In this episode of Real Life Radio, pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs delves into the wisdom of consulting God in all aspects of life. As we explore David’s journey from facing battles to seeking God’s guidance in every step, we are reminded of the transformative power of faith and divine wisdom. Join us as we navigate through First Samuel and learn how God answers us in degrees, shaping our understanding and fortifying our trust in His promises.
We are to always consult God, and that’s the wisest thing you can do about wisdom. And there’s so many scriptures about that, but I want to give you this thought, that God answers us in degrees. Did you know that? He always answers us in degrees. He gives us a little bit at a time.
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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. Fear does not have to control your life, not when Christ is at the center of it. This month, we’re featuring a powerful and deeply personal book, Living Fearless in Christ, by Hediyeh Miramadi. Once a devout follower of Islam and a high-level attorney in Washington, Hediyeh had everything except peace until she encountered the living Jesus. Choosing to follow him cost her everything, her career, her status, and her place in the world she once knew. But what she gained was far greater, freedom, identity, and a fearless faith that cannot be shaken. Her story will challenge you, encourage you, and remind you of the power of the gospel to transform lives. Living fearless in Christ is more than a testimony. It’s a call to bold surrender. Available for the month of February for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com, where real stories point you to real truth and real life in Christ. on today’s edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack continues now with his series called First Samuel and a message titled When the Lord is in the Lead, Part One. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of her prophets. So here in Chapter 23, we’ll consider how David, with his band of misfits, let God lead them onward. You see, even though God had great plans for David, he still had to overcome the battles in his life. And though David is not yet king, he acts under God’s direction to rescue a city under threat, all while still on the run from King Saul’s betrayal. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that in times of stress, just like David, we need God’s wisdom, and we’ve got to consult with him first. Appearances might look all wrong, but God reveals his wisdom in degrees so that we will continue to rely upon his word Now with his message called, When the Lord is in the Lead, Part One, here’s pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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I think we get all overcome by the enemy and overcome by the world because of doubt. We begin to doubt God. We’re funny people. When I’m praying, I’ll pray and I believe God is going to heal you. And if you and I have prayed together, I will pray, God, we’re praying right now. We ask you to heal this brother and deliver him from whatever it is, cancer or cold. I don’t care. It’s nothing to God. So God, we ask you to touch him and heal him. And Lord, we’re going to thank you right now in advance for that healing. We’re going to thank you. We’re believing, God, that you’re going to do this. And I have no problem with that. But then when I’m sick, days will go by and I won’t even ask God to heal me because I don’t know. Maybe I’m just supposed to You know, grin and bear it. And then somebody comes and prays for me. And you know what? Eh, probably nothing will happen. I’m filled with doubt. I’ve got all kinds of faith for you, but I don’t know if God’s going to touch me. What’s wrong with me? Or us? Isn’t that a strange thing? Doubt. Faith comes by hearing. And hearing by the Word of God, Romans 10, 17 says, we don’t have to be doubtful. God never fails. See, when I think he is failing, it’s because I have the wrong perception. I have the wrong understanding. And I begin to be tempted in my mind to doubt God and to question him, saying, God, where were you at that moment? Come on, if you would have been on time, everything would have been fine. And God, when he can get through to my head, says, I am on time. I’m never early and I’m never late. Everything’s going fine. Well, I don’t think so. You’re not the Lord. Jack Lord, that’s not you. I’m in control. Fear, doubt. You know what, sometimes we freak out in spiritual matters and battles and stuff because we have little or no experience at them. And I wrote this one down this week because of a brother who knows Jesus, he’s going to heaven, loves the Lord. But he decided to serve God and step out, and wham! He got his first hit by the enemy, you know? And you ever seen somebody get hit in the boxing ring? The knees kind of moving around? You can’t see what I’m doing back here, but my knees are kind of, you know, wild one. You see when they get hit in the chin and everything starts to get really rubbery? He got hit spiritually. And it was kind of cute because I was talking to him and, okay… You’re all right. This hurts. Yeah, I know, but you’re going to be okay. Are you sure? Yeah. He went out to serve the Lord, and somebody came after him and hurt his feelings. And you say, well, what’s so big about that? Hey, this is his battle. Maybe you can handle that, but he’s just getting out of the battle. It’s a big thing. But you know what? If he continues to battle for the Lord, the hits on the chin, they won’t bother him this time next year. spiritually, so to speak, he’ll