ANNOUNCER: The following program is sponsored by
generous friends and partners of Real Life.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: Jesus Christ is the first and the last, the eternal God
who came into this world to die in the cross, to be resurrected
from the dead and to grant you or to gift you eternal life.
ANNOUNCER: In today's message, The Battlefield of Life, Jack
Hibbs reminds us your defense lies in God's hands. For
believers, nothing can separate us from Christ.
Get out your Bibles. Real Life starts now.
ANNOUNCER: Is God different than He used to be, more tolerant of
sin. More politically correct. In today's world, many are
trying to reshape God to fit modern ideas, leading to
confusion about His true nature. This confusion has even seeped
into some churches. In 'The Eclipse of God', bestselling
author Erwin Lutzer reveals how our culture is trying to make
God more inclusive, and accepting of things that the
Bible clearly says are wrong. But God's character hasn't
changed. His truth remains the same, and He calls us to stand
firm in it. Even as the world around us shifts. Pastor Jack
Hibbs says, many people hold to a horribly distorted view of
God. Pastor Lutzer shows us how to engage with the culture
lovingly, boldly, and effectively. This book comes at
a critical hour. 'The Eclipse of God' will be sent to you When
you make a gift of any amount to Real Life
today, visit JackHibbs.com or call
(877)777-2346 to get your copy. Order now.
JACK: Well listen, come what may Your defense is in God's hands.
I think we do think about that a little bit in life, where we
begin to realize, oh my goodness, what's going on? Look,
even here in Southern California, when the ground
begins to shake, people begin to call out upon God. But I'm
talking about you, the believer come what may in life. Your
defense is God Himself, and the fact of the matter is, is that
He has promised us to be our defender. He has promised us to
be the one that watches over us. He is our great refuge. He's our
protector. The Bible tells us over and over again as an
example to run into Him like a fortress. It's quite amazing to
realize that as a fortress, the book of Romans in chapter 8,
verse 34 says, who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died.
Now, I can think of a lot of people who want to condemn me
and you, but Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen.
Who is even at the right hand of God who makes intercession for
us. Jesus is praying for us to the Father and His prayers get
answered. You can count on that. So we've got to come to the
conclusion, the fact that His life is now my life to be a
follower of Jesus. It's glorious and it's awesome, that as the
hallmark of the believer is the fact that Christ is now in
control of your life. Living his life out of you from the inside.
So listen, grab your Bibles. We're looking at a study today
titled The Battlefield of Life. Always remembering
the scripture declares that we are more than
conquerors through Christ who loves us.
JACK: Now watch this. If you detect some divine sarcasm in
here, I think it's because Paul's laying it on 1
Corinthians 15 verse 13. He says, but if there's no
resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. By the way,
the world would love to leave that right there, wouldn't they?
And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, and your
faith is also empty. Wow. Yes, and if we are found false
witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised
up Christ whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead do not
rise For if the dead do not rise, then Christ does not
risen. And if Christ has not risen, your faith is futile.
You're still in your sins. You know what's awesome about that?
You're still in your sins. Now, the Christian, listen, the
Christian hears this and says, yeah, yeah, okay, good. Keep
reading. No problem. Because the real Christian here in this room
right now, or maybe you're watching by TV or by whatever
modes you're watching right now, the real Christian knows
something. They know they're not in their sins anymore. You
understand that the Holy Spirit has already born witness to the
real believer, Hey, do you remember when your sins used to
control you? Sure do. Isn't it awesome now that they don't
control you anymore? Sure is Lord, thank you. Everything that
Paul is saying, the Christian is not fretting. It's like, oh,
pastor, that's very threatening. When he was saying, oh no. Oh
no. What if the Christian today is saying, keep reading, just
keep on reading. It's all good. That's why I'm telling you that
Paul is laying it on remarkably, powerfully. And if Christ has
not risen, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. Then
also those who have fallen asleep or died in Christ have
perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are
of all men the most pitiable. Pathetic. But now Christ is
risen from the dead. In verse 20, he just shuts the door.
Christ has risen from the dead. You say, well, that's your
opinion. It's not my opinion. It's a matter of fact. For a lot
of reasons, but one of them is thousands of people just in one
service alone here today at this service can bear witness to the
fact that you've been transformed from the inside out.
That the work of God is literally something that you can
qualify by changed lives, and Paul's is one of the most
amazing changed lives. You see, our lives now are wrapped up in
Him. It's the power of the gospel. So who is this Jesus?
