Join us on Real Life Radio as Pastor Jack Hibbs delves into the heartening tale of David’s comeback in the series on First Samuel. Witness how David, facing the loss of everything he held dear, grounded himself in faith and was met with divine restoration. This episode illustrates the trials of discouragement and the miraculous power of walking in God’s likeness, mercy, and grace.
He gave us our ephod, the Bible, and we do well and we’ll never err as long as we set it as a lamp and as a light to our feet and to our path. He’ll never allow our ankle to be twisted.
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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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Hey, everybody, have you ever thought about what’s afterlife? Do you know that the Bible teaches life is afterlife? If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, my good friend Philip DeCourcy has written a great book, and that’s the title, Life After Life, Exploring the Bible’s Wonderful Promises About Heaven and Eternity, published by Harrah’s House Publishers. Get a copy for yourself.
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Life After Life by Philip DeCourcy, Exploring the Bible’s Promises About Heaven and Eternity. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com.
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On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series, now called 1 Samuel, and a message titled, Making a Comeback. Now, Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of her prophets. So here, as we continue in chapter 30, we’ll consider how David reacted when everything he had was gone. You see, while David and his men are away, the enemy burns everything to the ground and their wives and children are taken as prisoners. When David returns, he quickly sees that he has lost everything, including his family, his position, and the support of his closest followers. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that David, once again, walked in the Lord’s likeness, mercy, and grace. After a terrible time of discouragement and loss, he makes a comeback, and God restores all that was taken away from him, and so much more. Now, with his message called, Making a Comeback, here’s pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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In 1 Samuel 15, way back, verse 22, Samuel had rebuked King Saul and said, Has the Lord delight in burnt offerings or sacrifices as he does in obeying the voice of the Lord? In other words, God could care less about religion? Do you obey him? Behold, to obey, that is to do what God says is better than sacrifice, and to heed, that is to listen, is better than the fat of rams. People, that’s very important. That is incredibly important. Are you doing, am I doing what God wants me to do? That’s the question. David got up and he did it. Verse 17, God will give you the plan. God will give you and I a plan. When it says that David attacked him from the break of day, he was very successful. Why was the wisdom of God, God told him to do this? And by doing so, by the way, This is justice being rained down upon these attackers. I don’t know how you handle that. You know when the Bible says, God says to David, I want you to go in there and kill all these people. You might look at David, well, he’s some kind of a terrorist. God is somehow mean or evil. No, he’s not at all. The Bible’s very clear. You will reap what you sow. It’s very important. We want to skew the lines and we want to… you know, dilly-dally with life and with things. For the life of me, I don’t understand how somebody can kill someone. I mean, kill them. An unarmed man in a park. A gang initiation attacks an old man, slices him up, and leaves him for dead to bleed to death. And people just to hint… Well, you know what? This is the only culture this guy knew. He grew up in a gang. He didn’t know anything else. And he was just trying to earn the favor of his, you know, fellow gang members. And you can’t blame him. Now, you see where this goes? You say, well, you know, when you put it that way, maybe you can’t blame him. Sin demands payment. Who’s going to pay? Restitution must be made. Who’s going to make restitution? Are you saying an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? That’s exactly what the scripture says when it comes to justice. You say, well, I don’t buy it. Well, you need to study history and sociology and find out how men and how societies are controlled because it’s in the heart of the human being to be rebellious. And God levies an attack. God has a plan. Look at verses 18 to 19. God will give the victory that is in restoration. So David recovered all. Look at the end of verse 19. David recovered all. He rescued his wives. And everything that these men