Today on Real Life Radio. that the glory has departed. You may be sitting right in church. Very faithful every week. But you're lonely in the church.
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. Did you know there's an easy way to stay informed on the latest biblical events shaping our world today? Check out the Happening Now section at jackhibbs.com.
Now, these live events feature Pastor Jack Hibbs alongside special guests. Diving into current events, cultural shifts, and how they align with biblical prophecy. It's a unique blend of Bible teaching and real-time analysis that helps you make sense of today's headlines through the lens of Scripture. Happening now. It's not just about information.
It's about equipping you with the truth and encouraging you to stand firm in your faith. matter what's happening around you.
Now these discussions are eye-opening, they're thought-provoking. and they're a great way to stay spiritually grounded in a rapidly changing world. Whether you watch live or catch up on past events, Happening now will help keep you connected to God's Word and what's going on in the world today. Visit jackhibbs.com and click on Happening Now. Don't just watch the news, understand it from a biblical perspective.
On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called First Samuel. And a message titled, When the Glory Has Departed, Part 3. Samuel, the last judge of Israel and the first prophet, was called by God. to bring the nation back to true worship. Yet Israel refused to listen and went their own way.
The result was disaster when they faced enemies without first seeking the Lord.
So today Pastor Jack teaches us that when we put God first in our lives, Spiritual victories will come. Our carnal flesh will not defeat us. and we will have a positive impact for Christ. But when we put our trust in ourselves or in the external world, The opposite will happen. Like a slow backward slide, our embittered heart will have no spiritual future.
Now with his message called When the Glory Has Departed, Part 3. Here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs. I'm going to share something with you guys that's really personal. And Jim, you'll remember this. I have had one vision in my life.
And I'm going to tell you what it was. It was about this church. And it was kinda cool. It was in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Barren.
Desert Nothing. And out of the horizon came A cloud. And the cloud, as it approached, I could see that there was a train underneath the cloud, a little train. I mean, it was a short train. It had the engine.
And it had a Flatbed on the back with a big Hat. Big bucket, huge thing. And as it got closer, I noticed there was no train track. It was coming right at me. There's no train track.
As it got closer though, and as a cloud was over this train. I could see the rain falling into the bucket. Mm-hmm. And the bucket would fill up. And It would spill over.
and the water would flow out across the desert and a paradise would Explode in the sand. Beautiful oasis. Then it would go and go and go and go, and up would fill the bucket, and then it would flow over, and boom, there would be this wonderful oasis again through the desert. What was really amazing, what ministered to my heart the most, and I shared it with Jim, and Jim began, God gave Jim the meaning of it. It was wonderful.
As that train got closer to me, having no track in front of it. Every time that train came to the edge of the track that was just underneath it. There was only enough track to Accommodate the wheels and until the front wheel went off that track. And then another, you know, the little kiddie tracks that you train set, another one came in right underneath it. And then it got to the end of that one and this train was moving.
Right underneath it, right underneath it, right underneath it. Enough track just for the moment to keep going. Its mission, deliver fresh water to a dry and thirsty land. And the Lord had shown us that that's what this church is going to do. But you pull the power off of that.
Train. And UN might continue for a while. And a dangerous thing. In our lives, when the power has been pulled off, we're no longer drawing strength. From the Lord.
One of the things That we'll notice is that we don't have any more power anymore to fight the things of the flesh. We will call upon the name of God, we'll claim to be Christians, and yet we're dabbling in pornography.
Something's seriously wrong. We name the name of Christ, we call ourselves Christians, but we're still drawn that line of cocaine.
Something is wrong. I am not going to sit in judgment on someone's soul. I can't. It's not my place. But the Bible says, come out from among the world and be separate.
How do you do that? You can't do that unless you are seeking and holding fast to the power of the Holy Spirit. His power And there are families falling apart today. In Christianity. They have in power.
The husband, the father, the mother, the wife, no power anymore. It's tragic. There'll be a continual defeat. By the flesh. The second thing, there'll be an inability to finish the work that you'll Sign up to do.
