Today, Pastor Jack teaches that our enemy Satan, even our own flesh, wants to convince us that when we feel isolated, we’re beyond hope and help. But, nothing could be further from the truth. The Lord is always there, even when we can’t feel His presence.
The last time I read my Bible, the Christian lives in an attitude of prayer. You never stop praying as a Christian. But the world does that. That’s how the flesh is. I pray four times a day. Well, whoop-dee-doo. What, is that supposed to be impressive?
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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.
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Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t answer your prayers, or at least sometimes it feels like it? Well, our good friend Dr. Erwin Lutzer has written a book, Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers? This is a practical, amazing book. You’re wanting to get a copy for yourself because it is written by Dr. Lutzer in such a way that only he can, and the topic, Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers, is something that all of us are asking.
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Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers by Dr. Erwin Lutzer is available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash realradio. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called Disciplines of Life and a message titled Disciplines of Desolation. Spiritual desolation is one of the worst situations we can find ourselves in. It attacks our very core and the root of our hope and faith. You see, the harsh truth is no one is exempt. Doesn’t matter how beautiful or wealthy you might be. You may even be powerful or popular, but it’s only a matter of time when you’ll suffer an invasion of desolation. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that our enemy, Satan, even our own flesh, wants to convince us that when we feel isolated, we’re beyond hope and help. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Lord is always right there, even when we can’t feel his presence. Now with his message called Disciplines of Desolation, here’s pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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You look around the world as a Christian and it looks like everybody’s taking stupid pills. And you see this stuff and you wonder, what in the world is going on? While the world looks at us and says, you guys are crazy. They’re crazy. They have lost their minds. You have the new mind given to you by God. And you see things right and they see things wrong, but they got a bigger megaphone than we do. And that’s normal. This is their world if you think about it. We’re on our way home. This ain’t it. See, pastor, I just bought a brand new house, pastor. Don’t say that. It ain’t your home. You’re going home. You’re going to Jesus. We’re just hanging out right here for now. We’re just hanging out. So check this out. This is important. If you’re going to live for Jesus, man, this psalmist, what he says is going to mean everything to you. And there’s going to be a time in your life. Listen, in fact, let me be honest. I’ve been a Christian for over 33 years. There’s going to be many times in your life. You’re going to say, oh God, I’m like a sparrow on a housetop. I’m like a pelican in the wilderness. Where are you, God? When you’ve been sick or when there’s been a tragedy and you’re crying out, listen, where is he? Have you ever had that feeling or that question? Where are you? You’re a believer. You’re a child of God. And you’re in the wilderness. And this is the discipline of desolation. I thank my God continually that he’s not a fair weather God. He’s not a part-time God. He’s not a sometime God. He’s not a Sunday God or a Wednesday night God. He’s always God. And he’s, by the way, an on-time God. He’s never early. He’s never late. He’s always now. And in the midst of your dryness, you might say, well, pastor, I’ve been praying, but I haven’t heard an answer. I’ve been reading my Bible, but I feel dead inside. There’s a reason for that. And you need to find out what it is. Number one, mark these things down. Number one, it’s this. Check it out. Number one, the discipline of desolation will involve unhappiness. Unhappiness, the state or situation of being unhappy actually comes from the outside and moves into our private lives. Why if tonight you are unhappy, why are you unhappy? Think about it. You might say, I’m unhappy because I don’t love my husband anymore. My question to you is, why? Don’t say it now. I’m just saying. You need to answer that. You’ve got to answer that. Why are you unhappy? Well, it’s a money issue. Why? Take your argument and find the answer in God’s word because the cure is right here. I’m unhappy. I had somebody tell me, I’m leaving my husband. Why? Because I’m unhappy and I know God wants me to be happy. I said, where’d you read that in the Bible? That is not in the Bible. God wants you holy. There won’t be a bunch of happy people in heaven because they’re happy. There will be only people in heaven who are holy. And when you get there, if you