel. The Holy Spirit placed it here for a reason and that is this: that we might learn that evil will plot against us. Listen, troubles will begin to appear when our faith begins to fail. When we begin to take our eyes off of God, we begin to wander away, we actually go down a path where trouble begins to appear.

It's like being on the freeway and you take an off-ramp onto some roadway that you don't know where you're at. Strange things begin to appear in the headlights. When we go away from the will of God or we take our eyes off of the Lord and our faith begins to fail, strange things appear. And one of them is how we find out evil is plotting against us.

In this case, verse 7 teaches us that a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day detained before the Lord. That simply means that he was going through some rite of purification. We don't know what his problem was, but he was there at the tabernacle and he was preparing his life before God, probably in a religious manner. We have no idea where his heart is.

But it says that his name was Doeg. His name is not a happy meaning. He's an evil guy. He's an Edomite. That makes it doubly worse. The chief of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul. Saul was his master. And you read this, it's like, what is it doing here? You're going to find out later that this guy's going to fink on David in following chapters.

And this is the guy who finks to Saul. "I saw David. I saw David." And so Saul goes after—David comes to Nob. By the way, some of you have been to Nob. You say, "What's Nob?" When you've been to Israel, if you've been with us on the Mount of Olives and you look to the right, there's that high mountain or higher mountain to the right about two hilltops over, called Mount Scopus. It overlooks Jerusalem. It's very close, like a couple miles at the most.

So he's there. The priest is there. And what's going to happen because Doeg's going to fink, Saul's going to come and kill the priest and all of the attendants to the priest. And so the Bible right here inserts the fact that evil now begins its plot. And because of David's life that we see being lived here, evil begins to ensue.

Now you remember that we left off where David was talking with Jonathan and there's been this agreement. And Jonathan says, "If my father doesn't want you in my life or in our lives or here, I'll shoot the arrows past you and then you flee." So Jonathan shoots the arrows and David begins to flee. And it's a fugitive course that takes David some ten years away. Ten years.

But you've got to ask the question, was David maybe supposed to stand? Was he maybe supposed to hold out and hang on to God? The things that follow are quite disturbing. So evil begins its plot. We learn that from verse 7. Verse 8, ambition begins to take over. Ambition will begin to make its advancement. And David said to Ahimelech, "Is there not here on hand a spear or a sword? For I have brought neither sword nor weapons with me because the king's business required haste."

That's not true again. But watch this. What's David asking for a sword for? The last time we left off seeing David in a battle that put him on the map, so to speak, what kind of tool was he using for warfare? A sling. Now he's asking for a sword. Okay, let's not read too much into it. So he asks for a sword. Let's not make too big of a deal about it.

The interesting thing is, he asked for a sword. It is Goliath's sword. And to me that speaks about some certain things here that we might want to take note. Number one, David, you are a man of war because God has gifted you at war. God has given you a mind and God has given you anointing. Don't be afraid. See, when our faith begins to fail, everything begins to bother us. We get very afraid.

David says to the priest, "I need a sword. Do you have a sword?" And the answer is, "It's Goliath's sword." Now verse 9 teaches us about the carnality of this. So the priest said, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, there it is, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you take it, take it, for there is no other except that one here."

And David said, "Listen, there is none like it. Give it to me." This is it. This is the sword. And I want to ask David, "This sword's huge. What are you doing with this thing?" Remember how big it was? It was gigantic. "Oh, it's Goliath's sword. Oh, there's none like it." The priest simply says, "We don't have any other sword but this sword."

David says, "Oh, but there's no sword like that sword. There's no sword like that sword." That sword didn't do anything. It didn't defeat Israel. Didn't defeat David. It's the implements of the world. When David's faith is failing, "I need Goliath's sword." When we begin to get our eyes off of God, we naturally, not supernaturally, we naturally begin to go after earthly things to help us out. We go after things to prop us up when our faith is not solely upon God.

The danger of this is we can continue to live our lives as believers, but not exercise strong faith in God. Meaning we can be a believer, we can be walking with God so to speak, but we've got things that are propping us up. And if those things from the world are taken out from underneath us, we'll fall down.

Well, let me tell you, whatever it is in our lives, if it's the ambition of life or if it's the pursuit of this or power or drugs or I don't know, the acceptance of men or women or a crowd or whatever, that's a prop. And God's grace is such that he loves you so much he will send someone to pull that carpet out from underneath your feet so that your faith will be brought down to the brink so that you can start again.

David's faith is going to be brought down, but God's going to build him up again. But listen, you don't lay a skyscraper down on top of a clay foundation. I was blown away as you have been perhaps when you go to New York City and you’ve got to wonder. There’s so much cement going so high in the air, you’ve got to wonder if it doesn't throw the earth off. Like, does it, gosh, all this cement, you think it would cause the earth to wobble or something it's so big.

Then you start thinking, "How do they build those things so high?" In September, I was at the Empire State Building. It was so tall it was in the clouds. You couldn't see the top of it when you went up to it. I mean, you couldn't see the top of it when you stood at the base of it. It was in the clouds. Reached to the sky. You’ve got to wonder, how do they build stuff there?

You drive around Chino Hills, have you noticed Chino Hills? I don't know, right on Peyton Drive where I live, the ground is sinking. Drives me nuts. They fill it in and then about six months later, your car gets its wheels almost tore off again because it's sinking. And there's going to be an accident sometime because it keeps sinking.

And there's no sign, "Warning: Dip," "Warning: City Sinking," something. No. But you know, you build something in Chino Hills and it's like, "Oh my goodness," they’ve got to do all the soils test and it’s because the ground’s so unstable. I understand people that you have swimming pools in Chino Hills, your pool is moving because the ground is so weird.

How do you build something on that? Well, it's very difficult. And you go to New York, they build these mountains of metal and concrete. You want to know why? Manhattan is granite. You can build a skyscraper because it's on a firm foundation. It's not going anywhere. You've got to build your strength as a believer on Christ, who is our foundation.

Guest (Male): Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called When Faith Fails. You know, this message by the way, 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.

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Jack Hibbs: Hey everybody, I want to stop right now and just pray a very important prayer for the most important topic, and that is God's creation of the family. God loves the family. In fact, he's invited himself into his family, hasn't he? The Bible says he's adopted us into his family. And so I pray for your family. Listen, make your marriage work.

Do everything you can to make sure that your parenting skills are educated and you get help from the Word of God and there's a lot of great resources out there. But don't give up on your family. Don't give up on your parents. Don't give up on your kids. Listen, don't give up on your wife and don't give up on your husband. Make it work. It's God's will that as much as possible, make it work. So, Lord, we pray right now that you would heal our homes by healing our relationships with one another in Jesus' name, amen.

Guest (Male): 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.