ANNOUNCER: The following program is sponsored by
generous friends and partners of Real Life.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: Here you go. There's one God. One God, and He is
sovereign. He's the creator. He's the savior. He's the
redeemer. He's God almighty. He's the one who was, who is,
who is to come. He's the eternal God. He's the alpha and the
Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and
the last. There's no other. He's the one.
ANNOUNCER: Today, discover the unparalleled grace and power of
God's perfect sovereignty. Join Jack Hibbs as he explores the
depths of His goodness and the wonder of His divine reign over
all creation in the message, God's Good, Good Sovereignty.
ANNOUNCER: Every day brings us closer to the fulfillment of
God's prophetic promises. Christ's return is certain and
His Word is full of hope for those who trust in Him. In "One
Day Nearer: Daily Devotions in Anticipation of Jesus' Glorious
Return" by Steve Miller, you'll discover 365 devotions that
explore the incredible truths of Bible prophecy. These daily
readings will remind you of God's love, His wisdom and
sovereignty as you look forward to Christ's return. This
devotional will help you focus on eternity, persevere through
life's challenges, and live with hope and joy in God's unchanging
promises. "One Day Nearer" is our thank you gift for a
donation of any size to real life. Visit jackhibbs.com or
call 877-777-2346 to request your copy. Order now.
(Music)
JACK: God's good, good sovereignty. That's not a
contradiction. That's not an oxymoronic statement. An
oxymoron is trying to put two opposite things together. That's
not what I'm talking about. I'm actually talking about the God
of the Bible who is all sovereign and He is all good. In
fact, the good, good sovereignty of God should bring you
tremendous comfort, my friend. It should cause you to
experience the goodness of God. Listen to this. This verse of
the Bible is probably one of the most famous, but it's also often
misquoted, but please listen carefully. In Romans chapter 8,
verse 28, the Bible says, "For we know that all things work
together for good to those who love God, to those who are
called according to His purposes." Listen, "For whom He
forknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His
son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren."
Listen to this, "Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also
called. And whom He called, these He also justified. And
whom He justified, these He also glorified." Friends, what does
that mean? It means this, It means that God, before there was
ever a Jupiter, a Mars, the sun, the physical universe, before
there were ever angels created, God in His eternal existence
knew in His mind, based on His foreknowledge, that He would
know you. That when the gospel would be presented, you would
either say yes or no. He knew that before time ever began. He
doesn't make you make a decision. He just knows in
advance that you're going to make a decision based upon His
gospel message. Joshua said, 'Choose today whom you'll
serve." That is in perfect harmony with the sovereignty
of God, and your responsibility to respond to God's good, good
sovereignty. So grab your Bibles and let's dive
into this study right now together.
(Music)
JACK: The Bible teaches there's God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit. One God who manifests Himself in three
persons. How do you understand that? I don't understand that.
Somebody will say it's like an egg. There's the shell and the
yolk and the white. No, He's not like an egg. It's like water,
ice and vapor. No, He's not. We can do our best. The best I can
figure out is this. Imagine one house, you've heard me say this
before, a house with an address. That address is 1, 2, 3 Heavenly
Lane, and at that one address, inside live three distinct
individual persons, yet they all have the same last name. Right?
So we would say a papa bear, mama bear and baby bear, so to
speak. But in my mind, that's as close as I can get. God is
beyond our capacity to grasp. In fact, it's going to take all
eternity. How fun is this going to be to learn about His nature?
But we learned these three things in our study last time
together, that He is Himself righteous. He doesn't have to
try to be, He is righteous. And that He's merciful. Isn't that
amazing? Listen. He's righteous, He's merciful, He's
compassionate. And we're all talking, listen, we're all
talking about the sovereignty of God. We're not talking about a
God that is cynical. We're not talking about a God that's
capricious and whimsical. We're talking about God's sovereignty,
but His nature is one whereby He is compassionate, He's merciful
and He's righteous. We should all be very thankful that this
is the nature of our God. What if there was a God who ruled the
universe and He was maniacal? In fact, what if He was Lucifer
himself? What a horrible thing that would be. We so much take
it for granted that God is good, God's good, good sovereignty is
also anchored to His justice. In verses 16 to 18, that God is
just in His plans. All of God's plans according to the Bible. We
could also say the will of God is just. God is just. In the
sovereignty of God, He's a just God. Now, we hear a lot... in
fact, can I put it this way? None of us are just. "Well, I'm
the President of the American Justice Committee." I don't
care. Justice is an attribute of God. Man is unjust. By fallen
nature we are unjust. Did you know that? He's just. He's the
only one who is just. And this is interesting that God gave us
the rule of law. That's not just an American thing. That's just
not a founding father thing. The rule of law comes from a
Judeo-Christian worldview, but ultimately the rule of law comes
from the 10 Commandments, God's law. It just so happens that
even if you've never heard the 10 Commandments, the 10
commandments are written in your soul. The Bible says He's
written it upon your heart. Why? Because you and I must function
by the rule of law, God's law. Now, is it possible for you to
refute or to stand against a bad law? Are there bad laws?
