Winning The Battles Of Life – Facing Goliath

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Today on Real Life Radio.

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Eternity is coming. Look at our time here on this earth as Christians as a brief window of opportunity to do for our God that which He has called us to do.

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This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible. This December, Pastor Jack Hibbs is doing something a little different and a lot special. All month long, he’s offering a double-feature Book of the Month, two very powerful resources to help you finish the year strong and step into the next year spiritually grounded. First, Pastor Jack’s annual favorite, the one-year Bible. Every year, lives are changed as people discover how simple and doable it is to read through the entire Word of God within just a few minutes a day. Also, Pastor Jack’s going to include his brand-new devotional, Watching Waiting. It’s a 40-day journey designed to help you slow down, look up, and recognize what God is doing in your life. So, this December, why would you choose one when you can get both and grow deeper? Visit jackhibbs.com to get your December Book of the Month double feature, the One Year Bible, and Pastor Jack’s brand new devotional, Watching Waiting. They’re available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. Again, that’s jackhibbs.com. on today’s edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack now continues his series called First Samuel and a message titled Winning the Battles of Life, Part Three. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of her prophets. So today, as we continue in chapter 17, we’ll consider the conflict, we’ll enter the battle and have a cause that still speaks to us today. You see, our cause is to share God’s love to all people. We need to see the people of the world as Jesus sees them, even when our enemy wants to subdue us with anxiety and fear. We can be like David as he turned and ran towards his enemy, Goliath. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that God is calling us to win the battles of life, not just survive them. These battles aren’t just about personality, but they’re tied into a much larger spiritual warfare that’s surrounding God’s purpose for a bigger picture. Now with his message called Winning the Battles of Life, Part Three, here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