had lost… Look at verse 20. God will give you the reward. This is amazing to me. Then David took all the flocks and the herds, and the men said, this is David’s spoil. When you decide, when you and I decide to make our way back to God, God will move. And I know that many times in our mind, we’re thinking, I can never get back with God like I once was. Look what’s happening in David’s life. God is establishing him once again. Verses 21 to 26, third point tonight, making a comeback in the walk of faith, that is, walk in his likeness, in the likeness of God, no doubt. We learn a lot from David. And I love these closing verses. Now David came to the 200 men who had been so weary that they could not follow David. What would you have said to them? What would you have announced to them? Well, they could not follow David, whom they had also made stay at the brook Besor. I want you to jot this down. Verse 21 teaches us, if we’re going to walk in the likeness of God, we learned a great thing here from David. We need to walk in God’s mercy. We need to walk in the mercy of God. Because who in the world are we to levy judgment on someone in and of ourselves? God is judge. God is supreme over all. He’s the ruler of the universe. Now watch this. David, when he comes to the 200 men that frankly pooped out, he had to go on into the battle 200 men less. So when he comes back to them, it says in verse 21 that he comes back to the 200 men who were so weary. What I want to learn is how David is going to handle this. It says that they could not follow. I just simply need to say this. Whenever God does a work, he will never prostitute his church or his children to get a job done. God is more interested in the missionary than he is the mission. God can accomplish the mission. He can send an angel from heaven or a donkey from the zoo and get the mission done. But he uses people. But God will never… Abuse people. Whenever God is involved in a ministry, they won’t abuse people. I got a letter two weeks ago from a woman who came from a certain background of denomination who moved out this way, stumbled into this church a few weeks ago, and you guys began to love on her. You didn’t know who she was. She didn’t know who you were. You began to love on her. And She writes me this letter and she says, now I know that for many, many years I was involved in a cult. It was a self-proclaimed cult. They took all of her money. They made her sell things and give them money. God told me to tell you. That’s what the whole thing was. God told me to tell you to sell your car and give the money to me. That’s what God said. You say, well, how can a person think like that? My opinion, those are demonic powers that are surrounding people to lead them astray. And thank God she got out. David walks in mercy. I love that. Well, let’s see what mercy gives way to. Verse 21, he walks in grace. So they went out to meet David. These are the 200 guys. So they went out to meet David and and to meet the people who were with them. And when David came near to the people, he, what does it say? He greeted them. He doesn’t say, you know what, you bunch of losers, get away from me. We had to go fight this battle on our own. He didn’t say that to them. Mercy and grace. Mercy, he goes to them. Grace, he greets them. This all happens, church, listen, we’re almost done. This all happens post-renewal. Post David’s back on track again. We could say that’s how we are as we follow Christ. Post David. resurrection in our lives what did jesus say when he rose again from the dead go tell my disciples that i go before them i go ahead of them to galilee isn’t that great and everywhere jesus went he met them go go tell them to meet me there and they go and then he shows up they’re in the upper room he shows up don’t you love it and he freaks him out too because he just goes he just shows up he’s there hey and they all and he says don’t be afraid it’s me Why? They were afraid. They thought they had seen a ghost. Thomas goes, ah, you know, a ghost. And he says, Thomas, handle me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bone as you see me have. And they’re all like, oh my goodness, this is so cool. And Thomas falls on his face and says, my Lord and my God. And he goes into worship. Jesus vanishes without opening the door. Resurrected. Grace. Everywhere Jesus shows up, mercy and grace. Post-resurrection, of course, for him, he was always merciful and gracious. But what about resurrection in our life? Now that we’re a Christian, what are we to do? We’re to walk in his likeness. Exercise mercy. Is it easy to not exercise mercy? Of course it is. Mercy. Mercy is not giving somebody a spanking when they deserve it. Or mercy is if you’re gonna levy something on them, you don’t do it. They completely qualify to be spanked and you don’t spank them. That’s mercy.
