Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: When my faith is failing, fear comes in. Then I begin to act timid. I don't have any more of the oomph to get out there and do things for God. I get real protective of my interests.

David J.: 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.

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David J.: 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. Today, Pastor Jack teaches us that it really is tragic when David's faith fails, but a crisis can lead to growth and redirect us into a deeper dependence upon God. Now with his message called "When Faith Fails," here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: 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.

Whatever it is in our lives, if it's the ambition of life or if it's the pursuit of power or drugs or 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 under 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 have to wonder there is so much cement going so high in the air. You have to wonder if it doesn't throw the earth off. 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. You couldn't see the top of it when you stood at the base of it. It was in the clouds and reached to the sky. You have to wonder, how do they build stuff there?

You drive around Chino Hills, have you noticed Chino Hills? Right on Peyton Drive where I live, the ground is sinking. It 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. There's going to be an accident sometime because it keeps sinking. And there's no sign warning of the city sinking.

But when you build something in Chino Hills, they have to do all the soil tests because the ground is so unstable. I understand those of you that have swimming pools in Chino Hills, your pool is moving because the ground is so weird. How do you build something on that? It's very difficult. But in 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 have to build your strength as a believer on Christ, who is our foundation, the Word of God, knowing the Word. You say, "Well, I already know all that." Great. Then watch your building grow and your spiritual success advance. But how's the foundation? We will never know how our foundation is until it's hit or struck. Those great Twin Towers came down, but frankly, the foundation didn't go anywhere, did it?

David, you don't need Goliath's sword, you've got God. You're a sling-kind-of-guy. When you were even younger, David, remember you killed a lion and a bear. And then you killed that big uncircumcised nincompoop Goliath. And then the cool part is you took the sword that you're trusting in and you drug it across his neck and cut his head off. That's pretty cool. But that sword's never done nothing. When our faith fails, we'll make some disastrous moves.

When our faith fails, our witness will suffer. Look at verse 10 and 11. Our witness suffers because we go back into defeat. This is weird. Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul. That means he didn't leave Saul's presence; it meant he left Saul's kingdom and went to Achish, the king of Gath. Anybody remember where Goliath was from? Goliath was from Gath.

David, what are you doing? And the servants of Achish said to him, "Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying Saul has slain thousands, but David ten thousands?" What's he going back there for? This enemy had already been defeated.

Remember in First Samuel 17, Goliath came out and he said, "All right, here's the deal. Israel, you send me one of your captains, I'll fight him. Whoever wins becomes the champion of them all. And whoever loses becomes the servant to you." Remember that? So David came out there and whipped him. That meant that Gath and the Philistines were to be Israel's servants. It was over for them.

When our faith fails, we will almost in an unconscious manner gravitate back to places of defeat. In other words, when you have backslidden and you go back and visit the world, people say, "What are you doing?" Where do you go? You go to old hangouts. You don't belong there anymore. You're a new creation in Christ. It's that old man again. What are you doing? David, what are you doing going to Gath? They're defeated. The enemy has been vanquished.

It's the strangest thing to me. When our faith suffers and our witness suffers, we often gravitate to things that have been completely defeated and hold no power to help. What was David thinking? Why go back to the places that the Lord has delivered us from? Is something going on in your life where God might be using this right now to speak to you? Someone is enticing you to go back to something where God's delivered you out of it.

Maybe alcoholism is your thing. You can't handle drink and God's delivered you from that, and somebody keeps saying, "Come on, oh come on." Maybe it's a boss saying, "Hey buddy, come on, come hang out with the guys at happy hour and who knows, you might get that raise." That's satanic. That guy's probably got horns underneath his hair.

If you just do this, there could be quite a thing in your stocking for Christmas. That's demonic. That's just like Satan standing there at the tree. "Oh come on, Eve, you know the score. God doesn't want you to eat of the fruit of the tree because He knows the day that you eat of it, you'll know good from evil. You'll be just like Him. That's why He doesn't want you to have it. Go ahead."

And the Bible says when Eve looked at the fruit and saw all the tantalizing things about it—make me wise, make me powerful—she went after it. It worked in the garden. Adam and Eve were created in perfection. You think, "I'm not going to fall for that." They were perfect and they fell for it. We need to be careful.

David J.: You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. To learn more about this ministry or to catch up on some previous episodes, go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And now let's get back to today's message. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: It seems like ever since they raised the first wall in the building over there in the property, Satan got out of a cage. And he keeps driving by this place and the new place and your place and my place. It's almost like when they raised that wall up, it triggered a satanic alarm. This thing goes off in hell. What is going on? Can't we keep that little church in that stupid little hidden place where nobody can find it? It's all spiritual and heavy and strange.