Anybody? Wow, that was... that was loud. Yes. You must all be
from California who just said that. Yes, there's bad laws.
There are laws on the books that offend the Almighty God because
He's just, He's just in all of His plans. He says in verse 16,
"So then it is not of Him who wills." Notice it's lowercase H,
humans. So then it's not to a human or for of a human to will
their own destiny. They don't will their own beginning. They
don't will their own ending. I know that offends some people.
You just came from psychobabble course 101 and they told you in
that course that you are the... you're the captain of your ship,
you are the creator of your destiny, you know, all of these
self-help programs. And people don't like to mix self-help
programs in with the Bible. You want to know why? The Bible has
zero tolerance for self-help programs. Because self-help
programs keep you and I from coming to the cross. They keep
insinuating to us that we can reform ourselves when we cannot.
We cannot will anything. We're not sovereign. Now, God in His
infinite creation and His powers has built within the creature,
us, sovereignty to choose, sovereignty to love. Did you
know that? Sovereignty to act, sovereignty to be, sovereignty
to do. He has built that into you, but that doesn't make you
equal to Him or greater than Him. It's impossible. He who is
sovereign has built into you the one who has been created in His
image a bit of sovereignty. And this is very important, because
with this we see that it is not the will of man, nor is it to
him who runs. No matter what effort you put forward in that
reformation process of trying to be somebody without Christ,
there is no hope. Look it. The end of that verse is great,
great comfort, "But of God who shows mercy." This is so fun.
Why do I revel in the sovereignty of God? Because He
shows mercy. It says it right here. Do you need mercy? I want
mercy. I love mercy. The remarkable thing about mercy is
you don't value mercy unless you realize you need mercy. A lot of
people today, even right now, I'll mention the word mercy and
it's like, "Oh, yeah, well, whatever. Isn't that one of
those old words? Mercy?" Listen, you can hold that view of yours
for a little bit, but when you're in trouble, you're going
to cry out for mercy. Mercy. God is merciful. The Bible says in
Romans 5, verses 8 and 9, "But God demonstrates His own love
toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us." Don't answer, but when it says Christ died for us, who was
Paul talking about? "Christ died for us." Don't answer, just
think. Who is he talking to? "Christ died for us." Verse 9,
"Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall
be saved from wrath through Him." That's a promise in the
Bible, church, God's just plans we're anchored to. And then
secondly, we saw that God is just in His actions. What God
does is always right. By the way, I should drop this in at
this point. When you see things going on in this world that are
wicked and horrible and terrible and murderous and violent and
ugly, and you don't like it... First of all, if you do like it,
you're in the Book of Proverbs, by the way. It talks about you
in the Book of Proverbs. You're a blood-thirsty, lawless
murderer. Most people don't like that stuff. Most people look
around this world and say, it's very, very off the rails. It's
very messed up. And if you're not careful, you begin to blame
God about this world. Don't do that. God could turn right
around and blame you and blame me because this world is doing
what is in the heart of man, the Bible says, without God. James
says, "Where do wars and divisions and fights come from
among you? Do they not come from your own desire to lust and to
have power and to control?" That didn't come from God, but yet
God has given His great message of mercy and forgiveness in
sending Christ to the cross. When I say sending, I should say
gifting. For God so loved the world that He gifted His only
glorified son, His actions. And we touched on this, we'll move
on from here though, but verse 17, some of you wrote me notes
and I really appreciate this. Some of you... it's kind of
cool. I got some notes on verse 17 where people said, "My eyes
were opened," and then I got notes from people saying, of a
certain denominational background, "You're crazy. My
denomination teaches this." And then the opposing denomination
guy wrote me- So these two guys don't get along. They're both
arguing for their human founders, and I got in trouble
from both ends. You know what that means, don't you? That
means I'm right in the sweet spot. If I'm being attacked by
both ends of the opposite ends of the spectrum, sticking just
with the Bible? The light turned on some eyes when I read verse
17, "For the scripture...," that is the Bible, "...says to the
Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may
show my power in you." And I said that that's all the
scripture said in Exodus 9, is that God said, "I've raised you
up, Pharaoh, to show my greatness through you," and
Pharaoh had a choice. In fact, the Bible's going to confirm the
fact that there's the decision that is presented before us,
that we have been given the ability to choose in the
sovereignty of God. What sovereignty of God works if God
brings people to heaven automatically and they're just,
"Whatever. I'm chosen, I'm here." Well, on the flip side,
you might say, what doesn't God just bring everybody into
heaven? Wouldn't that be great? By the way, that is His desire,
is that all men would be saved, but all men don't want to be
saved, and so if He saved everybody in His sovereignty, in
His sovereignty, He could just flex and say, "You are going.