take a big cut on the arm next time around because he knows he can make it through. Many of us are not combat weathered, you know? We don’t pray, you know, something. There’s a thing going on and we, oh Lord, you know, we shoot that prayer up and then we leave it alone. We don’t battle at it in prayer. Or we don’t contend. We don’t fight. God told Israel, man, If you have walked with the footmen and they’ve wearied you, what are you going to do when the chariots arrive and the Jordan begins to overflow? The Lord knows. Experience. We need more spiritual battle experience. It’s all around us waiting for us if we’ll step into it, I think. And then the fourth thing is knowledge. Sometimes, you know what, we get overtaken by the world because of a lack of knowledge. We don’t know the word enough. And there’s no greater way to learn the Bible than to read it and then step out to do it. Just go do it. And that’s a really exciting thing. I think that’s why it’s always a pleasure to be around new believers. They read the Bible and they go, come on, let’s go. Let’s go raise the dead. Come on. It’s like, come on, let’s go. I mean, you got to go with them because something could happen. You don’t want to miss it. But it’s precious. Let’s go to the hospital and start praying for people. And so they go to the emergency room, the waiting room. You know the waiting room in an emergency where you’re there for like four hours waiting to get in? You know, if anybody has any time, or you can make some time, go to the ER waiting room. Watch what happens. This is an experiment. Walk in there. And say, you know what? Looks like you’re in pain. Can I just pray for you? Watch what happens. You pray for somebody. And you don’t have to make it a big deal. Just put your hand on their shoulder if they’ll let you. And just say, Lord, in Jesus’ name, I just ask you to touch this brother and help him. You say, well, how do you know he’s a brother? I don’t know if he’s a brother. Well, how do you know I should pray for him? I don’t know, but you know what? I’d rather sit there and pray for him and go for it than to sit there and debate about it. And besides, more people come to Christ, I think, when we treat them like Christians. Start treating them like Christians. Walk up there. I want to pray for your leg. It looks awful bloody there right now and broken. You know what? The next person says, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who are you? What are you doing? Come over here and pray for me. Watch what happens. Go try it. I’m serious. I’m not joking. It’s pretty amazing. You know why? Because there’s always struggles. And these guys are saying, no way, David. Let me remind you, these men in a few more chapters will become David’s mighty men of valor. They will be 400 men that to this day, there has not been an army that has been equal to them. These guys were the original seals, rangers. They were bad boys, man. Isn’t that funny? They love the Lord, but man, you go to war with them, it’s like, yikes. You just shouldn’t go to war with them. Well, not only that, look at in verses 2 and 4. I deliberately broke them up for this reason. The Lord will prepare us for war in that there will be always his faithfulness to trust in. You may be going through a horrible marriage or relationship situation and all this stuff. You can’t make heads or tails of what’s up. You know what? Throw yourself on the faithfulness of God and let him work it out. It may be a business battle, or it may be a who knows what. Throw yourself upon the faithfulness of God. Look what happens. Verses 2 and verses 4 together. Therefore David inquired of the Lord. Great thing to do. He prayed, saying, Shall I go and attack these Philistines? And the Lord said to David, Go and attack the Philistines and save Calah. Look at verse 4. Then David inquired of the Lord once again. You want to know why verse 4 is there and why it says again? Because of verse 3. David inquires of the Lord in verse 2. God says, go do this. Then the guys say, no way. David, just to be sure, asked God one more time. That’s all he needed was confirmation from who? People? Did he take a vote? Excuse me, guys, how many of you want to raise your hand? He said, God, look, I’ll do whatever you want to do. What do you want? God says it a second time. Arise and go. The people at Calah need to be protected. They need to be delivered. And so, God says, arise and go to Calah, for I will deliver the Philistines into your hands. We can lean on his faithfulness, everybody. Psalm 119, verse 106 says, Psalm 119, verse 106. The psalmist says, I have sworn and confirmed that I will keep your righteous judgments, O God. It’s the victory of the Lord. And by the way, we walk into the victory as Christians, into the spiritual realm. We walk into the victory. The battle’s already been fought. You’ve read the Bible. God said he’s already fought it. It’s already been determined. Now we need to walk in it. It’s kind of funny. God goes in spiritually, blows up the whole thing. Satan’s sitting in the corner with stars going around his head. He’s all wiped out and God plucks, as it were. Remember, I love what Peter says. Satan is like a lion going about seeking whom he may devour. Like a roaring lion. You say, well, that’s scary. Well, just picture that lion in your head with no teeth. And he’s going to gum you. Yeah. Jesus said, I saw Satan fall from heaven. Jesus said when he was walking upon earth with the disciples, I saw Satan fall from heaven. The battle’s already been done. God’s invited us to walk into the victory. David had to learn this, and boy, did he learn it well, to walk into the victory.