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We come tonight to part three of our series, Winning the Battles of Life, and arguing tonight that we have a cause. beginning at verse 17, or excuse me, yeah, yeah, no, no, verse 12, here’s the deal, verse 12 to verse 16 is an intro, our study begins really at the 17th verse, but let’s go to verse 12, because it’s good that we do that to set the stage, it says here, so he, I am so lost, I’m looking at the wrong verse 12. Chapter 17, verse 12. Now David was the son of, listen, Jesse the Bethlehemite. Very important because David had to come from that city as Jesus would have had to come from that city of Judah, whose name was Jesse and who had eight sons. And the man was old. Jesse was an old man, advanced in years. the days of Saul and he had three oldest sons of Jesse those who had gone to follow Saul to the battle the names of his sons who went to the battle were Eliab his firstborn Abinadab the second and Shammah the third David was the youngest And the three oldest followed Saul. But David occasionally went and returned from Saul to feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. Now we get into the meat of the matter. Verse 16. And the Philistine, that is Goliath, drew near and presented himself forty days morning and evening. Then Jesse said to his son David, take now for your brothers an ephah of this dried grain and these ten loaves and run to your brothers at the camp. And he carried these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousands and see how your brothers fare and bring back news of them. Now Saul and they all of the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah fighting with the Philistines. So David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with the keeper and took the things and went as Jesse, that would be his father of course, had commanded him and he came to the camp as the army was going out to the fight and shouting for the battle. For Israel and the Philistines had drawn up in battle array, army against army, and David left his supplies in the hand of the supply keeper. and ran to the army and came and greeted his brothers. Then as he talked with them, there was the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, coming out from the armies of the Philistines and he spoke according to the same words. So David heard them. And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were dreadfully afraid. So the men of Israel said, Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel. And it shall be that the man who kills him, the king, will enrich him with great riches, will give him his daughter and give his father’s house exemption from taxes in Israel. Then David spoke to the men who stood by him, saying, What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? Don’t you love that? You want to shout amen just reading that. And the people answered him in this matter saying, so shall it be done for the man who kills him. Now Eliab, his oldest brother, heard when spoken to the men of Eliab, his anger was aroused against David and said, why did you come down here? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and the insolence of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle. And David said, What have I done now? Is there not a cause? Then he turned from him toward another and said the same thing. And these people answered David as the first ones did. This is exciting stuff. It’s starting to heat up, you can tell. As we get into this, we’ve been flirting with the battle. They’ve been in battle array, army against army, and even the word here tells us that they get up in the morning, they get ready to go to the fight, but technically there had not yet been any fight. Do you understand that? They were shouting back and forth to each other. You know, whatever words they shouted. This we know. Goliath came out morning and evening. If morning wasn’t bad enough, he would come out and end the day just to torment them. It’s kind of like in a basketball game recently, like Shaq. They bring him out to shock the opponent, then they take him off the court for just a bit. They kind of bolster their guys and make a few shots, and then they bring Shaq out again and kill him. The Philistines are saying, you know, Goliath, go out there and freak out their day so they have a rotten day all day long. So Goliath would go out there, this big, huge, uncircumcised Philistine. Huge! Anywhere from 9 feet 6 to 10 feet 4 inches tall. I defy the armies of Israel! And he would shout. And all the guys would just shake and quake. You could hear their rattle of their armor. And then he’d go back, sit down. I don’t know, maybe they threw… Words back and forth across that valley, which is easy to do there. And then just at the end of the day, Goliath would stand back up again just to give them a tormented night. Have