Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: David wasn't running exactly toward Goliath. He was running toward the God of victory. He knew that there was going to be a war. He knew that there was going to be a victory and that in that victory, in that war, it would take place with Goliath as a factor. David runs toward Goliath because he knew where the action was going to be.

David J.: 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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On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues now in his series called First Samuel and a message titled "Winning the Battles of Life, Part 5". Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of its prophets. So, here as we continue in chapter 17, we'll consider how God wants to empower our lives, not with physical strength or power that comes from the world, but through the power of the Holy Spirit.

You see, the true story of David and Goliath is not just about underdogs or personal heroism. It's about living in the confidence that comes from belonging to Christ, no matter how much the enemy tries to fill us with fear and redefine our identity.

Today, Pastor Jack teaches that Goliath's challenge with the army of Israel was not just physical; it was spiritual. David, with tremendous faith, was so sure of God's power in this battle that he not only runs toward Goliath, he runs toward his God, confident of Israel's victory. Now, with his message called "Winning the Battles of Life, Part 5," here's Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Can you imagine? Of course, it was not to happen, but what if Goliath, before getting the opportunity to have his neck or his head cut off, what if he fell on his knees and gave glory and honor to the God of Israel? What do you know, Christian listener? What do you know about the nature of God?

God will forgive any man, any woman who will cry out to Him. God would not say, "Well, you know what, Goliath? I've got this battle set up, and it's really going well according to My plan, and I really need you to lose your head over this one." If Goliath would have confessed and repented, God would have forgiven. That's a hard thought for us.

Can you imagine? Look, is Osama alive or dead? Everybody wants to know. It's an NBC poll. You can go online right now and vote. Why are they asking us? That's... is Osama alive or dead? You know what, this is my theory. I think God gave it to me. In my opinion, for the United States, Osama bin Laden will always be alive. Even if he's dead, he's got to be alive.

Do you understand why? He can't die. Osama can't die, because if Osama dies, then we cannot encroach and make incursions into any other country. We can blame a lot on Osama. We need him alive. If he's dead, we're never going to know it. But God doesn't do business that way.

Is Osama dead or alive? Listen, only God knows for sure. But I tell you something, what about my life? What about your life? The things that God wants dead in our lives. "God, is this dead in my life? Lord, is this thing, whatever it might be, is the Goliath of my life dead?" Well, the power of this world, we are not equipped for on our own. We need the power of God. We talked about that very much so.

Look at First Samuel 17, picking up right around verse 47. "Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword or spear; for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hands." That's little David speaking. Man, what a verse to memorize, people, for all of us now in the problems of our lives.

"Then my family will know that the Lord does not save with sword or spear; for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give it into our hands." My family will know, my church will know, my friends will know, those who serve alongside me will know. David makes a claim, and this is a claim that David was assured of.

The world is going to know by what's going to happen here. Tremendous faith. Now, was David proclaiming something that he hoped would come to pass, or was he proclaiming something that he knew, certainly acting in faith, but he knew that God was going to do? He had an assurance of faith that God was going to be the victor.

In a strange and interesting way, Goliath had cursed the God of David. And not only that, but Goliath was calling down curses upon David by his gods, mustering up all these gods that we talked about last Sunday. These gods of pornographic, sick worship, freakish things of their idols that have been unearthed throughout archaeological time.

"Oh, my god of this will destroy your god, David. My god of this will destroy your god, David. My god of that will destroy your god, David." And it's like the Mount Carmel thing, you know, Elijah standing there. And if you read the fine print, there's 850 prophets there total. 450 of Baal and the Asherahs. They're there, the pornographic gods of the universe at the time.

Asherah worship: twisted, freakish, sick. There's young ears and young faces I see tonight; I can't describe what they would do. It's not good. Sick worship. And there's just Elijah. Just Elijah? No, just Elijah and the God of the universe. And he's standing there on that mountaintop, and many of you have been there. And God supernaturally manifested His power.

Do you know the nature of your God? This is a key thing in our Christian experience. Because when all else fails and your foundation is shaking, you can always lean on the fact that you know the nature of your great God, that He loves you with an everlasting love, that His thoughts toward you are for hope, and that He's on your side.

Look at verse 48. It says, "So it was when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David..." Look in your Bible. What does it say? David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. He's hurrying. He's running up there. David, what do you need, glasses? No, the great thing is you see this monster, Goliath, coming. David runs toward him.

What a tremendous story. Yeah, Goliath's huge; David's small. But behind, apparently by faith, David can see that behind Goliath stands the God of Israel. Who's bigger? I mean, it looked like one of those little things: here's this little guy here, and then this bigger one, He's bigger than the little guy. The one in the middle is bigger than the little guy. But then the guy in the middle turns and there's the next one next to him, and He's huge. It's the God of Israel.

