Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: Be patient, trust God, and pray. If that’s the one for you, listen, if that’s the one for you, pray and ask God to make it happen. But don’t you make it happen. Because if you make it happen, somebody else can make it unhappen.

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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It’s a unique blend of Bible teaching and real-time analysis that helps you make sense of today’s headlines through the lens of Scripture. "Happening Now" is not just about information. It’s about equipping you with the truth and encouraging you to stand firm in your faith, no matter what’s happening around you.

Now, these discussions are eye-opening, thought-provoking, and they’re a great way to stay spiritually grounded in a rapidly changing world. Whether you watch live or catch up on past events, "Happening Now" will help keep you connected to God’s Word and what’s going on in the world today. Visit jackhibbs.com and click on "Happening Now." Don’t just watch the news; understand it from a biblical perspective.

On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called *Disciplines of Life* with a message titled "Disciplines of Darkness." When life feels dark, confusing, or hard, this is not evidence of God not being there. Instead, God uses it for a time of spiritual growth.

You see, we don’t often understand what God is doing. Even Christians go through seasons of pain and uncertainty. But in those times, that’s when God’s power and direction is more meaningful than ever. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that we need to be careful what we let into our lives. When we trust in the Lord and read the Bible daily, it counteracts the darkness of thoughts and influences that our culture tries to put upon us. Now, with his message called "Disciplines of Darkness," here’s Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Now, it’s your friends who are saying this week, "Hey, let’s go do this," and you say, "I don’t think so," and you’ve even thought about making up some story to not go with them because there’s a war inside. That war inside is the spirit warring against the flesh. That’s a good thing. So that’s, in a nutshell, things like pride or hatred, violence, immorality, lies, gossip, all the stuff that is native to the flesh. Now, there’s a war. We need to recognize what’s of the darkness.

Christians, listen, I believe—not you per se—the church in America by and large cannot even recognize those dangerous, sinful, dark things that go "bump in the night" because so many Christians this evening around the world, wherever, are not rooted in the Bible. They can’t even recognize any longer or discern what is right or wrong. And we see Christians in the name of Christianity endorsing things and embracing things that are clearly opposite to Christian doctrine. And yet they think they’re doing the right thing.

Be careful. Know your Bible. Galatians chapter 5, verse 19 says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident," at least they should be, "which are..." Here they go. Okay, let me pause right there. What I’m going to read to you right now is in the Bible. Tonight, will you trust God enough to say He’s right, even if with what I read you might be involved in doing right now? Listen, this is the cool thing. For example, what I’m about to read, if you’re involved in any of those things, your thought will be, "Oh man, I can’t believe that." You should stop thinking like that and realize, "God, what do I do? Help me."

You say, "Why?" Because you will be choosing to follow the darkness or the light. Okay? So the works of the flesh are evident, which are these: Adultery. Now, that means having sex with somebody else's husband or wife and you also are married, or one of the mix is married. God says this is the works of the flesh. This is what people who don’t know God do. They commit adultery. Fornication. Fornication is sex or sexual immorality outside of marriage. Uncleanness, ungodly conduct. Lewdness, dirty things. You could easily put pornography in lewdness.

Idolatry, worshipping things, finding your identity in things. Sorcery, which is an interesting word. Sorcery in the Greek—the old English put it as sorcery and that totally made sense if you lived in the 16th, 17th centuries. It makes perfect sense because incantations and all was used—I should say drugs was used with incantations by voodoo, witch doctor type weirdness. But the word is very awesome and you know it very well in Greek. The word appears actually in your Bible in Galatians 5:20, *pharmakeia*. You recognize that? Pharmacy, pharmaceutical, or hallucinogenic drugs. God says that’s what the world does. Very powerful thing, by the way, that unlocks a door into the spirit realm.

Hatred, that’s hatred to the point of "I want to kill that person." And if you could kill them, you would if you weren’t going to get caught. You know that feeling? Oh, now you're so quiet. This plagues the human heart. Contentions, always got to fight about something. Jealousies, outbursts of wrath. Do we not live in an outbursts of wrath kind of age? Violence. "Set up the YouTube video. Set up the camera. I’m going to beat that guy up." Or like this poor girl we saw on the news this week where she was put into a coma by someone kicking her with steel boots. Set up the camera; I’m going to perpetrate this crime. Unbelievable stuff.

The Bible says the works of the flesh is selfish ambitions. That’s climbing over people to get to the top for your self-gain. Dissensions, breaking relationships up or friends up, or against the unity. Heresies, false doctrine. Envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries. That’s wild parties, the word revelries. And the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice—there’s that word—those who do these things as a lifestyle will not inherit the kingdom of God. Why? How can the Bible say that? The Bible is simply identifying the works of the flesh, which are these.

Look at verse 22. But in contrast, now we shift from the darkness to the light, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Meaning that you don’t need to even have a law established or posted in front of such person because in the internal processes of their hearts and mind, God’s in control. Church, did you hear that? God is controlling them, so you don’t have to watch over them.