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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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Grace. See, mercy, you don’t discipline them. You may talk to them about it, you know. You should have been disciplined for this or this is a terrible thing. Do you understand that? Yes, I understand that. You know, you think about people who can exercise this power perhaps most often in any given day is a parent, for one thing, and a police officer. Think about it. I mean, if you’re a police officer, and I know there’s a lot of police officers today, Just a while back, I saw somebody get pulled over, and it wasn’t some big, huge offense. I could figure out why he was getting pulled over. But I thought, you know what? He just got pulled over. I think I just did that like three miles back. I think I crossed over too soon in an intersection. You’re not supposed to do that, you know? So then I began to think for a moment. I was on my way to Home Depot, and I’m driving there, and I figured that in about a mile, I think I probably made three mistakes. When’s the last time you turned your signal indicator on 100 yards before, or 100 feet, 100 feet before you make a turn? Huh? I change lanes, then put it on to let the guy know that I’m here. In California, you know, you turn your blinker on, and that means to the guy, speed up, cut him off! Did you know that? That’s what it means in California. You don’t put your blinker on. I don’t even see cops use their blinkers anymore. They’ll never get over. Anyway, that’s my justification of it. But honestly, I’m sure if a police officer would just sit there, he could pick out three things in a mile that we do wrong. He could write us up for everything. But there’s mercy. That’d be something if, you know, you really blew it, the cop pulls you over, says, look at you. I could cut you off the jail right now. I could take out this pin and ruin your life. See this badge? State of California’s behind it. The once greatest economy in the nation. Oh, Lord, help this state. And he says, but you know what? Look at it. It’s noon. I’m taking you to lunch. And I’m going to pay. That’s grace. Getting what you don’t deserve. David’s like that. He greets them. Hi, you guys. How you doing? Tremendous. Verse 24, he walks in generosity. I love this. He walks in generosity. That’s how you and I are to be. It says, verse 24, but as his part is who goes down to battle, so shall his part be who stays by the supplies. They shall share alike. What does that mean? Well, just preceding these verses, the guys that went to battle, you know the 400 guys? A bunch of them said, these lowlifes, don’t give them anything, David. Give them their wives and their kids. I mean, that’s okay. But don’t give them anything of the spoils of our great victory. David says, now calm down. We can’t do that. Listen to the integrity of this guy. King David says, you know what we’re going to do? The guys who went to war are just as important as the guys, I think, who’s got the old King James? Does it say anything about keeping the beans? Guarding the stuff. The guys who went to war and the guys who guarded the stuff that were too tired to go with us, we all get the same. We get the same cut. Don’t you think that’s cool? I think that’s great. The guy that’s sitting in a, you know, the guy that’s sitting on some mountaintop in the U.S. Air Force guiding something, you know, and it’s flying over Iraq, and the guy, there’s a guy in the plane getting shot at, and there’s a guy sitting on a mountaintop, you know, in Germany going, yeah, you’re looking good, you’re looking good. They’re all in it together. They’re sharing the victory. I think that’s pretty cool. David says, no, no, no, no. You know what? We’re gonna walk like God. We’re gonna walk like Jesus. We’re gonna be generous, merciful, gracious. That’s a sweet thing. By the way, jot it down. We’re out of time. I’ll paraphrase it. You can look it up later. Put it down right next to verse 24 in your Bible, on your margin. Write down Matthew 20, verses 1 through 15. You already had it enter your head. You already know where I’m going. Matthew 20 verses 1 to 15 is the great, great parable that Jesus told about the man who owned a vast kingdom. And he says, I tell you what, here’s the story. A guy, the owner of the fields had a lot of work to do. So he hired these guys at 10 bucks for the entire day. And he said, will you work for me for 10 bucks a day? And they said, we sure will. And he said, okay, great, go to work. Great. So then half the day goes by and the master realizes, wow, we’re not getting enough done. I need to go get some more guys. Now remember, there’s only a half day remaining. Hey, will you guys will agree to work in my field for 10 bucks? Ten bucks? Sure. They come to work. Then he realizes we’ve only got one hour left. The sun’s going to set. We’re still not done. He goes and he hires a guy and he says, will you work this final hour to get my crop harvested for ten bucks? The guy says, ten bucks? That’s great. You bet. Jesus says, then why would you call me evil? Why would you call me mean when each of you agreed to work for me for a certain price? For you, you agreed to work for me all day long for 10 bucks. You were happy with that. For you, half day. You were happy with that. You, one hour. Now all you guys are upset and arguing about one another. Well, you know what? That’s not fair. We’re going to form a union. Jesus says, why would you call me mean and difficult for my generosity? Didn’t you agree? Yes. It’s the master’s business what he does. God is generous. So what do you mean by that? I’ll conclude with this because the rest of the closing