Are you Raise your hand. Yeah, I'll do that. I'll take care of it and there's no power to complete. There's this gross inability to complete a work that God wants to do in your life. Because as Christians, He's called all of us to serve.
It's gone. We become spectator Christians. Which is an oxymoron, you know, that how can you be a spectator Christian? And you stand on the sidelines and These are hard things. These are convicting things.
We have to look at them. We don't want to go this way. In verse 11 of this chapter, it says, There, and also the ark was captured. And the two sons of Eli Hofney and Finhas died. We see here that there is a negative impact.
For Christ. The sons of the priests died. They're captured. And they were killed. How tragic!
The Bible warns us in First Corinthians chapter five, verse one. It's an amazing thing. 1 Corinthians 5:1. Paul warns us there that in the church at Corinth there was actually sexual immorality going on within the church, and the church allowed it. They tolerated it.
And Paul says, Man, you guys are allowing stuff that not even the Gentiles do. The non-believers don't even do this stuff. And what happened to these two men? Happened to a lot of people today, and that is that they give the world a reason to slam the church and to put down Christ. Oh, look, you Christians are no different than anybody else.
You rip people off, you cheat on your income tax, you're this and that. And just absolutely no impact for Christ, powerless. It's very, very sad and very convicting. Number seven, we're going to finish these tonight, as you can tell. We're going to get these done.
Number seven, there will be no spiritual victories. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 4, verse 6: This is now when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout. They said, What does the sound of this great noise in the camp of the Hebrews mean?
Well If you read on, they got whipped again. It me didn't mean anything. They line up there. Whip you, Philistines, you know, like guys on the NFL, they got their faces all blackened and stuff. And they run out there, they get mulled over.
No spiritual victories. Why? How does it apply to our lives? Very quickly. They had no spiritual victories because they were no threat to the Satanic realm.
They didn't mean that. anything to Satan. already whipped. Listen, as Christians, we want to make sure that we are a threat to Satan. They were not a threat.
When the glory is departed from your life, you're no threat to Satan. Don't you want Satan to tremble when when your name is brought up? Oh man, golly, I don't wanna- Oh! You say, well, Jack, we're nothing, you know, to meet Satan. That's right, but listen.
I love the fact that That when we pray, We plug in. to the greatest source of power that the Satanic world trembles. What's the old thing the Puritans used to say it? Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian upon his knees. Isn't that great?
I love it. A Christian where the glory has departed from their lives, no more spiritual victories. They're like a reed blown in the wind, no threat to Satan. They just sit there and they're defeated and they're weary. They don't even know why.
Also, the next thing that happens in their lives is that they become very liberal in their thinking. Uh They're liberal. Thinking will prevail over The scriptures. They'll I have to be careful on this. They'll name the name of Christ and they love, okay, I love God, you know, and yeah, I remember things used to be better for me and the Lord.
And they have no problem condoning and even endorsing and even voting for. abortion or whatever. And yet God says he's against that. God says he's for the life of the unborn. God says in Micah, don't take the fruit of your womb and sacrifice it for your sin.
And yet people vote For people and for a party That says let's let's kill the kids. They're not viable things anyway, just so right. We can use part of them for research. That's a good thing, right? I yeah, I know God and You embrace things that God is dead set against.
How do you reconcile that? Say, man, you're getting really legalistic. I am not, haven't even started yet. And this has nothing to do with legalism. This is holiness.
Holiness You think we're going to get to heaven and murder four thousand four thousand babies a day? Is that what we're doing?
Something like that? And then you call you know a person would call themselves a Christian. I I don't I don't understand that. Liberal in thinking. You'll hear people say, well, you know There's a lot of ways to God and you know don't don't And I hear this all the time from people visiting here.
I hope they're just visiting here. They'll say, you know. This group and that cult, and this person that burns the Bible and stuff, you shouldn't say anything about them because. you know Every person just to find their own way and Then why did Jesus die on the cross? If it's so open, then why did he die on the cross?