What we need to see is that David was not running exactly toward Goliath; David was running toward his God. Because David knew by faith that the war would be taken care of in hand-to-hand combat. Christian, aren't we called to hand-to-hand spiritual combat in this spiritual world we live in? Fighting against principalities and powers, demonic spirits, and those things?

"Jack, don't talk about that. Don't talk about that." Wake up, it's true. David wasn't running exactly toward Goliath; he was running toward the God of victory. He knew that there was going to be a war. He knew that there was going to be a victory and that in that victory, in that war, it would take place with Goliath as a factor. David runs toward Goliath because he knew where the action was going to be.

David's not running forward saying, "I'm such a good aim, I'm going to nail you and take you down, you big uncircumcised piece of pork." That's not what he's saying. He's not saying, "You know what? I'm really agile. Watch. I can bring you down. You can swing your sword; I can run up your sword and poke you in the eyes and run back down before you ever know it."

He's not like Muhammad Ali where he's just moving with his feet. What I was doing standing here right now, because you couldn't see my feet, is I was moving my feet all around behind the pulpit. Remember the Muhammad Ali shuffle? He's just moving. And the boxer would come into the ring, and Muhammad Ali would be there. They'd be going like this, and Muhammad Ali would start dancing. And the guy would go, "What is this? I've never seen this before." And boom, he's down.

David was not thinking, "I'm just going to do a little dance, do a little moonwalk thing, and then Goliath looks down and..." No earthly planning. None of that stuff. Well, let's go out there. We sing the song "The Battle Belongs to the Lord," and then why do we go about to fight our spiritual battles with worldly implements?

The battle belongs to the Lord. Let's pray. All right, now pull out your checkbooks. It almost seems like the prayer part was a covering just to get to the checkbook. Make that pen look like a sword, and you write out that victory. Just write it out.

Wait a minute. No fleshly manipulation, no things being played with. David takes off because he knows there's going to be a war, and it's going to be between the God of Israel and the uncircumcised Philistine. And that's what's going on in your life and my life. Why is this thing so difficult to kill in my life? Answer: I've been trying to kill it on my own.

Come on, let's face up. I've been praying so hard, and I still got the problem. I've tried everything. I've done this, I've done this, and we're so funny. It's kind of like we discuss spiritual battles like backaches. I learned this weekend how to wakeboard. I fell in love with wakeboarding yesterday. First time I ever did it in my life. It was very cool.

You know what happened the next day? 1,200 milligrams of Advil. That's no joke. I could hardly get out of bed. I used physical powers to do something, and then finally I told my daughter, "You know how I got up this time?" Because she said, "When are you going to get up? We're tired of pulling the boat around to pull you up. When are you going to get up?"

And being the spiritual guy that I am, I said, "God, please help me to get up. Please just pick me up." And I got up. And they're going, "Oh, he got up finally." And I'm thinking, "Oh, God, thank you, Lord." Now, they may think, "Well, he just hung in there and persevered." No, the boy was praying. "Lord, help me."

But we go to our spiritual battles in our lives, whatever it might be. Our thought life. We try to think nice things. Maybe you don't like your wife and we try to just think a happy thought, we hum some friendly Disney tune. It doesn't work. You're to take the machaira. The machaira is the sword of the Spirit, which is the specific word of God to use in our life's battles.

When you are having temptation thoughts or you're having this go on in your life, whatever it might be, don't quote Genesis 1:1. It doesn't work that way. Quote a specific verse, like go to Corinthians and say right then and there, "Lord, your Bible says to bring every thought under the captivity of Jesus Christ. And Lord, I'm bringing this evil thought that's in my head under the captivity of Jesus Christ, and I pray that in your name, Lord." And you say, "Jack, I've done that." And what do you think the answer is, class? Do it again, and again, and again, and again.

Why is it in church you can have such a happy day? You come to church; we've got worship and people are praising the Lord, and we're just blessed. And you can be sitting in church and have the most perverse thought in your mind. What was that? Two of you know what I'm talking about? It's like where did that come from? It's like a photon. I don't think like this normally. What was that thought? Why did I think this way? There's a spiritual war going on.

And David takes off. I mean, the Israeli army must be going, "What is he doing?" There's some guy standing there holding an umbrella over Saul, King Saul's head, with the sun shining real bright. The armies are chanting and ranting and stuff, and Goliath's there and David, he's getting ready for battle. He runs.

This is amazing to me. Christians, let's buck up. It's come on, the Lord's our strength. He's given us the Bible. Let's go forward. It's going to work in Him. Let's go. And we get up and we move. It's hard to do on your own. I think God's designed it so we can't do it on our own.

God's designed the church to be an organism that lives together. A healthy sheep, by the way, you can always tell a healthy sheep. A healthy sheep is always looking for the opposite-sex sheep. You know what I mean? If it's a male sheep... you vets are going to all yell at me later. You've got a boy sheep and a girl sheep, whatever those things are called. Sheep.

