Today on Real Life Radio. The Christian Church. At this time in human history, should be the witness that Israel was supposed to be for these last 2,000 years. We should be the ones affecting the nations of the world to encourage them that there is one greater than their leaders. Though you pray for those leaders, And that is God Almighty.
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. In a world growing darker by the day, will you stand firm or be swept away? Pastor Jack Hibbs' new book, The call to take a bold stand is a wake-up call for every believer.
With biblical clarity and real-life conviction, Jack Hibbs shows you how to overcome fear, hold fast to truth, and make every moment count. That's Called to Take a Bold Stand by Pastor Jack Higgs. Get your copy for a gift of any amount at jackkids.com slash real radio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called 1 Samuel with a message titled Living Life the Hard Way, Part 2. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of its prophets.
So as we continue in chapter 8, We'll see how God was welcome in Samuel's house as well as his heart. But Samuel's sons, who were also judges of Israel, strayed from God. and refused to follow in Samuel's footsteps. You see, back then as well as today, corrupt leaders will win over people with their man-made solutions. But the consequences of this can be devastating as it was for the people of Israel.
They saw the corruption of Samuel's sons and demanded that Samuel appoint an earthly king to rule over them instead.
So today, Pastor Jack teaches that living life the easy way is to make God real in our lives and in the lives of our children. To talk about how great God is, how He leads us to His Bible, and how He encourages us to be involved in His service.
Now, with his message called Living Life the Hard Way, Part 2, here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Higgs. No, we don't want to be like all the other nations. Israel What's to be unique? Article 1 of the Bill of Rights. Says this.
Congress shall make no law respecting, by the way, again, in English, 1828 dictionary, the word means interfering. Congress shall make no law interfering in an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That's called the separation of church and state. Our founding fathers put that as article number one of the Bill of Rights. Stating that the government shall not dictate to the church in any way, shape, or form how to conduct this business at all.
That it shall not interfere whatsoever. Is that what you hear on modern-day TV? People sit back and swallow the new revisionist historian. View. But the founding fathers, and if you read The Bill of Rights, if you read the Declaration of Independence, and if you read the Constitution, you will come to the absolute conclusion that God came number one first in their thinking.
If you say no to that, then you've never read them. 'Cause I've read them. God's all over it. And people say, well, I wish the church would just stay out of governmental affairs. You know what?
Amen. And I wish that the government would stay out of church affairs. Because you know what? The church can affect the world by falling on its face and praying to God who governs over governments. If my people will only pray.
The third point that we consider tonight, living life the hard way. If it Family is going off. The community will go off. The nation will go off. Living life the hard way also in verses 6 through 18.
R uh really genders and brings about separation from God. Listen, verses 6 and 7, they wanted a remedy. They wanted it man's way. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us.
So Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not judge or reign over them. We need to recognize what these people are asking. They're basically saying, listen, Samuel, we've heard about our history. We've heard about all the stories.
We've seen all the historical biblical sites. History means nothing to us. We're concerned about our future. And that's what we want to know about.
So give us a king like all the other nations. They had heard everything that God had done. They didn't care. Isaiah chapter 5, verse 20 says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light, and light for darkness, and bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. If you stand up, if this nation stands up, if this church stands up, if we were to go out, listen, and I'll hear the silence in this sanctuary right now.
If we went out on the street corner right now and said abortion is wrong. You're going to get silent, you're going to feel uncomfortable, you're going to say, well, how bigoted can he be? And yet I can point to scriptures that say that abortion is wrong. But people won't do it. It's wrong.
God calls it murder. God says he's there inside the womb at the creation of a child. He says he's putting the parts together. David says that you were there with me, God, in the inward parts of my mom. You put me all together.
In the book of Micah, There the prophet says Shall I give the fruit of my womb? for my iniquity Modern day definition Of what's taking place. Listen, can God and does God and will God forgive abortion? Of course He does. Will God forgive murder?
Of course He does. Listen, for all of us, the Bible says we're all liars. Did you know that? The Bible says, all of us have lied. Does God equate abortion greater?
Then lime. Not at all. It's all equal to him, it's the same to him. See we You know, we're like, you know, Mrs. Johnson in the fifth grade.
She'll grade on a curve. God doesn't grade on a curve.
Well, look, your neighbors came in at 83. You came in. Hey, we're going to kick the scale over. You're all right. He doesn't do that.
He's holy. He's pure. We all need him. We're all guilty of something. And we need His saving grace.
But we have to be careful because they wanted an earthly remedy. To a great sin, and it doesn't happen that way. compromising their future, their children, their nation. Israel's rejection At the moment, That Jesus presented himself to Israel on Palm Sunday. Their rejection of Israel, look at history.
Israel rejected Jesus Christ on Palm Sunday. Look what happened. Look at the historical events of Israel that followed. Just as the prophet Isaiah said, if they rejected him, The nation would be sent in the diaspora that is dispersed throughout all of the earth. And look what happened.