want to be happy, you can be happy. But the cool thing is, think about it. God just wants me happy. God wants you holy in this life. And we get this concept, you know, I’m going to marry her. I’m going to marry him because it’ll make me happy. No, God invented marriage to make people holy, not happy. Are you crazy? Think about it. You get married. I mean, you get married and you know, and then flu season comes and she, she barfs on the pillow. What are you doing? You’ve been married three months. She throws up in the pillow. She’s sick. She’s got the flu. What is this? Remember for sicker, for, for health, richer, for poor. Since I married you, I don’t have any money. For richer, for poorer. Marriage is a ministry. And it’s an amazing thing. Unhappy. What is this unhappy? But watch this. The reason why you might be unhappy tonight is because, listen, you have focused your affection or attention in an area that is outside what God wants for your life. Unhappiness comes from the outside and it attacks us on the inside. We let it come in. about that for a minute it invades you it’s like an attack our happiness is determined by how we perceive the moment and that’s the key you can choose to be happy now for the rest of your days and they lived happily ever after it should say this and they lived happily ever after because they kept jesus christ as the center of their life amen You want to live happily ever after? Focus on Christ for your life. And everything works. If you lose that focus, you’ll be unhappy. Listen to this. You say, Jack, I know somewhere it says for me to be happy. Yeah, okay. I see where you’re going. Matthew 5.2 says this. You know this. Matthew 5.2 says, then Jesus opened his mouth and taught them saying, happy or blessed, same meaning, same word, happy. Are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Are you listening, everyone? Happy are the meek. For they shall inherit the earth. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For they shall be filled. Happy are the merciful. For they shall obtain mercy. Happy are the pure in heart. For they shall see God. Verse 9. Happy are the peacemakers. For they shall be called the sons of God. Happy are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Verse 11. Happy are you. When they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you, falsely for my sake, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. For great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So be happy. Isn’t that amazing? That’s God’s definition of happiness. What is he saying? Beyond all circumstances, you can choose to be happy. The discipline of desolation is choosing now to find your life in Christ and to decide, hey, my world’s caving in. My cat left me. I mean, just go down the list and conclude this. You know what? God’s word gives me the definition of who are the happy people. And it’s those listed on the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew chapter 5 all the way there. You read that. Say, I’m unhappy. Ask yourself, why are you unhappy? Now, I’m laying this stuff on you pretty hard, but here’s the true reality of it. All of us struggle day to day, week to week, or month to month, or year to year with a sense of, I’m unhappy. I’m just not happy. There’s a reason for that. As a believer, we need to get our eyes focused. Now, mark this down. This is the positive side. What do we do? We fight off unhappiness by grabbing his word and crying out. That’s what the psalmist is doing. This is the answer. This is the application part. Write it down. If you’re unhappy, what do you do? You do this. You fight off unhappiness by grabbing his word and crying out. Looks like this. Lord, your Bible says… Psalm 144. Happy are those who are in such a state. Happy are the people whose God is the Lord. You want to be happy? Make sure the Lord is your God. Cry out to God using his word this way, Psalm 84, 11. For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk upright. What an awesome verse. Are you unhappy the way things are going at work or the way things are going in your home? How’s your marriage? Take this verse. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory and no good thing will he withhold from those who walk upright. Wow. See, we start focusing on happiness in the sense that it’s the end all. And you guys, many times we use that as an excuse to try to get our way because we’re pouting. And God says lovingly, grow up. Grow up and focus on me. Get into my word. God, listen, he wants us, the Lord wants us to take the word of God and say, Lord, I’m not happy right now and I know it has nothing to do with you, it’s me. And so I’m calling out to you and I’m saying this, Romans 8, 28 is another verse. