Today on Real Life Radio, the Holy Spirit will empower you. he may or may not take that ailment away.
Okay? But he'll give you the power and the victory to go through it. 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.
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. God's truth. On the Daniel Cohen Show, we bring you stories the mainstream media downplays.
It's time to start getting your news from people you trust, and it's totally free. Sign up now at reallife network.com. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called 1 Samuel and a message titled When God Comes Upon a Man, Part 2. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of its prophets.
So here as we continue in chapter 16, we'll learn more of how Saul really abused his office as king. You see, Samuel mourned for Saul, but God, knowing all things, is done with Saul and has a new king in mind. And his name is David, a simple shepherd that no one really considered because of his outside appearance. But God doesn't see as we see. God is interested in the heart.
So today Pastor Jack teaches that when God comes upon us, he does so by the Holy Spirit. Our enemy, Satan, tries to fight this and wants to leave us weak and without influence. But when the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, we become effective, powerful, and victorious in our calling.
Now with his message called When God Comes Upon a Man, Part 2, here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs. Jesus said in Acts chapter one, verse eight. Concerning the Holy Spirit, he says, You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Do you have power? If you don't, he's not coming upon you.
You'll have power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem. Judea, Samarian, to the ends of the earth. You want to be a witness for the Lord? It doesn't mean preach and go door to door and hand out tracts. That doesn't mean that necessarily.
But do you care about people's souls? Do you want to see your husband or your wife or your kids or your mom and dad get into heaven with you? Ask God to give you the power of the Holy Spirit. Didn't James tell us we don't have? Because what?
We don't ask. I mean, you know, you think about this, what kind of a nut? Would would leave A church service, not asking God to To bless them with the gifts of the Spirit, or the filling, or the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. or the coming upon of the Spirit of God. Why would we not ask?
Now don't tell me later because you'll be wrong and I'll tell you If you come up to me later and say, well, you know, I'm. I don't ask things for myself. I only ask for others. Boy, are you wrong. Read the Sermon on the Mount.
And there, Jesus gives us a pattern and a model of prayer. And you better read it carefully. You are to pray for yourself. And then James comes again, as I said earlier. You don't have all the fullness of God and all what you should be asking for because you don't ask Him.
Man, every kid, every parent in here, every. Engaged person, or every employer or employee ought to say, Lord, make me the best employer my people have ever had. You're going to call that a selfish prayer? And then you'd have to throw Jabez's famous prayer right out the door, huh? I heard a lot of people arguing and bickering about the prayer of Jabez like it wasn't in the Bible.
It's in the Bible. And these super spiritual knuckleheads come up to me and say, Well, I would never be praying a prayer like Jabez.
Well, that's your problem. It's in the Bible. Jabez cries out to God and he says, Oh God, please make my life a blessing to people. I don't want to cause pain any more. Make me a blessing.
We ought to pray that prayer all the time. But the sofa Hypocrisy thing, oh, and I'm not going to ask God for me. No, it's wrong. Paul's conversion. It says there that When he was in the house.
Hands were laid upon Paul? And Aeneas prayed, and he says, Brother, Saul, the Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared unto you. on the road as you came has sent me That you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And Paul was filled. with the Holy Spirit.
Aeneas laid his hands on Paul, and Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit. John 7, 37 and 39. On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If any one thirst, let him come. To me and drink, and he who believes in me, as the scripture says, out of his heart or his bowels, actually, people, his inner, your innermost being. The center of your Life.
will flow rivers of living water. But this Jesus spoke concerning the Holy Spirit. whom those believing in him would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. I love this next verse.
It's one of my all-time favorites. Luke. 11 verse 9 through 13. This is a great one. Mark it down.
Luke 11, verse 9. I'm going to give you a little clue. Jesus is speaking to believers. And he says to them, So I say to you, ask. And it will be given to you.
Do you hear that? You ask, it's going to be given to you. Seek. and you'll find, knock and it will be opened. For everyone who asks receives.
Wow, listen. What did he say? Everyone who asks receives. Did you hear that? Anybody not hear that?