Why did he say he was the way, the truth, and the life? Nobody comes to the Father, he said, but through me. If you can make up your own way, then what in the world was Jesus doing? Quickly, another consideration Under spiritual or the lack of spiritual victories here is that there'll be no personal investment in the things of God. In the things of the church.
They're not investing in the church. They're goers, but they're not builders. And this is really sad, and this is very convicting, but nobody in the church. Regarding a person who's the glory's departed from their life, nobody in the church is dependent upon them. That's sad.
Let me put it this way. Is or are there people in the church depending upon you? That's where you want to be, people. That's where we all want to be. That someone.
in the church depends upon you. Maybe it's putting the cones out there, or putting the labels on the cassettes, or having the rows straight, or the carpet cleaned. But is. The church depending upon you for something. I don't mean the church as the name.
What? They're ugly. The the all of us. Are we dependent upon you and upon you and upon me and vice versa? That's the way it's got to be.
That's the way God wants it to be. You're listening to real life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching.
Once again, here's Pastor Jack. Number eight, there will be no spiritual witness. Because the word, remember number one, the Bible is not a priority in your life. You'll have no true worship going on in your life. That leads to a failure to pass on the baton to your kids.
And, like ourselves, or like anyone who's slipping away this way, there's no spiritual awareness in their lives. And that leads to an independence from God, which results in a powerless life. And a powerless life results in no spiritual victories, which generates a very, very poor witness. And how is that? There'll be no spiritual witness in that.
No one around us knows that we follow Jesus. They can't tell you and I apart. if the glories departed from our lives, From anyone else in this world. And that's a very terrible thing. A second thing is that no one asks us to pray.
I thought about this one today and putting this together, how tragic it is. If you name the name of Jesus and yet no one looks to you and and said, will you pray for me? Do your kids come to you and say, Mom, Dad, my throat hurts, or I'm sick, pray for me. And I thought about this, how convicting it is. And the reason why no one asks you to pray, perhaps, if the glory has departed from your life, is that you've never offered to pray for anyone.
They don't know to come to you and pray. Wouldn't it be a great thing if we just started? Can I pray for you? Listen, I've got two people in my life every week, and I'm so blessed every week. One's a woman and one's a man, and God's put it on their hearts to come up to me and say, What can I pray for you for this week?
They've been asking me this for years. Isn't it wonderful? They approached me. That's how I met them. They came to me here and said, Can I?
Pretty few. Give me something to pray for. They stepped out. I guarantee you. When I want someone to pray for me, You know who I call.
I look for them. Is anyone in this church dependent upon you, or would look to you, or would consult you for prayer? Man, this is convicting. I don't want the glory to depart from my life. Thirdly, quickly.
We'll have no desire to tell other people if the glory is departed. We'll have no Desire to tell other people. Number nine, there will be no spiritual influence in our lives. Like Lazarus and John 11, he's given life, but he's got to hobble out of the tomb.
Someone's got to have him.
Okay. Unwrap him. He's got life. But he's bound up. No spiritual insolence.
You may be born again, but you've slipped away. And there's no influence. Number nine. There'll be no spiritual future. There'll be no vision about the future.
How so?
Well, first of all, there's a slow backward slide. As we said earlier, it just happens. It doesn't explode on you. You begin to slip. The second thing is, there'll be a growing, listen, a growing embittered heart.
And we've all met these people. They criticize and chew on everything. Look at this stupid parking lot. Where are we supposed to park? This is ridiculous.
How come the hallways are so narrow? You know, what The ceiling, it's black. What's that all about? I mean, ever on and on, and there's They don't listen, I know this this is hard stuff and I feel sorry for those of you who are visiting tonight, but Think about how convicting this is to the believer in that If you're in that place of No, we'll be in every end. And you're bitter, your heart's bitter.
Amazing. Whenever you and I are bitter and we begin to criticize, do you know who we're actually criticizing? is the Lord. is the Lord's. Uh yesterday heard somebody whining.
on T V about President Bush's approval rate is skyrocketing. And uh Some person was whining and I'm so upset. And uh was just going for it. And um It was wonderful to be sitting And and hear that. And now.
that my God For his purposes Put George Bush in office. I don't have to complain. If the other guy would have gotten in there, I would have had to have remembered. God put him in office. Do you understand that?
