WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.840 Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim 2 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:09.320 truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. 3 00:00:09.320 --> 00:00:15.320 Hey everybody, I know everyone is news-weary tired of hearing about the fires. 4 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:20.440 You're gonna hear about the fires, but you're gonna hear what you and I should do 5 00:00:20.440 --> 00:00:23.960 about it in a way that you may not have heard before. In fact, you probably haven't 6 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:32.800 heard it like this yet. Stay tuned, you're gonna need to know. 7 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:39.280 You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. 8 00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:45.240 Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, 9 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:50.280 then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying 10 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:56.200 amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now, open your hearts to 11 00:00:56.200 --> 00:01:01.360 what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. 12 00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:06.320 Well, thank you for joining us and we're gonna just get down to the nuts and bolts of 13 00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:11.960 what's going on in Southern California for sure. And I know that you're probably tempted 14 00:01:11.960 --> 00:01:16.880 by now to say, oh my gosh, I don't want to hear anything more about it, but some of 15 00:01:16.880 --> 00:01:25.320 you became very, very obvious to us. And that is there are so many people who do not really 16 00:01:25.320 --> 00:01:31.120 know or to listen or if they get a sound bite, right? We live in a culture where there's 17 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:37.520 15 seconds of a news item and then they've had enough. Let's move on because I don't 18 00:01:37.520 --> 00:01:44.560 want to get engaged in anything. I want to be a spectator regarding everything. I just 19 00:01:44.560 --> 00:01:53.720 give you the news or turn on the program, entertain me. And I want to keep a veneer, a very 20 00:01:53.720 --> 00:02:04.080 thin line of knowing about what's going on in the world around us that we have now discovered 21 00:02:04.080 --> 00:02:11.520 everyone. That is our luxury. If it is a luxury at all, it could be a curse to not know much 22 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:20.520 about what's going on. So first off, for those of you who know us, what happened regarding 23 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:29.360 the Southern California fires, our response to those comments that I've made regarding them. 24 00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:37.080 For you guys who know us, it's normal. You expected that from us because that's how we've 25 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:42.520 been standing for nearly 40 years. It's just that we never really had a microphone like this 26 00:02:42.520 --> 00:02:50.560 before. When I say microphone, what happened in the LA fires allowed our voice by God's grace 27 00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:58.560 and his kindness and his mercy to become very, very loud and very, very broad. So our comments regarding 28 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:04.040 the fires, our comments regarding the response and our comments regarding politics, everybody 29 00:03:04.040 --> 00:03:11.320 in the church, they just like, well, of course, normal. But for people at the daily mail, for 30 00:03:11.320 --> 00:03:15.360 example, in London, it wasn't normal to them. It's like, wow, what the heck is going on here? 31 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:21.920 This pastor's like frying no pun intended Gavin Newsom and the California politic and all 32 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:29.400 this kind of stuff. And and then podcasters and influencers began to repeat some of those 33 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:38.200 comments. And it just exploded and and it's just the views of that is in the many millions. 34 00:03:38.200 --> 00:03:42.440 And so people are saying, what's this guy talking about? How dare he talk about anything 35 00:03:42.440 --> 00:03:47.120 that's relevant in life? He's a pastor. Why does he just shut up and be relevant like 36 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:54.880 my pastor is. And so people have been trying to cope with not only our response, but we've 37 00:03:54.880 --> 00:04:00.480 been easily, and it has taken Einstein to do this, we have easily read between the lines. 38 00:04:00.480 --> 00:04:04.320 And this is what people are saying. Oh my gosh, I've been able to hide out everywhere 39 00:04:04.320 --> 00:04:10.320 from getting involved in everything that's untasteful or unsavory in my life and scary. 40 00:04:10.320 --> 00:04:15.120 And then, you know, now a pastor has said this and it's gone viral and all this stuff. 41 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:20.640 And where do I hide now? And that is the point. Up until now in Southern California, people 42 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:30.000 have had the opportunity to hide from reality. Here's how we do that. We lose ourselves and 43 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:38.480 our issues, our problems. And well, frankly, in what I saw on Monday, I was in Brentwood 44 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:46.240 staging to get up to go into the restricted or closed areas of the fires. And so in that 45 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:52.640 staging process, there was an interview taking place. And while I was in that interview, 46 00:04:53.280 --> 00:05:01.520 going down the street was a Porsche, a Porsche with skis on its snow skis and snowboards, 47 00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:10.880 heading no doubt to the mountains. And two cars behind that Porsche was an Audi that went by 48 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:16.160 with a surfboard on it going going the opposite way. I should say the Porsche was going one way, 49 00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:22.720 two cars later, the Audi went the other way, one with skis, one with surfboards. And that is the 50 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:29.280 California, that is the Southern California experience. One guy is going to go ski on a beautiful 51 00:05:29.280 --> 00:05:35.760 74 degree sunny Monday morning. And the other guy is going to go surfing somewhere. 