Watch this. John is recording the vision of the Book of
Revelation and notice who he's speaking with or who is speaking
to him. And when I saw Him, capital H. You'll see who this
is in a moment. John says, I fell that his feet
is dead, but he laid his right hand on me saying
to me, do not be afraid. I'm the
first and the last. Okay, if you know your Old Testament, you
just found out that the God of the Old Testament is speaking to
John. There's only one first and last ladies and gentlemen,
there's not two. In fact, to have two is to commit blasphemy,
which in the Old Testament would have you stoned to death. God
says, there's only one first in the last. There's only one. Who
was is to come the Almighty. Are you tracking only one. Only one.
Think about all of those religious founders I mentioned a
moment ago that ever even had the chutzpah, the thought of
saying such a thing. None of them have said what Jesus says,
verse 18, I am He who lives and was dead and behold I'm alive
forevermore. Amen. Wow. And I have the keys to Hades and of
death chapter 2 verse 8, and to the angel of the church at
Smyrna, right. These things says the first and the last who was
dead and came to life. If somebody ever tells you that
Jesus Christ never claimed to be God, correct them regarding
their biblical ignorance. This is a profound declaration of
deity. None other than the very name of the Old Testament God.
Jesus applies to Himself and not only that says, I lived, I died
and I'm now living again. That's exactly what and who you need to
take care of the sin question and to guarantee your entrance
into eternal life, a loving, holy working savior. That is
almighty God. What a great, great truth this is and for the
life of the believer, I'm telling you right now, friends,
if this Bible is true and I'm being sarcastic right now, if
it's true, don't you think we ought to see evidence of it? No,
we do archeologically. That's fine. We do historically, fine.
But if this God of the Bible lives and this Bible is true
ought not there to be evidence in our lives now? I have no
stomach to have a spectator relationship with this almighty
God. If God moved then, then I believe He can move now. Don't
you think things are bad enough for Him to move? How much worse
can it get? I guess I shouldn't put it that way. Much worse. But
isn't it bad enough? This is the worst our nation has ever been,
and our culture, marriage life, friends, children on and on a
goes think of it. And we can sit around and go, oh, it's just so
bad. So wait a minute, did not God know that these days would
be here right now? Yes. That's why you've been born, into these
days. That's why you're here right now. I dunno if you know
this or not, but there's people who get together on Friday
mornings and pray for these seats. You might say, well, I
don't care. My parents said If I go, they'll buy me breakfast
this morning. I just came for breakfast. Yeah, little do you
know that you were prayed for, even though we don't know you.
And God used your parents to bribe you with breakfast, and
you're going to hear truth today that's going to make you think
and you're going to make a decision in your head. And
you're going to have to sit with it, trust me, because what we're
saying is not human. It's supernatural. You see, is it
over now and you're going to leave? No. And by the way, it's
not over now. We have a long way to go. We you leave. You won't
be able to get this stuff out of your head. You want to know why?
Because the spirit of God's going to go home with you, and
He's going to be tapping on your heart, all of this truth. Jesus
Christ is the first and the last, the eternal God who came
into this world to die on the cross, to be resurrected from
the dead and to grant you or to gift you eternal life. But He
didn't leave us alone when He went back to heaven. I'm going
to read you a section of scripture. I always get so
excited about this. These two passages from these two chapters
have meant everything in my life, for over 40 years. It's
been incredible. First one is John chapter 14, verse 6. You
guys know this verse by John chapter 14, verse 6 says, Jesus
said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me. Isn't that kind of boy, that's
narrow, isn't it? Oh, you Christians you're so narrow
minded. We're not narrow minded. We're narrow instructed. Because
Jesus said, I'm the truth. I'm the way, I'm the life. There's
no other. That shouldn't offend you. That should come as a great
relief to you. The God took upon human skin, to go to the cross,
to pay the debt that you and I owe him for our sins, that we
could never pay. Can you imagine somebody writing a check right
now? Can you imagine somebody, come on, you go home today and
somebody says, how much do you owe in your house? A trillion
dollars. I live in California. I owe a trillion dollars for my
shack. And that person writes a trillion dollar check and says,
here, your house is yours now. You'd be pretty excited about
that. What if you had a debt that could not, you couldn't
find the currency to pay the debt. It wouldn't be in dollars
or crypto. There's nothing, but blood and then you apply your
blood, sweat and tears to it and it's not enough. And then Christ
steps in and says, are you done now trying to save yourself
because that's what I did for you at the cross 2000 years ago.
What you're searching for was already done. The problem is
you've not connected the dots. And I'm knocking on the door of
your heart. No one comes to the Father except through me. Verse
16, I will pray the Father and He will give you another helper.