But Jesus, as he's carrying his own cross, On that good Friday, The Bible says there in Luke 23, 28, Jesus turning to the women of Israel said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Why? Because when God is rejected in a home, In a society, in a nation? Judgment comes. It's God's law, it's God's rule.
He wants to forgive a nation, he wants to heal a nation, but that nation can so resist against God that in time, He has to. Turn his back in judgment. Verses 8 and 9, we see here that God knows the heart. It says in verse 8, according to all that the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, that's heavy. God is saying, They've rebelled against me since the day I brought them out of Egypt.
They've been fighting me. Yeesh With which they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they are doing to you also. Verse 9.
Now therefore heed their voice, however, you shall solemnly forewarn them. And show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them. Can I change the words a little bit? You shall solemnly warn them, because this is what human government gives. You want to be like all the other nations of the world?
Alrighty. Here it comes. The tragedy of human government. There is no perfect government. Until Jesus comes.
Isn't it wild? Isn't it awesome? Jesus will establish the only one perfect government that will ever be, and that's the millennium. When Jesus comes. But God knows the heart.
He knows the heart. More than we know ourselves. The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9 through 10. Jeremiah 17:9 says, The heart is deceitfully above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?
I, the Lord, search the heart, and I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. God knows the heart. Thirdly, under this point, verses 10 through 18, living life the hard way separates us from God, and that rejection of God bankrupts a people. Here comes. The nature of human government.
This is going to sound familiar. This is going to sound like our current energy crisis. Verse 10, so Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. And he said, This will be the behavior of the king. Who will reign over you?
Number one. He will take your sons and appoint them. for his own chariots, and to be his own horsemen. and so will run before his chariots. Number two.
He will appoint. Captains over his thousands, captains over his fifties. Number three, he will set some to plow his ground. and reap his harvest. and take some To make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
Number four, he will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. Number five, he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive grain, or your groves, excuse me, and give them to his servants. Number six, he will take a tenth of your grain and of your wine and give it to his own officers and servants. Verse 16. Brings us to number seven.
He will take your male servants and your female servants, your finest young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. Number eight, he will take a tenth of your sheep. Number nine, And you will be his servants. Number ten. He's going to make you cry.
You will cry out that day because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day. Why? Jot it down. Isaiah 59. Verses 1 and 2 are written to the believer.
Isaiah 59, verses 1 and 2. There, the scripture says, Behold, the Lord's hand is not short that he cannot save, nor is his ear heavy that he cannot hear. But your sins have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear you. That's written to the believer. That's why, here's the good news though, hang on, here's the good news, 1 John 1.9.
1 John 1.9 says, if we confess our sins, to him. He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from most. All unrighteousness. Isn't that great?
So if you're sitting here bummed tonight, you're only listening to half the story.
Okay, believe you s you used the word sin seven times tonight. That's eight if you're counting. But God says if you confess to my son, I'll take it all away.
So if you leave this place tonight, with sour grapes. Uh that's your thing. God says, hey, bring me your sin. I love to convert it to righteousness. It's what I do.
He's good about it. He's faithful about that. 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. Fourth and final point, we'll end here. Verses 18 to 22 teaches us living life the hard way, it conforms you to the way of the world. It conforms you to the way of the world.
Verses 19 to 22. Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, No. But we will have a king over us. that we also, listen, may be like all the nations. And that our king.
may judge us. And go out before us. And fight Hour. Battles And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them. in the hearing of the LORD, so that the LORD said to Samuel, Heed their voice.
And make them a king. And Samuel said to the men of Israel, Every man, go home. Go to your own city, go home. Why? In conclusion, God desired among his people a theocracy.
that he would be The leader. that he would be the ruler. That does not exist any longer, except one place on earth. And that is the church. The church should be a manifestation of the theocracy of God.
It is wrong when a church Operates like the world. When the church has got its presidents and CEOs and its executive branch of this ministry and that, when the world begins to adopt and look just like. When the church looks just like the world, it's a horrible moment. Everybody in the church, even the one who stands behind a wooden pulpit. should be humble by God's presence and work.
If God is truly at work in your church, You should be able to see signs of a theocracy. That God is in control. And when there's a church where a man calls the shots, or a board calls the shots. or the church calls the shots, that is not a church where God is at. The corporate body of believers should be seeking God for the will, the perfect will.
Of that, Church in the heart and mind of God. What does God want to do here in this church? That is a task for you and I to find out. We should be praying, we should be seeking Him. Why?
Because to do otherwise, as they did, is to settle. For less. to settle for something that might look great? Don't be deceived by that. Might sound great.
Hey, give us a king. That looks good, you know, people. That looks something. The king, he's all decked out in clothes. Did you know when, like, Saul, later on, we'll learn about Saul, the first king, when Saul went to battle, he looked cool.
He had a really awesome bunch of robes. He had special armor, had the king's logo on the front. I don't know. You know. Fu King.
Whatever. He had armor bearers that held his swords and stuff so he could look kingly. He looked different. Yeah, that's what we want. We want somebody like that.
Hey, the Philistines, they got a king. Oh look at me. Amorites, they got a king. And the Hittites, they got a king. The Perizzites, they got a king.