Our founding fathers said if America ever gets away from a religious understanding, then we’ll have to create more and more laws. We have more laws today—are you listening?—we have more laws today than ever and more lawlessness. Laws do not make people righteous. A person deciding to follow God makes a person righteous by faith and a community safe to live in, a county safe to live in, a nation safe to live in. Don’t think for a moment, "Well, we need a new law." Well, no, we need to stop making laws; we need to enforce the laws we have.

And you know what? If I was the dictator of the universe, I would have Bibles given to every prisoner who ever goes to jail. You’ve got to have a Bible. And oh no, call the ACLU, but I would put the Ten Commandments back in class. That’s what I would do. You can’t do that. Our founding fathers thought it was just a fine thing to do. And since we took them out, crime's gone through the roof.

Many of us are old enough to remember that one year we went to school, we stood, put our hands over our heart, said the pledge of allegiance, had the Ten Commandments on the wall, and we had prayer in school. And I went to a secular school. I remember when the astronauts were in peril, and the President of the United States said, "Everybody gather together, school campuses gather together." Auditoriums were packed. We went to the auditorium on the basketball court and we were led by somebody in administration in a prayer for the astronauts who were in trouble out in space. Can you imagine that happening today? "Hey, astronauts. Tough." Amazing. You say, "Jack, how old are you?" Very, very old.

But the gospel attacks spiritual ignorance. Matthew chapter 4, verse 15 says that "the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region of the shadow of death light has dawned." Man, that’s awesome. Every time somebody says, "I want Jesus," they’re coming from darkness into light. It’s incredible. It’s awesome. It’s wonderful.

Number three, the disciplines of darkness is this: Avoid those dark things. Avoid them. Okay, this is where it gets fun. Avoid them. According to the Bible, how do you and I avoid those dark things? The Scripture is very clear. We need to be loading up our hearts and our minds with Scripture over and over again. Truly, truly, I want to announce this: if anything ever needed a washing, it is our minds. It’s our minds.

We hear so much stuff that if you’re not careful, you’ll hear it enough where it doesn’t even bother you anymore. We’ll think about things that are not right. The lyrics to a song may be incredibly offensive to God. And here’s the fun part as a Christian. The Holy Spirit—I may be a person who thinks that this rap song or whatever is a cool song and you’re listening and you might even be mouthing the words and you have no idea. And then all of a sudden, God gets ahold of your heart and says, "Do you hear what you’re saying?"

Now first of all, let me make the record clear. I don’t listen to rap songs. You don’t have to listen to rap songs to hear junky words. Just turn on any country western radio station. I'm kidding. But "I left my honey and met some girl and stole their shotgun," whatever. Do you remember when you were younger before you were a Christian? You had all these songs, you’d sing these songs, and now that you’re a Christian it’s like, "I didn’t know I was singing that song."

Well, listen to this. Stuff gets in our head. And if it was ever true, it’s true now, and that is we truly need a brainwashing. We need it. "Oh, you Christians are brainwashed." I pray to God I am. Wash it some more, Lord. The Bible says that we need to have our minds renewed daily in the Word of God. Daily. Daily. That’s why we encourage one another: read the Bible daily.

Hey, I’ve got to tell you, and for those of you who are tuning in right now, do this as well. Go to our website. On the front page of our website at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, go to the front page, down to the left-hand side, click on there and it says "Listen to the Daily Bible." Listen. You can click it on and listen to the guy read it to you. Close your eyes and listen to that. I tell you by the grace of God, I want to encourage you. I’m going to say this not to boast; I’m going to say it for you to join me. I get up in the morning, I listen to that in the dark. I’ve got my cup of coffee, I listen to that in the dark. And then I pray it. I pray what the guy is reading to me in the Daily Bible.

Then when that’s done, I went to iTunes and I got Thomas Nelson Publishers *The Bible*. I sit in the dark because I get up very early. I sit in the dark and I click on that and it sounds profound, but it’s not. It’s easy. That guy will just take you through—I go through ten chapters of the Bible a day with my cup of coffee. I’m listening to it. God begins to develop a theme in my mind as I’m listening, like I’ve been going through right now all of the things of the blessings of the 12 tribes of Israel.

And so I’ve been praying, "Oh, Lord God, I pray that You would bring that blessing upon my family, upon my sons-in-law, upon my daughters, upon my wife." I am so excited to find out what I’m going to hear tomorrow morning so I’ll know how to pray. Try it, will you? Do that. It’s so fun. You can’t wait.

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’s Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: Try it, will you? Do that. It’s so fun. You can’t wait. Why do they bring that up? I have no idea. Oh, about the Bible. Hiding it in your minds and in your heart. Very, very important. The Bible says in Ephesians 5:11, "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is a shameful thing to even speak of those things which have been done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore he says: 'Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.'"

Second Corinthians 6:14 says, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Oh, some of you young ones need to hear this. "But Jack, he’s so cute." Get away from him. Trust God. "Oh, but Jack, she’s such a cutie." Get away from her. Pray. "But I’m going to lead her to the Lord." And what if you don’t? I’m telling you what: she’s so cute and so sweet and so nice, she’ll lead you into her world if you don’t lead her into yours. Listen. "What do you expect me to do?"