You're going to come to paradise if you like it or not. We're
going to sing up there. You're going to see some amazing stuff
and you're going to like it." Listen, they don't want to be
there. They don't want to go. God's sovereignty is intact and
unrivaled, yet He will not violate someone who says, "I
don't want to be there." Church, when did God know that they
didn't want to be there for all eternity past, foreknowledge.
God knew. Important that you hang onto that. God is just in
His response, just in His response. He says, "That my name
may be declared in all the earth." That was God's plan for
Moses. That was God's plan for Pharaoh. That was God's plan for
Miriam. That was God's plan for Noah. It's God's plan for
everybody. But does it work out that way? Does everybody give
God glory in their life? No, they do not. But will God be
glorified? Always. The Bible even tells us. This is amazing.
The Bible tells us at the end of time, at the judgment, that the
wrath of God, in that wrath He'll be glorified. That He'll
take the unrighteousness of man and glorify Himself in it. I
don't know how that's going to play out, but it's absolutely
remarkable. God's response, Hebrews chapter 3, verse 12, to
this says, "Beware brethren, lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God."
Now, the author, I believe is Paul the Apostle, but that
doesn't matter. The book of Hebrews doesn't announce who
wrote it, but it's so Paul characteristic like. This book
of Hebrews that we're studying on Wednesday night, the letter
is written to Jews who came out of Judaism, that is the
traditions of men, and they found Christ as Messiah. But the
author is saying, "You better follow through now. Now that you
know that Jesus is the Messiah, keep going, keep pressing on,
keep going after Him." Isn't it amazing? The sovereignty of God
says to you and I today, "Keep coming to me, keep coming." That
should bring you encouragement. God wants you with Him. And the
sovereign God doesn't say, "Look, I'm sovereign. You stay
over there." He doesn't have a limousine. Think about it. If we
were bringing our only begotten son into the world, you think
he'd be born in the stable? He'd be born at the Jerusalem Hilton
or Ritz Carlton. Now they got a Waldorf Astoria, that's where
Christ would've been born if we were writing the story. No, He
came humbly and lowly to associate with us. His response
to us is that He loves us and we need to be careful to guard our
hearts about it, having an unbelieving heart. He says,
"Beware brethren." Unbelieving really dovetails into what we're
talking about, because an unbelieving heart is something
that starts out. Now, here's the thing, you and I do not
technically know the conclusion of anyone else in this room
exactly. Now, look, I say that, and you say, "What do you mean
by that?" Well, every true believer knows that they're a
true believer, but we can't exactly know that about somebody
else, but then we can. "See, you're talking out of both sides
of your mouth." I am. It's like this, the Bible says that the
Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons
of God, the children of God. So if that's true in your life, and
it's true in my life, then we are brothers and sisters in
Christ, right? And we are going to go through this journey
called church together. That means we're a family. It means
we work it out, warts and all. Listen, a lot of people sample
churches like they sample, you know, restaurants or something.
Or like Goldilocks, "This bed's too hard. This seat's too- We
can't- Remind me, we can't come back here next week. This chair
is really hard," or it's too big, or it's too small, it's too
warm, it's too cold, but the parking's just perfect. There's
no perfect place. There's not going to be a perfect place. In
fact, listen, did something go wrong? Look, with a group this
size, it's highly possible. Just this one service, did something
go wrong this morning? Did somebody not say hi to you? Did
you run over a cat in the parking lot? Did something go
wrong? If something went wrong? Do you know what that's called?
That's called life. It's how you deal with it. And as Christians,
listen- "That person didn't say hi to me."