When the sheep are healthy, it's like, "Hey, we're healthy." You know what I mean? We're feeling pretty good here. We're well-fed, got nice safe pastures, things are quiet. Got a good shepherd over there taking care of things; sheepdogs are all cool. Everything's quiet. "Hey, want to go down to the creek for a little drink there in the brook and talk a little bit?"

Healthy sheep produce sheep. When sheep get together, you get more sheep. David's a shepherd. He knows how to take care of things. You know what? Yeah, that's right. He killed a lion and a bear. Oh, no, remember last time? He said he did it by the power of God. And if God delivered these enemies into my hands, He certainly delivered this man who is taunting the God of Israel. We're living in very prophetic times. Watch what happens. A tremendous age.

The Bible tells us that God will stand for Israel when all the world will not. Ezekiel tells us in this Ezekiel battle that God will show up, as it were, and then it says the Jews will know in Israel that God sits upon His throne. It implies that they do not know that now. Guess what? 90-plus percent of Israelis in Israel today don't even believe in God. They teach the Bible as a storybook. Ask Steve if I'm telling you something different. They teach it as something that was made up to justify an existence of the Israeli people. They don't even believe. And yet that's exactly what the prophet said would happen. You turn to God and God will fight your victories.

It's a very awesome moment. Verse 49: "Then David put his hand into his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone..." Listen to the graphic of this; it's beautiful. Guys, you've got to love it. "The stone sank into his forehead." It sank in. It wasn't a buff; it was a thwack.

The cool part is, listen, read the Bible very carefully. The stone didn't kill him. Read on; let's be careful. Remember that. But watch, the stone didn't do the killing. Watch. It sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. "So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him." The "and killed him" is the cool part.

Now, just before, I'm going to ask them to put this graphic up. It's very, very cool. Take a look at this. This is the cutest thing. Just before Goliath falls down, this could have been what the scene looked like if you look to the screen. Look at that. Isn't that... now that's just about as big as our mortgage payment looks. That's just about as big as that health problem feels.

You say, "Jack, you know what? We're having a great time going through the Bible tonight, exciting and all that stuff. But you know what? My father is suffering from this or from that as I am this evening. My sister is suffering horribly from a stroke. It's terrible; you want to cry." I talked with Laura after service last Sunday, and her and I are in exactly the same place.

Her father has suffered a stroke, and he's captured inside of his body. My sister, after years, six years of fighting cancer, she gets hit by this stroke and she's in a bed; she's locked inside of her body. And I am just heartbroken. You talk to her on the phone and it's terrible if she can talk; sometimes she can't. And I pray, "Lord, heal her." And then on the other hand, honestly, I'm telling you, I'm saying, "Lord Jesus, just take her home."

Our God is awesome. If my sister goes home or not, if Laura's dad goes home or not, listen, praise the Lord. I heard a message. Is it true that God chose through surgery to get all of Rick's cancer? Praise God for that. Hallelujah. Awesome. But even if God did not, isn't God still great? Isn't He awesome and loving and wonderful and compassionate and caring? Yes. But sometimes we see our enemies like that little graphic of David standing there.

The Bible is very clear to always point out that we always appear to be the underdogs. Did you know that? God wants it that way. The underdog. In Deuteronomy chapter 1, verses 30 and 31, it says, "The Lord your God, who goes before you, will fight for you according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his own son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place today."

People, that's God. Did you hear what He said in Deuteronomy 1:30 and 31? "Come on, I'll carry you." Christians, let's wake up. I tell you, we're going to wake up. It's better to wake up now while we're hearing it. Lest God shake the earth and He really gets our attention. Be seated firm. Know your foundation. Our God is great. He's strong. He will stand for us. We just need to understand what that means.

Sometimes through miraculous deliverance, like He did with Steve as those terrorists were coming in behind the fence that one night. So gently sometimes does God do a miracle, it appears to be something natural. Or we're living in the days when God says in the scriptures, "Men will hate one another and turn on each other." Evil days, days of terror. He's a powerful God we serve, and He loves.

David J.: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called "Winning the Battles of Life, Part 5". Thanks for taking the time to be with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called "First Samuel". It's a series highlighting 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.

Your week is packed. You're running on empty, and sometimes Sunday already feels like a distant memory by Wednesday. That's exactly why Real Life Devotions exist. Each week, Pastor Jack Hibbs brings you a short but powerful moment in God's word, designed to encourage, equip, and refocus your heart. It's not another podcast or a long sermon; it's a few meaningful minutes that meet you right where you are.

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Daniel Cohen: Daniel Cohen here from Israel. If you love Pastor Jack Hibbs' fearless approach to teaching God's word, you'll love the Real Life Network. It's built for warriors who want the truth: God's truth. On the Daniel Cohen Show, we bring you stories the mainstream media downplays. It's time to start getting your news from people you trust, and it's totally free. Sign up now at reallifenetwork.com.

David J.: 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.