But God is so good because I remember them raising the wall. I'm standing there going, "God," and I'm crying. I was out there by myself and the wall's going up and I'm crying. "God, you are so awesome." And the enemy makes plans. But I'd rather have the enemy make plans. Wouldn't you rather be a church that's advancing in the kingdom so that the enemy has to make plans? I wonder how many churches Satan drives by and says, "Well, we got that one tied up. We got that one silenced. Look at them, they're scared of a shadow."

I've said this before and I'm going to say it again because I just want it to be a true fulfillment. When Satan and his little demons drive around on a Friday night and they drive by this place or any place where we gather, I don't care if it's on the side of a hill, to worship and to serve the Lord, I want them to get upset. I want them to say, "Oh no, keep driving, go, go. Get out of here, this place gives me the jeebies. They're singing, hallelujah, praising the Lord, missionary stuff, people getting touched by God." Wouldn't that be great? I hope that's how it is.

We need to stay out of the places of defeat. Don't go back to the things that the Lord has delivered us from. It's not worth it. It's a dead end. Jesus warned that you can take a pig and you can wash him all up, but it's still a pig and he'll go right back to the mud because he's a pig. Actually, Peter said that. Peter also said a dog is a funny thing.

He'll puke his guts up on the carpet, shake his head, run around the yard a few times, and come right back and lick it right up. Peter says that's how people are who are religious but they don't know God. You can get them all dressed up but they're like a pig; they run right back into the mud because they're a pig. And because they're dogs, they go to vomit.

But listen, you're not a pig and you're not a dog. You're a lamb. You're a sheep. You ever worry, "Oh, I hope I'm not a goat"? I've never seen a lamb wonder if he is a goat. They don't turn to another sheep and ask, "Do I look like a goat to you?" I've been told that a sheep will act like a goat at times if they hang around goats, but it won't stay like that.

I think when God sets His seal upon your heart and your life and He redeems you, you may have a lapse and a breakdown in faith. But the shepherd's going to get you through. You cry out to Him in your distress and He'll get you through. If you were a goat, you wouldn't care. You'd be eating tin cans and trash and enjoying it. You'd be going back to the places where you once trafficked and loving it because you're a goat.

But a sheep or a lamb, no. Sheep and lambs get all wiggy and freaky when they're away from the shepherd; they get all nervous and they don't know how to act. And that's just like us. Praise the Lord for that.

When our faith fails, fear overcomes our faith. It says that David took these words to heart and became very much afraid of King Achish of Gath. That's very sad. Here's a great warrior now just cowering in fear. Jot this down: when our faith begins to wane, fear begins to creep in. When my faith is failing, fear comes in. Then I begin to act timid. I don't have any more of the oomph to get out there and do things for God. I get real protective of my interests. Timidity is a sin.

In spiritual things, fear leads to timidity and timidity leads to cowardice. That is like a soul is imprisoned, and the end result is unbelief. We have to be careful as a church. We have to be careful as God's people.

Tragically, when our faith fails, our witness suffers and we become people that we're not. It says, in verse 13, "So David changed his behavior before them and he pretended madness in their hands." He scratched on the doors of the gate and he let saliva fall down his beard. He acted like an idiot. He got scared. He's playing around with the camp of the enemy. His faith is now out the window. He starts acting weird in front of them. This is David. He fakes madness. He's being weird and they're going, "What?" This is David. How sad is this? Oil ran down the beard of Aaron in anointing, and David's spitting saliva out on his beard, foaming at the mouth, faking like he's nuts.

When we're in this situation, we make horrible decisions. And David's making a horrible one now. It's kind of funny because the king goes on to say, "Take this idiot out of my presence." The word in Hebrew is hilarious. He says, "Don't I have enough idiots in my presence already?" There are already too many idiots here; take this one out.

I guess the only redeeming thing about this is Saul was insane and David had to fake it. But his faith is failing nonetheless. And so we see in this chapter just a tragic act when faith fails. Tonight you might be thinking, "Jack, my faith's been failing." Well, my friend, there are still many chapters ahead of us to study, and God will so build up David's faith. We need to exercise some faith tonight.

I'm going to ask you to stand if you would. Lord, while we're standing, we ask you Father to bless and to meet all the needs of those that are to the right of us. Bless them God so much that their cup overflows and they know it. Lord, to those to the left of us, cause them to receive from you your good hand that their family and friends and enemies and workers and neighbors would have to say, "I want to know this God that has blessed you so."

Heavenly Father, fill this church and these your people with your Holy Spirit. Baptize us Lord into your power. We see David tonight operating in his own power, running around like an idiot. Jesus, you said to wait for the power from on high. Lord, by your spirit we once spoke idiotically, but now through you we get to speak words of life. Lord, do in our midst things that cannot be explained, that the world might know the Lord, He is their God. In Jesus' name, Amen.

David J.: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called "When Faith Fails." 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.

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/nogod. 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.

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This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at 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.