Ask, you'll get it. It takes faith to believe this. Frankly, it doesn't take much faith though, does it? It's pretty pretty clear. Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
If a son asked you for bread from a father among you, Will he give him a stone? That's ridiculous. Nobody's going to give a little boy a stone when he's hungry. I love this divine sarcasm. Or if he asks for a fish, will you give him a snake instead of a fish?
Or if he asks you for an egg, will you give him a scorpion? The answer is obvious. If you then, being earthly, People, evil. carnal worldlings. But you know how to give good gifts to your children.
How much? Listen to the, this is the answer for the context. The stone, the sh the scorpion. the serpent, the bread, the egg, the food. Ask, keep knocking, all this.
Why is Jesus saying this? Because Jesus says, In verse 13 of Luke 11, if you then being Evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Isn't that great? Here's the deal, and that's for people who've been abused, in my opinion. Oh, I don't want to ask God to give me the Holy Spirit.
I might freak out, throw myself down. My tongue might go out and start, I can't even control it. There'll be tongues going everywhere. And what if I just. What do you What are you watching too much?
T V. What are you afraid of? If you ask your heavenly father, is he going to give you a scorpion? No, he's going to give you the Spirit of God. I love that verse.
I love that promise. The functionality of the Holy Spirit is manifested in the life of the believer by the power of the Spirit. It's so very important. John 16, we're almost done. John 16, verse 7.
John 16, 7, Jesus says, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away from you. For if I do not go away, the Holy Spirit, the helper, the comforter, 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, of righteousness, and of judgment, of sin because they do not believe in me, of righteousness because I go to the Father and you'll see me no more, and of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.
The Holy Spirit coming, it's the promise of the Father. Through Jesus Christ. John 14, 16. Jesus said, and I will pray the Father. and he will give you another helper.
That he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. whom the world cannot receive because it neither knows him Or excuse me, neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you. and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphaned. I will come to you.
And that there in that verse of John 14 are the two manifestations of the Spirit. Where the Spirit of God was alongside of you before you came to Christ. Then, when you got saved, He came inside you. And then from Acts chapter 1 till today, the Holy Spirit is not only alongside you, but in you, but to come upon you. In the book of Acts chapter 1 and chapter 2, the Holy Spirit came upon them.
How's that? Why is that? Because he was already dwelling in them. And he had always been, always been alongside them. There were two manifestations of the Spirit until after Pentecost.
Pentecost was the third. And the church today, in two thousand years, the church today is still. weak and it's waning and it's struggling and it ought not to be. We should be Two thousand years more experienced in the power of the Holy Spirit. than any other church age of all time.
But the exact opposite's true. Why? Attack, enemy sowing discord. False manifestation of the Spirit, not the Spirit of God. And so many Christians, because they're not schooled and The teaching of this topic, they just shut down.
And it is my opinion, because of that. Many Christians struggle today their Christian existence. And they lack the power, and they lack the victory because there's no power. 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. Throughout Scripture. A handful of men In fact, one of the guys, the chief knucklehead of them all, Peter.
A blundering goofball. Until the day of Pentecost. And the Holy Spirit came upon Peter. And he went down to the southern steps there of the temple.
Some of us have stood there. Those steps are unearthed today. You can stand there. And Peter preached a message. He had divine understanding of the Word of God.
He had extreme boldness that was previously not Peter. He was dynamic. He was Influential and persuasive, he could argue. And he gave forth the word of God with boldness, and in one sermon, we don't know how long it was. It appears If you time it in the book of Acts, very short.
3,000 people got saved. And one message. And let me I want to ask you. Uh Was that for them? Or does God want souls to be saved now?
Let me ask you this, how many souls does God want to have saved now? He's exactly He's desiring that all should come. to the saving knowledge. You know what? We're building a church with a large sanctuary.
But if the Spirit of God had his way, We'd have to sell that building today, sell that land today. We have to hold church on the side of a hill. Because there would be tens of thousands of people coming to hear the word of God if we were just more of a church that could handle, including myself, the influx of souls. Because you know what? It can't be one man being filled, or one other man being filled, or a group over here being filled, or that little group back there being filled.