Notice capital H. It's parakletos. It's another name
for the Holy Spirit. That He may abide with you forever. He's not
an it. My Jehovah witness, friends, the spirit of God is
not an it. He's a, He is God. The Holy Spirit that He may
abide with you for how long? Forever. The spirit of truth
whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor
knows Him, but you know Him for he dwells with you. Every true
believer knows this, and shall be in you or will be in you. I
will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. This is Jesus
speaking to the disciples. I'm leaving. I'm going back to
heaven. Don't worry. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit up until
now, you guys have walked with me. But when the spirit of God
comes, He's going to come inside of you. And He's going to secure
you for heaven. In fact, the next passage, John 16, but these
things I have told you, verse 4, that when the time comes, you
may remember that I told you of them verse 7. Nevertheless, I
tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.
You never would've agreed with Jesus if you were walking with
Him 2000 years ago. And He says to you, it's after all the
things you've seen and heard from Him, and he says, it's
better for you now that I leave. Excuse me, I love you, Jesus.
You're amazing. We've been doing okay up until now. I don't think
you leaving is a good idea. Up until then, listen, the
disciples walked in his shadow. Can you imagine if anybody was
going to beat up on Peter or somebody, they could just run to
Jesus, Pharisees and the Sadducees start coming with
their religious garb to mess with your mind. All you had to
do if you were Andrew, Jesus! You ever seen a little kid like
that? I heard a story recently. It's kind of a place to this
where this little guy, he was just a little guy. He was in
junior high, little guy and everybody made fun of him
because he is so little, and so people take advantage of him. I
don't know if you know this, I dunno if you know this or not,
but bullying, you can talk about bullying all you want. It's
never going to stop. You can pass laws, you can do all that
stuff. You can't do a thing about it because you can't
change the human heart. Only God can change the human heart. Kids
are going to bully other kids. Terrible. So this one guy, we'll
just call him Freddy. Freddy keeps beating up on little
Bobby, and Phil was this big Christian kid and his heart was
broken. He sees this little guy, Bobby getting beat up all the
time and it just made him sick and one day he just couldn't
take it anymore. And so he went over to Freddie and just grabbed
Freddie by the throat, I mean just a beautiful sight. He
didn't punch him, he just grabbed him by the throat, and
he just shook him a little bit, and said, leave him alone, or
you have to deal with me. And the guy backed off. That's what
bullies do you know. When you grab 'em by their throat, then
they back off. And I heard in that story that from that moment
on, little Bobby, wherever, who's the good guy? Phil? Phil.
So wherever Phil was at, little Bobby was at. Wherever Phil
showed up, there's little Bobby. If Bobby ever felt threatened,
he would move closer to Phil. I think that's very good. If you
ever feel threatened, you should move closer to Jesus. Just hang.
Stay in Jesus's shadow. Bobby stayed in Phil's shadow, because
Phil said, nobody messes with this little kid. God is saying
to you right now, everything that's going on in life,
nothing's getting past God. It's all going to come to a grand and
full reckoning someday. It's all going to come to a day of
judgment. If there's no judgment, then there is no God.
Because to be a holy righteous God, you have to have judgment.
The difference will be will you be judged? Listen, will you be
judged with Christ as your advocate or not? According to
the Bible on that day, you'll either have court Christ or you
won't. It's your choice. But what a powerful thing this is
that God says, I will put my spirit in you. In the book of
Ezekiel, God prophesied and He said that there's a day coming
when I will no longer deal with Israel according to the law and
the commandments that I gave them, that they broke. But a day
will come when I will do away with the first commandment and
bring a second, when I will dwell within them. I will set up
camp within the heart. And so John chapter 16 goes on, and
this is so, so comforting. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth, verse 7, to your advantage that I go away for if
I do not go away, the helper, the Holy Spirit will not come to
you. But if I depart, I will send him to you, and when He has
come, He will convict the world of sin. Did you know that? He's
convicting the world of sin right now and even listen and
his children too, you and I, when we do something wrong,
doesn't He convict us? He says, Jack, what are you doing? We
don't do that anymore. And to the world, he convicts the world
of sin. I know it doesn't seem like it, but He does. The word
of God's faithful. And of righteousness and of judgment of
sin because they do not believe in me, because I go to my father
and you see me no more, because the ruler of this world is
judged a reference to Satan. Listen to this. I still have
many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. The
word bear them now means you cannot take what I'm about to
tell you. You're going to have to have an internal witness to
emboss this into your soul. That's why the spirit of God
needs to come. Look. Verse 13, however, when He the spirit of
truth has come, He will guide you. Notice this. It is the Holy
Spirit that guides the believer into all truth. For he will not
speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will
speak. And He, the Holy Spirit will tell you things to come. He
will glorify me for He will take of what is mine and declare it
to you. Is that awesome? The Holy Spirit, Christian, you must
be acquainted with the Holy Spirit in your life. Jesus is in
heaven. It's the Holy Spirit that's in you, speaking to you
about God's truth. Leading you along the way, and you want to
ask yourself, always, am I dependent upon the Holy Spirit?