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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.
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Four things. You’ll identify them from a moment ago. Take any fear that you may have. And make that fear look into the battle itself. Take the fear that you and I struggle with and make it look into the battle of the Lord. Make it look. Oh, I’m afraid of this. Get that fear up and face it into the battle and say, look. Because fear likes to hide. Take any doubt that you and I may have and make it listen to the plan of God. What are you afraid of? What holds you in fear? Make it look. Make it listen. to the battle, to the plan. Third, take any lack of experience that you and I have in the spiritual things and make it to lean upon the power of God. I’m not very experienced. That’s okay. Lean on God’s power, man. Take any lack of knowledge that you and I have and learn of his ways. Isn’t that what the Bible says? Learn of my ways. Take and learn of me. His faithfulness can be trusted upon. over and over again. Verses 5 through 8, And David and his men went to Calah and fought. Watch this. They walked into the victory. They fought with the Philistines, struck them down with a mighty blow, and took away their livestock. So David saved the inhabitants of Calah. Now it happened when Abitar the son of Ahimelech fled to David at Calah, that he went down with an ephod in his hand. And Saul was told that David was gone to Calah. And so Saul said, God has delivered him into my hand. He’s dreaming. For he has shut himself up by entering a town with gates and with bars. Then Saul called all the people together for war to go down to Calah to besiege David and his men. It’s interesting to me when it says here that Saul called the people together for war. He has some… Saul called the people together for war. Oh, for who? To fight the Philistines? No, to fight his own men. To fight Assyria? No, to fight his own men. Isn’t that weird? Twisted, isn’t it? What a weirdo. He’s a carnal guy. Very tragic. And so, second point tonight, we go as far as we can tonight. When the Lord is in the lead, point number two, verses 9 to 23. we would ask this, Lord, grant us the wisdom. Lord, grant us the wisdom. And we see that revealed before us here. Wisdom to consult God first. When David knew that Saul plotted evil against him, he said to Abathar the priest, bring the ephod here. I’ll explain that in a moment. Then David said, O Lord God of Israel, your servant has certainly heard that Saul seeks to come to Calah to destroy the city for my sake. Will the men of Caleb deliver me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O Lord God of Israel, I pray, tell your servant. And the Lord said, He will come down. Man, so specific. I love it. But he consulted God first. Now watch what happens. It appears at this point now, God is saying to David, Yep, they’re going to come down. You’re in for it, it looks like. Apparently, David’s in trouble. It doesn’t look good. But this is where kings are born. Oh, I’d like to be a king. Well, you’ve got to go into the battle. And not only that, but listen, it doesn’t look very good for David here right now. We’ve all been in places in life where it just does not look very good. We’ve said things like this, how will I ever get out of this mess? Right now in our home, we… have got like the lid, so to speak, on things. Because we were just informed that someone has stolen my wife’s identity. And they’re out there with her social security number, her fraudulent identification and driver’s license, fake, all that stuff, doing stuff, buying stuff. And, you know, we get this phone call. You haven’t paid your bill yet. What bill? We have a $1,000 bill for, I don’t know if it’s T-Mobile or somebody. We don’t even have that. We’re not even doing business with you guys. Oh, yeah, you are. You know, that’s how they call. Yes, you are. No, we’re not. Well, is this your social security number? Yeah. Is this your driver’s license number? Yep. And is this your, and they goofed up on the address. Just some, what? No, it’s not. It’s not? No. Okay, just sit still, hold on, don’t do a thing. And so you file a report, and if it reaches a certain amount, the FBI gets involved, all this stuff. So it’s kind of funny, because I’m walking around now, and I keep checking my wallet all the time now. See if it’s still there. She keeps looking at her purse. But it’s weird, because they can call you up, and you begin, you know, they’re so intimidating that you begin to think, Am I me? And so now, you know, I would hope anyway, they’re going to track this person or people down. But it looks like, oh my goodness. And, you know, you’re supposed to sit tight and while they investigate this thing. And it’s interesting because what might be going on in your life is almost like you have something choking you. And maybe it’s a situation in your life where it’s just on you. And it’s an interesting thing. And so David has got all of this pressure now coming against him. Don’t you think because he’s God’s king that it would just go easy? That it would go well? You would think. But listen, kings and leaders are made in the hiding. Did you know that? Kings and leaders are made in difficult moments like this. And this is what God’s doing. Something that you and I don’t like, but I’d like you to jot it down. We are to always consult God. And that’s the wisest thing you can do about wisdom. And there’s so many scriptures about that, but I want to give you this thought, that God answers us in degrees. Did you know that? He always answers us in degrees. He gives us a little bit at a time. And then he waits to see if we’ll respond to his giving of the wisdom. And if