Be patient, trust God, and pray. If that’s the one for you—listen—if that’s the one for you, pray and ask God to make it happen. But don’t you make it happen. Because if you make it happen, somebody else can make it unhappen. "What do you expect me to do, just grow up lonely?" I’d rather grow up patient, waiting on God, than marry and be miserable for the rest of your life. And then the world says, "Well, just divorce them if it doesn’t work." Hello. You’ll be doubly miserable for the rest of your life. I’m not kidding.

I’m telling you, please take that from my heart. I’m not being paid extra to tell you that. Spare yourself some grief. Trust in God. Let the Lord bring to you that one. Don’t be unequally yoked. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness and what communion has light with darkness? See the difference? Avoid the things of the dark. When somebody calls you up and says this or that, or when you see this, if you’re driving down the freeway and there’s a billboard, look the other way. Or whatever it might be. You have to fight that.

This is a great example. I’ve used it often. It’s so excellent, especially the young people that are here tonight, but check this out. Genesis 39, just write it down. It’s not going to be on the screen. Genesis 39 starts at verse 9. You know the story; it’s Joseph. He’s in Egypt. And man, I don’t know how to tell you except just straight up. The Bible says that Joseph was extremely exotic in the Egyptian culture. He was a Hebrew.

And if you’ve ever been to Israel, Hebrew men and women, they’re usually olive-complected, lightly olive-complected skin. And they could have anywhere from black hair to a reddish hair to a blond hair, whatever, usually wavy. And here’s the weird thing: light blue or light green eyes. It’s very interesting looking. Joseph was extremely out of his culture in his looks. The Bible says he was handsome and smart. And the Bible says he was a well-built man. He’s a slave to Potiphar.

And his wife—Potiphar’s wife, that is—keeps flirting with him. "Hey, sweetie." She was—and look, you know how Satan works; she must have been a real cutie pie. So she’s winking at him. The Bible says she cast longing eyes at him. I guess women know what that means. She keeps hounding him: "Lie with me, lie with me." Verse 9 says, "No one is greater in this house than I am. My master"—which is her husband—"has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?"

He was practicing the presence of God, which steers you out of darkness and into the light constantly. Didn’t Job say, "I’ve made a covenant with my eyes not to look upon a young woman"? So check this out. And though she spoke to him—to Joseph—day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. One day, he went into the house to attend to his duties and none of the household servants were inside. She caught him by his robe and said, "Come to bed with me," but he left his robe in her hand and ran out of the house.

What do you think of that? A person who walks in the light says, "God, give me that strength. Thank You, Lord. Awesome. Joseph rocks." A person in the darkness says, "What a dope. Oh man, boy that guy blew it." Darkness and light. How you respond determines if you are on an avoidance course or not. Will you avoid or will you hit?

Number four, the disciplines of darkness means this: know the dangers of the night. Know them. You don’t have to experience them to know them. Parents, listen. "Well, we believe in raising our children up and letting them find their own way." Do you know that is disaster? I understand that if you grew up without any spiritual upbringing whatsoever. But just basic morality, you don’t leave your children to themselves. "Well, we don’t turn or point our children in any religious persuasion whatsoever." Listen, I’m warning you, you’re making a big mistake.

There’s a reason why the Bible says teach the Word of God to your little kiddos. There’s a reason. Know the dangers of the night. According to the Bible, what are the dangers of walking in darkness? Listen, in Matthew 6:22, Jesus said the lamp of the body is the eye. I want you to think about that for a moment. The lamp of the body. Why does He put it that way? Is the eye? Because you see this thing right there? This thing’s very important for a bazillion reasons, but one of them is it takes in stuff constantly.

Your eye is constantly taking in—you may not even be thinking about anything. Guess what your eye’s doing? It’s storing data. It’s a conduit. It’s the window. It’s the window of your soul. It’s looking all the time. And what it looks at matters. What are you looking at? What do you let this thing see? Isn’t it amazing that a child naturally will hide their face from something scary or evil, sinister or dark?

I remember my daughter, I don’t know when it was, could have been ten years ago. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was, but she—I don’t know if I ever told her this; I don’t know if Lisa and I ever told her this. But one time my daughter—or daughters, I don’t remember, but one of them said, "Oh, this is a really great movie. It’s scary. You want to watch it?" I said, "I’m not watching it. I can’t watch scary movies."

I’ll tell you the reason why. And this is—I don’t know if I’ve ever told them. But my wife and I—Lisa and I—from the days that I’ve been an early Christian, God has allowed me to be exposed to some stuff in people’s lives that you don’t even want to know about. I’ve seen stuff that Hollywood—somebody in Hollywood must have seen it because they put it in a movie. In ministry, I’ve seen stuff where it’s like this is not of this world. God be here now; be here big.

So when somebody says, "You ought to come watch this movie. It’s scary," I don’t need that. I don’t need to go there. There are dangers in the night, I mean spiritual night. And Jesus is what your eye takes in. It matters.

Guest (Male): Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called "Disciplines of Darkness." You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called *The Disciplines of Life*. It’s a series highlighting the disciplines of a Christ follower and the high cost of sharing your faith with others in a lost and broken world. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

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David J: Hey, thank you 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 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.