- "Who?" - "And they call themselves
Christians." - "Oh, you've talked
to them?" - "No, I've never talked
to them, but..." Right. That's how it is,
right? Isn't that how it is? "Well, you should go
say hi to them." - "Who? Me?"
- "Well, you're bothered by it. Go say hi to them."
- "Well, I can't do that." - "Oh, so you don't have to
do it, but they do. No, you go say hi to them."
- "No one said hi to me today, pastor."
- "You tell me that after service and I'm going to
take you and I'm going to..." Listen, you
want to have friendship brought back to you in a response? Then
you need to show yourself friendly. God is sovereign, and
what does He do with the sovereignty? He invites you and
I into His heaven. That's awesome sovereignty, God's good,
good sovereignty. Yes, Lord, I'll accept that offer. I'll
accept that offer any day. First John 4, verse 14. First John
4:14 says, "And we have seen and testify...." This is beautiful.
This is John, the author of the Book of Revelation. He's old
now. You know he is the only apostle that died of natural
causes, died of natural death? All of the other ones died as
martyrs. John's the only one that died an old man, and he's
old. "And we have seen and testified that the Father has
sent the Son as Savior of the world." Number one, if you are
middle Eastern in this room right now, you're saying, "Wow."
Why? Because any announcement of Son of God, you know
automatically, because you know the scripture's easier, quicker
than we do, that's Jesus being declared God. To be the Son of
God is to be God. Don't think in the western culture that to be
the son of God is less than God, like the Father's six... six
foot five, and the son is six foot, and the Holy Spirit is
three foot nine. No, no, no. That's a Western way of
thinking, and it's wrong. To proclaim that Jesus is the son
of God, is to announce it accurately that He's God the
Son. And look what the Bible says here. John is speaking and
he says that He has sent the Son as Savior of the what? I'm
sorry, what'd you say? World. How come he didn't say, "...and
He sent them as savior of the elect," or the savior of the
chosen, or the savior of the predestined, or the savior of
the-" Are you hearing me? In the death of Jesus at the cross. If
you believe it or not is irrelevant. Well, I mean, it's
relevant to you, but His death on the cross makes opportunity
for all of mankind. He died for the world. Tragically, the whole
world's not going to heaven. In His sovereignty,
He's allowed you to exercise your choosing.
JACK: So friends, listen, it's not, thank God, it's not rocket
science. Listen to this. Don't let anyone or any denomination
fool you into thinking that it's some big complicated thing.
Listen, here's the deal. Don't listen to people, don't listen
to denominations, don't listen to even what your pastor or
church or priest might be saying if it's opposite than the Bible.
And here's what the Bible says, that God has perfect
foreknowledge. In other words, God cannot learn anything. And
when the gospel comes and lands in your ear or you hear the fact
that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose again from
the dead for your justification that the Bible says, "Whosoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life," what should be your response to that message? Lord,
I agree. I'm a sinner. Thank you for dying for me, and I respond
to your message. That truth, God knew for a bazillion trillion
years ago, He didn't learn anything by you making that
decision and He didn't make you make the decision. He knew by
His foreknowledge that when you were presented with the gospel,
you would say yes so that He gets all the credit and all the
glory for giving you the gospel. Right? For giving you the
ability to make a choice. But at the same token, same side of
this, if you reject Him, He knew that too, but that rejection
comes from you. He didn't make you reject Him. Dear friend,
please accept Christ. Please know Him personally. The choice
is yours. It's a choice you must make. If you'd like to know more
about this decision of life, both now in eternity, we'd love
to hear from you. Go to jackhibbs.com and connect with
us there. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram and all
of the platforms that are out there, but we want to know you
and help you with your walk with Jesus. Until then, God bless
you. Stay in the scriptures. Stand strong.
ANNOUNCER: You are watching Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
ANNOUNCER: Every day brings us closer to the fulfillment
of God's prophetic promises. Christ's return is certain and
His Word is full of hope for those who trust in Him.
In "One Day Nearer: Daily Devotions in Anticipation
of Jesus' Glorious Return" by Steve Miller,
you'll discover 365 devotions that explore the
incredible truths of Bible prophecy. These daily readings
will remind you of God's love, His wisdom and sovereignty as
you look forward to Christ's return. This devotional will
help you focus on eternity, persevere through life's
challenges, and live with hope and joy in God's unchanging
promises. "One Day Nearer" is our thank you gift For a
donation of any size to Real Life. Visit jackhibbs.com or
call 877-777-2346 to request your copy. Order Now.
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(Music)
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
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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