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purposes. We fight unhappiness. Don’t succumb to it. Anybody listening? It’s so quiet in here. Are you there? Anybody there? We all fight with this. And the amazing thing is, listen, we live in such a world where we are so driven that it affects us physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We are very complex creatures, body, soul, and spirit. But when we talk about being unhappy, we’re also, listen, we are also insulting God. You know what we’re saying when we ride our emotions on the fact that we’re unhappy? Well, you don’t make me happy anymore. Fathers say, you know, I’m not happy with the marriage, I’m not happy with the kids. I’m leaving. I’m leaving. Man, I tell you, I can’t even begin to imagine the devastation on judgment day regarding a man or a woman who abandons the children. Jesus said, regarding children being offended, it would have been better for that person who offended them in the day of judgment than for them to have never been born. God said, in the day of judgment, for those who offended children, it will have been better for them to have never been born when I get done with them. Number two, mark it down, it’s this. The discipline of desolation, what we do within our lives as Christian will involve loneliness. Loneliness. As Christians, when we’re lonely, it’s a pretty good indicator that we’ve often neglected our private life with the Lord. When I talk about loneliness, hear me out on this. Every Christian will go through a time of loneliness in this definition that we feel, sense that we’re far from God. How does that happen? It is easy. Have you learned this yet? If not, listen carefully. Have you learned how much maintenance your Christianity requires? It is, listen, it is one thing to pray three times a day or five times a day? Anybody can do that. Do you understand? Is that supposed to be a lot? I’m dead serious. Well, I pray five times a day. Am I supposed to be impressed with that? The last time I read my Bible, the Christian lives in an attitude of prayer. You never stop praying as a Christian. But the world does that. That’s how the flesh is. I pray four times a day. Well, whoop-dee-doo. What, is that supposed to be impressive? The real Christian walks with a constant attitude of prayer.
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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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That’s why the Bible says in Thessalonians, pray without… It’s an attitude. But what about loneliness? Loneliness is different than being alone. Loneliness, the Bible tells us in 1 John 1, verse 6. Think about Adam and Eve now when I read this verse. 1 John 1, 6. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light… We have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. Loneliness. Listen, Christian, if your soul right now tonight, if you’re struggling with an overwhelming sense of loneliness, that the heavens are empty and that your heart is empty and you’re just going through the motions, you want to stop and check the bases of And check your pulse. God, have I sinned against you? Have I done something to offend you, Holy Spirit? It is true that there’s times when God, everything’s right, but God takes us through a desert. We take a spiritual drive through the desert. Sometimes God takes us on those drives. Didn’t the Holy Spirit take Jesus on a drive into the wilderness for 40 days? He does that with us to make us grow. And maybe you’re in a desert place right now spiritually and you’re lonely. You’re in a room full of people, but you’re lonely inside. If you’re not careful to be still and know that he is God and focus on him, you will jump from the fire into the frying pan or frying pan into the fire. And you’ll think someone’s supposed to meet that loneliness. Or I’m going to go do this thing. I got to take a break. Don’t do that. Sinful conduct doesn’t have to be something overt. It can be something simply that you’re neglecting your private walk with God. A neglect of God will cause loneliness, which drives us ever so slowly away from our intimacy with God. Sinful conduct. I think sometimes you and I as Christians get tripped up more by the stuff that we don’t even recognize as being sinful conduct. It’s like this. You could be here. Listen, legalist people think like this. I didn’t do this and I didn’t do this and I didn’t do this today. Look at me. And God comes back and says, okay, you didn’t do those things, but you also, you didn’t, you didn’t do this and you didn’t do that. Meaning you didn’t love me. You didn’t talk with me or you didn’t do sins of omission. That’s why a legalistic person is a tragic hilarity. I mean, it’s just worth busting up laughing about. But it’s sad that they can’t see it in their own lives. We need him. We need his forgiveness. We need his grace. And the person in this room tonight that’s walking the closest with God needs his grace, needs his forgiveness. But there’s a loneliness… that we need to have the discipline to contend with. And this desolation, if we don’t stay in the word, it’s going to consume us. It’s going to get us off track. Revelation 2 verse 4, Jesus said to the Ephesian church, he says, nevertheless, I found this against you that you’ve left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen and repent and do the first works. Note this. First love, first works. First works, first love. Jesus says this to all of us tonight. He’s searching our hearts and he’s saying, hey, go back to the first works of your relationship with me. think for a moment, the moment you