The Bible says, watch out. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. He's
the one that is with us. Look at verse 35 and verse 36, who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation,
distress or persecution, listen, famine, nakedness, peril or
sword? That pretty much covers it, doesn't it? I mean, there
may be something that you're saying is going on in your life,
but it's going to fall under any one of these described in this
category here, tribulation, hardship, hard times, trying
times, distress. Do you ever feel like you're being crushed,
by the weight of this world, the pressures of this world, the
evil of this world? And so mark this down if you would please.
Your security is guaranteed as a believer, and we don't any
longer need to worry about the outcome of it. You're safe in
the hands of God according to The Word. Look, it says, who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? It means it's
impossible to be separated from the love of Christ. There's no
way that you can be detached from the love of Christ. The
question is today, are you a true follower of Jesus? Are you
really His? And you see this word separate or to separate?
Look at this meaning of this word. It's awesome to divide in
half, or into sections, to make into parts or into pieces. The
Bible says, for the believer, watch, I'm going somewhere
with this watch, hang on, that you cannot
ever be cut into pieces regarding you in Christ. It's
not possible. You can't be divided up.
JACK: So listen, God says, you are my child. It's the statement
He makes. You didn't make it up. The Bible says, so God sent that
message to us. You are his child. That means you and I
cannot be separated from God. God says, you're not going to be
separated from me if you're my child. Maybe you and I can think
a body being dismembered, cut up. How gross is that? A head
there, an arm there, a foot over there. Listen, God does not do
that stuff. The body of Christ is united even in spirit based
on The Word of God, but we belong to Him. He's not going to
cut us up. We belong to the body of Christ. He leads us in that
way. The spirit of God is the seal, the down payment of your
eternal life. It's the Holy Spirit in you. And you and I
need to realize that the reality of this remarkable truth is what
we carry into the battlefield of this world because it's the
world that says that this is right or that is right. It's the
world that takes these shots at us. That's what the world does,
and it's the world that is saying, we want to run your
life. But listen, why do you think they're saying that like
that with such passion? It's because truth is at war with
falsehood. Christianity is exactly the opposite.
Christianity is the truth warring against the darkness.
What Christ did for us at the cross is that He bought you and
I and because He bought you and I, you and I, if we're going to
be wise, we'll surrender to Him. We will come to him and
surrender and we'll say something like this. Isaiah
taught us this in chapter 6 of Isaiah. Here I am Lord, send me.
Here I am. That's a statement of full surrender. And listen, are
you willing to let your life be surrendered to God so that He
might live it out through you? There's no other way to live, my
friend. Listen, you can find out more by going to JackHibbs.com.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, all the social media
platforms are there, but listen, grow in the grace and the
knowledge of Jesus. Until next time, God bless you.
ANNOUNCER: You are watching Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
ANNOUNCER: Is God different than he used to be? More tolerant of
sin, more politically correct? In today's world, many are
trying to reshape God to fit modern ideas, leading to
confusion about His true nature. This confusion has even seeped
into some churches. 'In the Eclipse of God', bestselling
author Erwin Lutzer reveals how our culture is trying to make
God more inclusive, and accepting of things that the
Bible clearly says are wrong. But God's character hasn't
changed. His truth remains the same, and He calls us to stand
firm in it. Even as the world around us shifts. Pastor Jack
Hibbs says, many people hold to a horribly distorted view of
God. Pastor Lutzer shows us how to engage with the culture
lovingly, boldly, and effectively. This book comes at
a critical hour. 'The Eclipse of God' will be sent to
you when you make a gift of any amount to Real
Life today. Visit JackHibbs.com or call
(877)777-2346 to get your copy. Order now.
ANNOUNCER: Life is full of fear, doubt and worry. The more you
listen to and see the world today, the easier it is to feel
hopeless and helpless. Amidst the confusion of Voice of Hope
has emerged, the Real Life Network founded by Jack Hibbs,
the Real Life Network is a free digital media platform void of
the noise of secular media that attacked people of
faith. Click on the QR code or sign up for
free at reallifenetwork.com. Fast forward your faith.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life Radio with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: God's word never will return
void. God's Word is spirit. It's power
and it has its effect. God did not give us a Bible prophecy to
scare us, but to prepare us, you are the light of the world.
Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth. How does that happen?
ANNOUNCER: Jack Hibbs truly believes we are living in some
of the most exciting days in history, which brings some great
opportunities to share with the world a powerful, no-nonsense
presentation to the gospel, to this generation, who are
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