We've all got to be filled. With the Holy Spirit to manage and to serve and to be a witness to a host of people getting saved. The Bible says they were all filled. With the Spirit of God. Does that excite you?
I tell you, it pumps me up. Because you're talking With a guy, you're hearing a guy right now who was. Rejected in his life, stuttered profusely until Jesus healed me. Would sit, I would never speak because I stuttered so bad. I would never speak to anybody.
I could hardly ask my wife out on a date. It was true. I stuttered so bad when I met my wife. And Jesus healed me one night. And I tell you, I was silent for so many years.
He said, Man, man, you teach for an hour. You know what, buddy? Yeah. We're talking 20 years of being bottled up. And now that I got something to talk about, I'm going to talk.
Yeah. And the great thing about it is, I tell you, I'm so glad because who knows, man? I mean, the Lord could, if the Lord wants to humble me, there's quite a few other ways he could do it, by the way. There's other things that's going on in my life. God could say, hey, let's go back to your old kind of tongue, huh?
You know, and. That's why, when I hear somebody stutter, I just remember that pain. It's a painful feeling. I just want to love them to death. And then if somebody says, well, I got a disease.
Man, I want to love them to death too. I know what that's like, too. But if you think about it, were you ever made fun of? Were you ever rejected? Did you ever not fit in?
What is your thing? The Holy Spirit will empower you. He may or may not take that ailment away.
Okay? But he'll give you the power and the victory to go through it. And I can tell you now. I would never have wanted to have been a normal person. And wind up being l lost in the end?
My life, as you know, I was a failed abortion on top of it. My mom committed abortion because she was so distraught and brokenhearted, and I was saved. I wouldn't change a thing. It doesn't hurt my feelings. It tells me God's on the throne.
And I want the Holy Spirit to be my power. I want the Holy Spirit to be my strength. And so tonight I want to ask you, do you want the Holy Spirit to be your power, to be your strength? Then, what have you learned tonight? You've got to ask him.
You've got to ask the Lord Jesus Christ, or ask the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. Father? Give me the promise. Baptize me, fill me with the power of your Holy Spirit. Will you trust Him to take care of you?
He's not evil.
Well I'm going to ask you tonight if you'll just get in an attitude of prayer right now. Let's bow our hearts together. Father, we come. And we ask you, Lord Jesus, that you might... Manifest, Lord, the working of your Holy Spirit tonight.
Lord, your Bible tells us in so many places that as people were prayed for, in some instances, your Spirit just came upon people when. When they asked another Passages of scripture, it's given by the laying on of hands. People were prayed for, the Bible says, and they. Had the Holy Spirit come upon them. We pray, Lord, and I ask on behalf of this body, I intercede for this church and myself.
Lord, we pray that you'd make us a New Testament church. And Lord, I hope I'm really wrong with this one, but I'm afraid that it's possible. That if we were to see a New Testament church, we would not possibly maybe be able to recognize it. And yet we want to pride ourselves thinking that we are it. But Father, if that were true.
Then there'd be revival taking place here because the gifts of the Spirit would be working. In all of our lives, it can't just be a few of us, it's got to be the body. And so, Lord, I pray that you'd come upon us tonight. And Lord, I pray for All of us tonight.
Some having no experience at all in this area, others having too much experience. Lord. Cause that pendulum to not be tilted to one side or the other, but right dead on center balance. And Lord, from this time on in this church, I pray. I ask you, Father, that you'd baptize this church into the power of the church.
into the person. into the movement of the Holy Spirit. Lord, may we be a spirit-filled church, as it was with David, who on this Chapter in this Coming of your spirit. Verse 13, that From that time on, his life was never the same. While we remain in an attitude of prayer tonight, I'm going to ask.
For those of you who'd like to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit this evening. that you would understand this. It's accomplished exactly the same way That you got saved. Remember how you asked Jesus to save you? You did it by faith.
Remember that? You asked him. It's the same thing tonight. You just ask the Father, Father, give me your Holy Spirit. Bring Him upon me for power.
I know He dwells in me. I know he's been with me all my life. But Lord, tonight I want his power. I want your power, dear God, in my life.