we act upon it, then he’ll tell us a little bit more. Don’t you wish that he would just tell us what to do in the whole thing? God, can you just email that to me? Just give me the whole booklet. But you know what we do? We look to the back of the book first. We try to figure it out and we don’t listen. How come it didn’t work, God? You didn’t read the book. I read the back of the book. No, He knows us. We have to go one step at a time. And God reveals His will. God reveals His wisdom in degrees. We need to learn this. We need to know this. How come I don’t know more about that? God is telling you according to His sovereign will in degrees. Well, this thing about the ephod. The ephod was an interesting thing. Number one, every priest had an ephod. It’s like an apron. And so when they were making animal sacrifices for the atonement of people in Israel, that apron was to keep the blood from getting on their priestly gowns. It was like an apron. Amen. to keep the blood from splashing everywhere. Then there was the high priest ephod. That was different. The high priest, his ephod, his apron, had the breastplate over the front of it. And it was a, think of a box, but the top is open. And inside that were the beautiful 12 stones, each representing the nation and the tribes of Israel. Inside there were two stones. And it’s understood, it’s believed to be that the Urim and the Thummim were in there, and that those two stones, God would speak through the priest, through the Urim and Thummim. There were two stones, one white, one black. One meant yes, and one meant no. And they would seek God. The high priest of Israel would talk to God. God, what do you want us to do? Do you want us to go to battle? He would reach in there and pull out a stone. If it was the black stone he pulled out, all right, just hold off. We’re not going. You say, well, Jack, that’s nuts. That’s like, damn, I wanted to go to Vegas. Well, wait a minute. They didn’t have the Bible then. This is how God spoke. What’s interesting about it is they didn’t do anything unless they heard from the word of God himself speak. Well, I still think that’s really kind of corny. Why don’t they just throw dice? No, no, no, no. Listen, they’re to be commended because that’s what God had told them to do. A lot of Christians today have Bibles in every room of their house and they never consult the Bible. They just go launch off. Yeah, I think I’m going to go after and get that job. Or are they going to go buy that car? Or are they going to go move to that state? Or are they going to go to this church or to that place? You talk to God about it? What should I talk to God about it for? Think about it. Many times we don’t consult God at all. We make a decision. We didn’t even talk to Him about it. So we can’t make fun of them using the Urim and the Thummim when God commanded it to be done in Exodus chapter 28. God gave the details to do that. They consult Israel. David, he’s consulting the leadership of the Lord. It’s a great thing. You want to be wise? Listen, we hate to hear this. Sit still. Calm down. Wait upon God. Seek Him. What? Wait? Yeah. It’s so hard for us. I was on the phone tonight, coming from Riverside here, and it was a very, very distant phone call in another land, and they had gone through something, and this person on the other end said, I’ve got to see some action. I’ve got to see something. I’ve got to see some resolution on this issue. And I said, well, for what? Because something needs to be done. And I said, well, how do you know something’s not being done? I don’t see anything. It doesn’t mean it’s not being done. So something else was said, and I said, now, wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you hear what you just said? You want to go talk to somebody about what to do to bring about an action. You love God. God loves you. You know his word. But what just came out of your mouth is that you’re going to go consult in the counsel of man because you want some action. Better to wait upon God and let God bring it to pass. Because after you’ve expended your energies, consulted in a human for wisdom, and it still flops, you’ll be more frustrated than ever, and you’ll be tempted to shake your fist at God. Wait on Him. Wait. Seek Him. You want to be wise? Seek Him.
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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called, When the Lord is in the Lead, Part One. 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.
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Hey, everybody, on February 11th, that’s a Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Pacific time, I’m going to invite you to sit down with me as I interview Hedia Miramadi. She was once a Muslim, born and raised in the Islamic world. Having heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, came to know the Lord. We’re going to sit down and talk about the world around us, about faith, and about our country. So join us Wednesday, February 11th at 7 p.m. Pacific time on The Real Life Network. Go to reallifenetwork.com.
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Truth doesn’t need permission and it doesn’t need a filter. The Real Life Network delivers bold biblical content that addresses today’s toughest issues with clarity and conviction. Watch teachings and interviews and the special programs that equip you with God’s truth for the world that we live in today. Sign up for free at reallifenetwork.com. Stay grounded in scripture, gain perspective, and remain confident in Christ no matter what’s happening around you. Stream for free today at reallifenetwork.com.
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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.