The listen, the current The current president of Russia? Who put him there? The Russian people didn't put him there. God put him there. The Queen of England is the Queen of England because God put her there.
Well, you know Go ahead and complain. God put them there. But you can get bitter. About anything.
Well, how come he how come he the pastor. Let me tell you something right now. I did not ask for this job. Let the record show. See me tomorrow.
You can have it. God does these things.
Well, how come she's on the worship group? Be careful. What's your heart? What's your heart? And then finally In your life, The glory has departed.
You may be sitting right in church. Very faithful every week. But you're lonely in the church. You're lonely in the church. You come in.
And you go out. And there's no change. We have to be so very careful. We as a body do not allow these things to encroach upon our lives. that the glory will depart from our lives.
As a church, let's be humble. Let's be little in our own mind. Let's be careful and prayerful. Let's be keen on worship. And the word Let's tell our kids about the great things that God has done.
Let's be dependent upon the Lord. That's a great thing to teach our kids, to be dependent upon God. Teach them to be sensitive or aware of the things. Of the Lord Mm. Father, we Come to you tonight, and Lord.
It seems as though these last three weeks in this chapter and these ten Considerations have pierced our hearts through. Mm. Father, we pray right now that if there's anything in our lives, That keeps us from drawing. Back to you. Lord, remove them.
May we Take a hard line against the things that would separate us from you, Lord. Father, we pray tonight that You'd renew. Our lives with you. And Father, if we've strayed, God, that you would just draw us tightly back. And Father, also, very, very quickly and carefully, we pray that there'd be no.
Condemnation that seeps into someone's heart to say to them right now, Well, you can't come back to God, you've blown it too big. Lord, may that not happen. Father, may we all realize tonight that if the glory's departed, all we have to do is turn around and come back. And draw close to you, and your Bible says you'll draw close to us.
So Father, we pray that that would happen tonight. In fact, tonight I'm going to ask if we'd maybe just We probably Prepare to close in a song. I'm going to ask if the Pastors would come forward and Line up to pray with you. Maybe you need prayer tonight. Maybe you want prayer tonight.
Maybe you want to rededicate your life tonight. Maybe you're struggling with something. And you want victory. You want to be filled with the Holy Spirit tonight. We want you to come forward tonight.
We'll pray with you. And Jesus, we thank you now that... advance. And we praise you. And then we love you.
In Jesus' name, amen. Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hughes. Here on Real Life Radio. with his message called, When the Glory Has Departed, Part 3. Thanks for being with us today.
We're glad you're here. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called First Samuel. A series highlighting the prophet Samuel, who was called by God during one of Israel's darkest ages, to bring the people back to a heart of true worship. and will continue. on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
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. Have you ever ignored a warning only to regret it later? What if the warnings we so easily brush aside are exactly what we need to live a life full of purpose and protection? What if instead of seeing warnings as obstacles or interruptions, What if we embrace them as the love and wisdom of a God who wants to protect us from destruction?
How often do we dismiss the warnings in our lives because they challenge our comfort, our convenience, or our pride? In this month's featured resource called Words of Warning, Charles Spurgeon calls us to wake up to the seriousness of the spiritual battles we face every day. Words of warning, listen to the subtitle everyone, for those wavering between belief and unbelief. You need this book. Everyone needs this book.
If you're struggling with belief and unbelief, Get it. Get words of warning by Charles Spurgeon for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. Hey friend, let me pray for you. First of all, to understand this before I do, that God sees you.
He knows you. You may feel forgotten, but you're not forgotten. He knows your name and he knows your need.
So Father God, in Jesus' name, I pray that you'd bless right now. My brother, my sister in Christ, and And Lord, that you would strengthen them, that you'd lift up their head unto the Lord. Father, that you would bless their life and frankly make them an object of your affection. In Jesus' name, Amen. 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.