Now listen. If that's you tonight, and I hope. And trust You want more of the Lord in your life. I'll stand with you. But if you want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit tonight, will you stand where you're at?
Just stand. Remain in an attitude of prayer. And I want you to realize this, that I personally never Ask the Lord to baptize me in the power of the Holy Spirit without believing the scripture. What I mean by that is this. If I'm going to ask him to baptize me in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Even though I've been a Christian for 25 years, I'm always asking him. To do that, and I'm always expecting a new gift. Not that he changes them, but to add on. Maybe he wants to add on. Do you have the gift of prophecy?
Maybe he wants to give you the gift of discernment tonight. Do you have the gift of discernment? Maybe he wants to give you Any one of the many gifts of the Holy Spirit. There's the gift of mercy. Oh my goodness.
Romans 12 talks about the gift of mercy. Don't we need mercy? And yet, God calls people in the body of Christ according to his own sovereign will. And he gives out to some the ministry of mercy.
Some giving, isn't that amazing? Giving. There are people who have been touched by God, and He's given them the gift of giving. Quite frankly, many of those people are very wealthy. God has to keep them wealthy because they keep giving it away.
Maybe tonight for you it's The gift of faith. Yeah. Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio, and his message called When God Comes Upon a Man, Part 2. You know, this message, by the way, is part of Pastor Jack's series called 1 Samuel. a series highlighting 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 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. I've got Pastor Jack in the studio with me, which is always a thrill. Hey, Pastor Jack, you've got a new devotional out, and it's called Watching, Waiting. Give me a little rundown of what's going on with that.
Yeah, we're very excited. It's the first time ever I've put out a devotional, to be honest with you. It's just. Didn't think about it until you look around at the world that you and I are living in. And I think everybody needs a little bit of infusion, a little bit of a booster shot when it comes to getting excited and becoming really biblically focused again.
On all of us are called to be watching. And to be waiting. for the Lord's coming. And so yeah, it's a 40-day devotional. And we think people are going to like it because it's filled with hope.
It's filled with encouragement. And by the way, you know what? Think about it. The more we see the world coming undone, the more it's indicating that we're going to see Christ soon.
So what does, I mean, what does waiting look like for a believer today? Yeah, waiting for the believer. Great question, Davey. Waiting for the believer is a very active waiting. It's not like twiddling your thumbs and sitting back.
For the believer, waiting for the Lord and watching for the Lord is a very active thing, meaning that we're living out our faith. We are getting involved in the culture no matter where we're deployed, so to speak, by Jesus, right? If it's on the construction site or in the public school system or wherever you're at, that you and I are to be living our lives actively, boldly for Jesus. And that's how we actually wait. How do we stay expectant, if you will, without getting discouraged or distracted in the meantime?
You know what? I would argue with you, Davey, that that's one of the hardest things to do as a believer. because if you think about it. If you love someone, you can't wait to see them at the close of of Any given day, right? Or if you love someone, you can't wait to meet up with them again.
Well, if we love the Lord, we're looking for him and we are commanded to be looking for him daily. But we've got to keep that fire burning. And to do that, we've got to stay in the word and be encouraged with Bible verses that tell us about his near return.
Okay, so if somebody's doing a devotion, they might be, you know, focusing on resetting their faith, getting all fired up in the Lord. Is that kind of a close description? I think that when we. Pause long enough to consider the scriptures that reinforce that he's coming back and we're supposed to be watching for him. That really guards us and protects us.
I'd like to put it this way: it kind of galvanizes us against the. The increased rhetoric that is going to come, people are going to start mocking the return of Jesus more than ever. Even quote theologians, right, are going to start saying he's not really coming back. All these things were revealed to us in scripture in advance, anticipating that very attitude. And so this devotion is going to...
Really, I think, help that a lot. I mean, it's cute. Don't get me wrong. It's a cute book. It's a handsome cover.
It looks great in its 40 days. But don't let that disarm you. It is action-packed with biblical truth to get you and to keep you excited about the near return of Christ. Watching, waiting. It is our featured resource for this month, and it's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/slash real radio.
Jackhibbs.com/slash real radio. 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.