you noticed how the enemy often of our souls, be it the world, be it our flesh, be it Satan himself, works like that? He attacks us in the morning before we can start our day, and he’ll attack you at the end of the day just to keep you tormented through the night, if possible. We see in this picture a type for our Christian walk today, our victory. In part one, we studied in this chapter that we are being awakened now to the conflict. That was in verses 1 to 7. In verses 8 through 11, we saw that we’ve been called to enter into the battle. And so tonight, we have a cause. And that’s very important. Goliath’s mantra, we remember in verse 10 of this chapter, he says, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man, he said, that we may fight together. And it always comes down to that. The enemy is willing to take one man at a time. In the context of 1 Samuel 17, what Goliath is offering is send me your champion because I’m the champion of the flesh and whoever wins will serve, you’ll serve us as slaves. And that’s the threat of the world. So Goliath is shouting day in, day out. And the enemies of God always know what to say. Always. There’s things that are going on in our lives, and the worst thing that could ever be said, the enemy will somehow work it out to have it said to you or to me. You know, I know, that which hurts me hurts you the most. Isn’t it tragic but true that it’s often the case that those who are the closest to you inflict the greatest pain? And yet even when someone who may be very much in love with that other person or that child or that parent or whatever it might be, something may come out of the mouth and you know the moment it comes out of your mouth that it was the wrong thing to say because not only was it nasty, but you don’t mean it. That is the flesh taking control. And the flesh knows how to hurt. This world knows how to hurt. Satan, he’s a master of hurting. And we have all those three above to point at. We’re quite able to get in enough trouble on our own, I argue, with you tonight. But the enemies of God, it reminds me, as Goliath would come out, it reminds me of Psalm chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. It’s an amazing verse because it is not only a verse of history gone by, but of history in the future, meaning prophecy. It will happen again, and that is in Psalm chapter 2, verse 1. It says, There’s a day, specifically in the tribulation period, where nations will gather together and literally think that they can attack and win an argument over the God of heaven. It’s an amazing thing. What delusion! comes upon someone winning the battles of life we as Christians have a cause and the first thing I want you to see tonight is in verses 17 to 24 regarding our cause it is this that eternity is rapidly approaching people get this in your blood eat it up tonight that eternity is quickly coming every moment the clock ticks in our physical world we’re one step closer to the culmination of the ages when eternity will be ushered in. You know, the Bible talks about the day of Christ. The Bible talks about the day of the Lord Jesus. The Bible also talks about a time called the day of God. The day of God, by the way, is referred to in scripture as one day. It will not be a succession of days or a period of time. It will be the day of God where eternity begins. And though you and I think we might have time, we really don’t have time. That’s why the Bible is so hot about us sharing Christ and us following the Lord and being in tune with what God wants to do because we’re running out of time. Eternity is coming. Look at our time here on this earth as Christians as a brief window of opportunity to do for our God that which he has called us to do. Time is marching onward. Have you noticed, and I know 99% of us have in here tonight, but maybe there’s some younger people in here. Have you noticed as you get older, time just races by? It just flies by. It’s not fair, right? And when you’re younger, time just seems to be almost an enemy to you. It seems to take forever. And you get a little older. And by the way, I don’t think it has anything to do with age. Because I’ve had older people who are in retirement tell me that days now just seem to just wane by. So slowly they go. I think it has to do with stress. I think it has to do with how much you have to do in a day. And if you’re anything like me, you wake up literally after the first of the year, you wake up and your mind clock is still in February or March and yet the calendar is July or August. You know what I’m talking about? We joke around this office at this church. Oh, you know what? We’ve got three more months to take care of that. And I’ll say to that person, secretary, pastor, whoever it is, I’ll say, and that’ll be here in about a day. And you know it’s true. Time is racing. Eternity is rapidly approaching.