Teramites, they got a king. We want a king. When we go to battle, we want to see a guy sitting up there on the hill looking really cool. Because this God, we don't even know he's around or not, can't even see him. We have to trust them.
We want to see our king. We want him to judge us too. You know what that means? Oh, you know what it means. You ever been to court?
Make us judges like all the other nations have. Ones that can be bought off. Ones that can be corrupted and influenced by the way we look or how much money we have. or what we can do for them under the table or after the court Proceedings are over. We want a judge like that that we can manipulate.
like all the other nations get to manipulate their judges. See what they're asking for? We want him to come in and go out before us. We want to feel the rush. of the presence of Earthly royalty.
And that is quite a rush, I'll tell you. I was in fact Lisa and I were in London on the day of Diana's funeral. And we saw all of that stuff. Literally, I kid you not, London, as we walked the streets, London smelled like carnations and roses. It was actually.
beyond imagination. And even though she was dead. people were weeping. A woman turned to me and said, what are we going to do now? Yeah.
I said, Lady, I'm not from here. I sorry. I've had a chance. I've had a chance to see. President Clinton at the time, very close.
In a room. It was amazing. Just when they make the announcement, ladies and gentlemen, please rise. The president has entered the building. He's not even in the room yet.
You get goosebumps all over your body. It's weird. It's like, what is this? I was actually upset, I kid you not, I was a little upset with myself. Because I'm going, this is not right.
This is a weird feeling. This is not right. You stand in awe, even though you disagree with the guy. You stand in awe. That's what we want.
We want that kind of a king. And we can get goosebumps when this entourage comes by, and the limousine and the donkeys tinted windows, and they pull up in the chariot with chrome wheels. That's what we want! We want all the pump and all that stuff. We want to be like all the nations of the world.
And then this one's pathetic and we'll end here. We want a king that fights our Battles. Really? And I think that's it. Verse 20 teaches us that they are avoiding faith.
Isn't that what it is? They're avoiding faith. They're avoiding faith. We'll end our study here. We'll end this chapter tonight, but listen carefully.
How tragic is this? Because this is so Life without God. What about our homes? What about our church? What about our nation?
What about our schools? Is God invited to our schools? Is God free to do what he wants in our classrooms? where I see on CNN a debate. There's petitions going around right now.
To have Our Constitution. Our Bill of Rights And the Declaration of Independence. To remove Gods Um The the uh the statements made concerning God. And their argument is not everyone believes in God. But their citizens And they have independence.
But they don't believe in God, so that document is not representing their view. They're viable citizens, they're passport holders.
So the document should be changed to reflect their view as well. I don't know how that sits with you. Pretty amazing. History is an important thing to me. The Bible warns us.
Yeah, we ought to know it. We ought to learn. Right now there's a lot of noise going on about And it has been about the Pearl Harbor movie and all the events of Memorial Day and all that stuff. That's important to me. My mother was born and raised.
And Oahu. My mom heard the bombs from the Japanese fighters coming in. My uncle owned an ice cream truck service on Oahu, and on that Sunday morning, They threw all the ice cream out of their trucks and began to cart the broken and maimed bodies to hospitals in his ice cream trucks. My three aunts were there Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years of age, they watched it happen. They thought it was a maneuver at first, they thought it was a joke.
until things began falling apart. You think it'll ever happen again? It could happen again. Did you know that Japanese uh Fighters flew over San Jose and San Francisco a few days after that to bomb. Did you know that?
Most people don't even know that. And then think about the internment camps, how sad that is. That the Japanese who were here living, Americans, citizens. They loved America. But they had to be put into prison camps.
Some of them not far from here. Do you know that? You should know this. Did you know that if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it? God says, I want to be leader of your life.
I want to be a leader of your home. I suggest that we let him lead. Because he can do a far better job than we can. Father, we thank you for your Awesome word. To us.
Lord, in a moment's time we touched on this chapter, but this chapter speaks of years and years, decades, centuries, millenniums. Millennia. Of Pain. and hardship. that your people never really needed to suffer.
Unnecessarily. Because we did not heed the voice of the Lord. Father, to night, for all of our children, For all of our homes. for our state, for our nation. We ask in Jesus' name, Lord, that you'd send revival.
That you would awaken us, O Lord our God. to live passionate lives for you. Lord, that our kids would know the heritage that they have in Christ. That they would know. That you are the ruler.
of the ages. The creator of worlds. Mm. Father, we come tonight. And it's late.
But we simply say in our hearts to those maybe being touched by your Spirit, Lord, we give you our lives. And as long as we live, as long as we're breathing, Lord, make our lives count for something. In Jesus' name and all God's people. Yeah. Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hughes.
Here on Real Life Radio. and a message called Living Life the Hard Way, Part 2. Thanks for being with us today. 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.
his calling to bring the people back to a true heart of 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. Daniel Cohen here from Israel. If you love Pastor Jack Hibbs' fearless approach to teaching God's word, you'll love the Real Life Network. It's built for warriors who want the truth.
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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.