chapter is just a list of a bunch of people who got blessed because of David and his walk being renewed with God. That’s how it ends. That’s a cool ending. All these people are listed because David followed God. Well, here’s the bottom line. There are people who serve God all their life through difficult times. I think of Hudson Taylor who went to China. You know, three years before he went to China, the guy was eating food in England. conditioning his body for the horrible diet he’s gonna have in China. I don’t know about you, I’m thinking I’m eating pizza and fish and chips before I go to China because we’re not gonna get it there. No, he began to condition his body into the diet that he was gonna have in China. He goes there for 30 years and nothing happens. Leads one guy to Christ, converts one guy to Christ, Hudson Taylor dies and that guy winds up leading a bazillion people to Christ. That’s not fair. Didn’t Hudson Taylor agree to serve God? Yes. Didn’t this guy who leads all these people to Christ agree to serve God? Yeah. It’s amazing. I’ve been working with God all these years, and you know what? He is going to bless you. Yeah, well, you know, my friend just gave his heart to the Lord, and he just wound up winning the lotto. I led him to the Lord. I think I should get half. Weren’t you content to follow God? Don’t look at someone else. Follow the Lord. And so the chapter concludes with these list of names that none of us can pronounce except for a few of them. You say, well, who are they? All I can tell you is that they are people who got super blessed because David came back and renewed his faith in God. all because in a moment of absolute impossibilities, he had no one to consult in but God only. And great blessings came. Church, we’ll learn a great lesson tonight if we stop consulting people and consult God and get the wisdom of God from above, not the wisdom of men from beneath. He gave us our ephod, the Bible, and we do well and we’ll never err. as long as we set it as a lamp and as a light to our feet and to our path, he’ll never allow our ankle to be twisted. Father, we thank you for your word and for the joy of it as we look to the victory of David. Now, this is the man we know. And how many times I wonder, Lord, that you would look to us and say, now, yes, that’s the Jack or that’s the John, that’s the Peggy or the Sue I know. So, Father, we ask you to just absolutely don’t listen to a word we say. Pay no attention to us if we don’t mean business with you. And if we don’t mean business with you, we ask you to change our hearts so that we do. Heavenly Father, we pray, O Lord. that you would baptize us in the power of your Holy Spirit, and from this moment on, we would arise and look now to seek diligently opportunity to be victorious. May we go in the power of God. Father, may we not play games no longer. But may we be, as it were, violent about your promises. That is, Lord, may we take them to heart and stand upon them and do them. And then and only then, Lord, we know that we’ll have true victory and true joy and happiness as we walk with you. So Lord, renew our walk tonight, if anyone here tonight, Their walk has been distant and they have been swallowed up by the cares of this life. Father, tonight, may they right now where they’re at decide, yes, Lord, I’m going to follow you. For Lord, we ask it to all of your glory, to all of your praise. In Jesus’ name and all God’s people said, amen.
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pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called Making a Comeback. 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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So as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you’d like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com slash know God. That’s K-N-O-W, God. And there you’ll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you’ll find in knowing God. Don’t miss out. That’s the Know God tab at jackhibbs.com.
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Pastor Jack, a listener letter from Kevin in South Africa. How about that? He says, I personally have not been a very good Christian for the majority of my 48 years of my walk with the Lord. He says, I wish I had heard you many years ago and then I would not have failed God as much as I have. Kevin says, keep on serving him the way that you have. God bless and thank you, Kevin. Wow, he really shared his heart there, didn’t he?
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Yeah, Kevin, and wow, thank you for listening from South Africa. Kevin, here’s the amazing thing about the Lord, and please read Joel, the book of Joel in your Old Testament. Why? Because there’s going to be a passage of Scripture in there, Kevin, that God is going to announce to you that the years that have been eaten up by the worm and the canker worm as well and the locusts, all that wasted time or lost time, the Lord is able to bring that time back to you, to renew the time, to bring to you. So, Kevin, here’s the thing. As you and I approach the nearness of Jesus, that you can redeem that past by staying close to him now. Just make that a resolve of yours. I’m going to stay close to Jesus no matter what from here on out, period. And you and I will do it together, Kevin, and I’ll see you in heaven.
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Hey, you know, if you’d like to drop a note of encouragement to Pastor Jack, that’d be awesome. He’d really love to see what you have to say about him and how his ministry’s affected your life. So please do that. Go to the Connect tab at jackhibbs.com. That’s the tab labeled Connect 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.