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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.

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Time is racing. Eternity is rapidly approaching. I say that to you tonight because be careful how you invest your time. What is it that you’re living for? What is the passion of your life? In verses 17 and 18, we see here that souls are important, that eternity is coming quicker than we think, and the souls of men are in danger, and that should concern us. It says in verse 17, Then Jesse said to his son, David, take now for your brothers an ephah of dried grain. This would be like cereal, like dry cereal. And ten loaves… take to them cheese and go, look at verse 18, see how your brothers are doing, how they’re faring and bring back news. This is important because it speaks about truly the fact that they’re arrayed in battle. Israel is pitted against their arch enemy. And in a very typological way, Jesse sends his son to go down to the battle to see how the sons or the men are doing and bring me back news. In this, and I do intend tonight to spiritualize this and make a devotion out of this because I think it speaks to something deep. God the Father sent his son to see how we fare. Now he knew how we fared in this world, but he comes with… Items of blessing. come and see. David comes as a type of Christ, and he’s going to the battle zone. You and I are engaged in the battle, and eternity is racing toward us. And the souls of men are in the balances. Maybe all of us tonight, we know what it’s like to know Jesus, our names are written down in heaven, and we’re excited about that. But the truth of the matter is, we become comfortable with that. And that’s an okay thing, kind of. We should never lose the edge about being lost, remembering what it was like to be lost, and that our neighbors are lost. Remember that. The people that you and I live next door to, what do they know? The people that we work next to, what do they know? Eternity is so quick, it’s coming so fast. As I often joke around, you know, if the Lord doesn’t come back soon, that’s okay, because we’re gonna all die of old age soon enough. If he doesn’t come to get us, we’re gonna go see him. But what will we do in the meantime? Are we living a life with the reality of God and time? Jesus was always on the go. And let me tell you that that was 2000 years ago and he was on the go. You say, well, Jack, he had an appointment with the cross and all that. Yes, that’s true. He had an exact appointment with the cross. That’s true. But didn’t he tell his followers, go ye therefore into all the world? That’s very important. that we understand that men’s souls are in danger. And I like to see that in this study, the men of Israel, their souls are in danger. They’re following a leader who has forsaken God, King Saul. They’re engaged in a soon-to-be battle that they cannot win. It’s going to take a miracle. God has that in store. But these guys were being set up, so to speak, in the spiritual realm for defeat. Yet God had a plan. And he was going to deliver them. But in this, I want you to see and consider the fact that eternity is rapidly approaching and men’s souls are in the balances. A man by the name of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, he said that if I could take all of the graduates of the Salvation Army who had been trained in evangelism, he said if I could show them hell for one moment, they would never backslide. And they would be busy about the souls of men. Isn’t that true? It’s true. Listen. We need to get hot with the things that concern God. And the thing that concerns God is men’s souls. People are dying tonight without Jesus. And he wants us, as much as we’re able, to be involved in that. How do we do that? Are you going to go to school? Are you going to summer school? Or whatever you’re doing? Ask God, open the door, Lord, I’m here, I’m available. What do you want me to do? And watch what happens. He says, see how your brothers fare. And I think that’s an important thing to us. The threat is real, Goliath is after them, but their souls are in the balances and God has got a plan. So very important. I would encourage you, before we go to verse 19, it would be very wise for all of us, because every one of us knows somebody who’s not saved. It would be good for us to get a little notebook or a little piece of paper and start to write down the names of people that we want to pray for their salvation for and pray in the offensive manner, in an attack mode. Begin to lift them up. How are your brothers faring? Well, you know, we’ve got these neighbors. They’re always fighting. Maybe God has allowed you to hear them fighting so you can intercede for them. We had some neighbors I say had. They moved. They’re gone. They actually lived on the back street from our backyard down the hill. We could hear them arguing from from down below, the voices would come up the hill. Always between 2 and 4 a.m. And there was huge arguments. And I remember just laying there saying, God, please help this. And you could hear everything. She went to his office, caught him in his office with a woman. I heard it all. And I remember just saying, God, please. And they had two young boys, and that marriage ended in disaster. And I don’t know if my prayers ever made any difference. Could it be somebody you work with, their life is miserable, and you know about it? Is there something that you do know about, that I know about, and you know from the Word of God that God would want to do something about that? You know that what’s going on in their life is not His will. I want to suggest to you tonight, that’s why you know about it. God wants to have you pray for them or maybe even approach them. See how your brothers are faring and bring me news is Jesse’s request. Well, we have a cause. And our cause is that God has a great and awesome plan. Look at verses 19 to 22. Our cause is this, that we must get up and go to them. We must get up and go to them. It says in verse 19, now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah and they were fighting with the Philistines. I’m always tempted to say flesh because that’s what they represent. The Philistines. So David rose early in the morning and he left the sheep with the keeper and he took the things and went as Jesse, his father had commanded him and he came to the camp as the army was going out to the fight and shouting for the battle. Israel and the Philistines had drawn up a battle array, army against army. Verse 22, and David left his supplies in the hand of the supply keeper. He ran to the army. I love that. He ran to the army and came and greeted his brothers in preparing for this. This may not mean anything to you, but I want to look at it in the spiritual sense, if I can. I remember my dad telling me years ago that when World War II broke out, he was too young to go to war. He was a farm boy in South Dakota, heard about World War II going on, and somehow communicated with my Uncle Charlie in Missouri, or Missouri, And they were in cahoots together to lie to their parents about what they were going to be doing for a few days. They lied to their parents. They hitched a train. They met somewhere where trains meet from those two locations. And they rode the train the rest of the way as close to San Diego as possible. Then they hitchhiked to… San Diego, and they lied to the U.S. Marine Corps about their age. They got into the Marines, and they got into World War II. My dad was in World War II two years into the war, and they found out that he had lied about his age. And he got called into a tent, and his officer told him, did you lie about your age to get here? Yes, sir, I did. The guy said, well, you shouldn’t have done that. Now get back out there and keep doing what you’re doing. And I said, why did you do that? And he says, it was war. Man, our mom and dad would never let us go. Grandpa and grandma would never let us go. And the Marines would never let us in. So we lied. Because we wanted to go to war. We wanted to fight. I see David, he’s running to the war. Oh, I hope nothing’s really gone on too much before I get there. He’s running to the battle.

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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Winning the Battles of Life, Part Three. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called First Samuel, 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. Did you know there’s an easy way to stay informed on the latest biblical events shaping our world today? Check out the Happening Now section at jackhibbs.com. Now, these live events feature Pastor Jack Hibbs alongside special guests diving into current events, cultural shifts, and how they align with biblical prophecy. 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, they’re 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. 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.