accepted Christ or when you were coming to faith in Christ and your first, I don’t know, first few months of walking with Jesus, it was so pure, so simple, so beautifully easy going with whatever he says to do. And then you get messed up listening to people or you read some knucklehead book that puts thoughts in your head or somebody comes along and says, well, that’s really great, but You need to join our group and get all bummed out like we are. No. Jesus said, listen, every believer, maintain that air of your first love. You’ve seen people in love and that first love’s condition, symptom, condition. You can’t talk to them. It’s impossible to get through to them. They’re blinded by love. I said, isn’t she beautiful? Well, not really, but you’re in love with her. Look at that. Isn’t he the greatest? Well, I think he’s a bonehead, but you think so. They’re in love. He talks about that in the Song of Solomon. He talks about that in Jeremiah. He says, what evil have you found in me, Israel? He says, when you in the early days went after me like a lover, you followed me into the mountains and you pursued me, God said. And now you’ve stopped. What evil have you found in me? He says, what nation of the world has forsaken me? They’re gods. No, they cling to their gods. He said, they’ve got ears, but they can’t hear. They’ve got eyes, but they cannot see. And they love those silly pagan gods. Me, he says, I’m real. And I delivered you from Egypt. And you leave me? For carved images? And idols? He says, what nation has done such a thing? Isn’t that amazing? You say, yeah, why does that happen? Because it’s a real relationship. You guys, it’s easy to have a relationship with a totem pole, a carved image. Hey, how you doing there, Mr. Monkey Face Tree thing? It’s not a dialogue. It’s not a reality. It’s a monologue. You’re the one talking to a piece of wood or a stone or a statue or an image. And God says, no, it’s face to face. The cure for loneliness, write it down, it’s this. We fight off loneliness by grabbing his word and crying out, saying things like this. Lord, your Bible says, Psalm 139, verse 5. You have hedged me behind and before and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain to it. I can’t get there. You’re amazing, God. You’re wonderful. Loneliness. Do you have a sense of loneliness tonight? Then you stop and say, God, your Bible tells me that you’ve hedged me on all sides. You know exactly where I’m at. You know exactly what I’m feeling. I have this overwhelming sense of loneliness. It’s a desolation of my soul right now. I can hardly take it. And yet your Bible tells me that you’re all around me. God, you got to help me put my head around that. It’s so high. I cannot attain to that thinking. But oh God, open my eyes to see. Have you ever been lonely? God says in John 15, excuse me, Jeremiah 15, 16. He says, Your word was found and I ate them. And your word was to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. For I am called by your name, O Lord God of hosts. What is Jeremiah saying in chapter 15, verse 16? He’s saying, I was wandering in the wilderness like a pelican. Like an owl, like a little sparrow on a roof, I was lost. And I found your word and I began to read it. And when I read it, I found out that I’m called by your name. I found out, listen everybody, I found out that when I read your Bible, God, you love me. You can’t wait to forgive me. You can’t wait to have this relationship restored. Has anyone ever in life pursued you? Sent you flowers? You know, all that flirtatious stuff? The wives are going, honey, remember that? Remember that? God does that. The Holy Spirit does that in our lives. And he does it so gently. He’s often missed. The Bible says… I want to love you. I want to have a relationship with you. He said, well, Jack, I didn’t know that. I already know that. I’m a Christian. I understand that. But are you going through loneliness? The reason why you’re going through it is because there is some sort of blockade or some sort of obstruction between you and your God. And you need to get that settled.
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pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called Disciplines of Desolation. Thanks for being with us today. We really do appreciate you being here. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Disciplines of Life. It’s a series that highlights the disciplines of a Christ follower and the high cost of sharing our faith with others. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
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Are you watching what’s happening but wondering what it means? Every day brings new headlines but not always real answers. In Happening Now, Pastor Jack Hibbs breaks it all down through the lens of Scripture. Clear, direct, grounded in truth. From global events to cultural shifts, you’ll see what the others miss and why it matters. Watch the latest episode now at jackhibbs.com.
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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.
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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.