52 00:05:36.080 --> 00:05:49.840 On Monday, I experienced firsthand walked through residential areas, went to stood on the shoreline 53 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:58.960 of the Homes in Malibu on the sand gone, gone reduced to nothing. Now don't hold this against me, 54 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:06.240 but I'm going to be honest with you. I was so moved. I felt so odd. How is it that you are standing 55 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:14.480 on the slab of what once was a house on the beach where there's nothing left? I mean nothing, 56 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:21.120 nothing but steel girders that once held up the second and third story. And the Porsche, 57 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:28.640 the Cayenne Porsche, melted to the ground, electrical wires draped over the car and into the house 58 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:37.360 because it fell on the home. That was my experience on Monday. And on Tuesday, because it was my birthday 59 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:48.080 this week, I was at Disneyland with my family. And I was in tune or in California adventure, 60 00:06:48.080 --> 00:06:55.680 and it was Route 66 and lightning and queen drove by. And everybody was enjoying it except me. 61 00:06:56.640 --> 00:07:03.520 Because less than 24 hours earlier, I was in reality. 24 hours later, I was in non-reality. One 62 00:07:03.520 --> 00:07:11.520 is called to muse where you think this through. And I'm asking you to do that now. To think this through. 63 00:07:11.520 --> 00:07:18.240 We need to divorce ourselves from avoiding to think things through. I'm going to give you the word 64 00:07:18.320 --> 00:07:26.080 for that in a moment. On Monday, I was in Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Brentwood. And 65 00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:34.400 the reality was being assimilated into my total being. I was listening to people. 66 00:07:36.400 --> 00:07:40.000 I could smell the strange 67 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:47.840 bifurcation, if you know what that word is, the split off into 68 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:56.960 of like that Porsche, like that Audi, one with skis, one with surfboards, I could smell the 69 00:07:56.960 --> 00:08:03.600 amazing Southern California saltwater air coming off the water. And it was spectacular, beautiful. 70 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:10.480 Literally, we saw dolphins in the water. And then the next smell was this 71 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:19.840 metallic burnt. I all I could tell you, the smell of like a burning fire frying pan. So strange. 72 00:08:20.640 --> 00:08:27.840 This collision. What was going on? When we muse on something, we assimilate it. We take it in. 73 00:08:27.840 --> 00:08:33.360 We are two, for example, muse upon the Bible. The Bible calls this stela. 74 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:41.280 And it means to meditate on this. It means to take it in to become, we would say, died in the 75 00:08:41.280 --> 00:08:48.720 wool. It means to be having the moment completely gone through you. And that's how we're supposed 76 00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:54.320 to ingest the Bible. The Bible speaks to us. And we can be guilty of reading it because it's 77 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:58.800 what I'm supposed to do. And I got to get out of here. I got to hit the road. But I did my Bible 78 00:08:58.800 --> 00:09:04.800 reading, punch my Christian Bible reading time card and out I go and five minutes later, you can 79 00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:13.840 tell yourself what you just read. That is not musing or marinating or meditating. And we're guilty 80 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:21.760 of that. We're all guilty of that because we all live in a pressured life. And the alternative 81 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:33.280 of meditating and musing is ah ah ah ah muse to amuse is to detach from reality. 82 00:09:34.160 --> 00:09:40.480 Don't tell me about reality. I don't want to hear it. That's too much. I can't cope. 83 00:09:42.160 --> 00:09:48.800 Amuse me. And so this this week I was shocked by the world I live in in Southern California. 84 00:09:49.600 --> 00:09:56.560 We are so incredibly amused here by both things made by God and things made by man 85 00:09:57.200 --> 00:10:04.480 that I can go to the Pacific Ocean and enjoy the spectacular beauty of it. And I need to find 86 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:10.080 God in that. If I don't, then I'm just going to be entertained. But it is it is beautiful. 87 00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:14.400 And there's nothing wrong with that unless I start to worship that. 88 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:23.520 And so I can take the things that God has made and focus on them and thank him for them, the blue 89 00:10:23.520 --> 00:10:31.120 sky, the blue green ocean, the sound of the waves, the sand, or we live in an awesome place people 90 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:40.080 if you'd ever been here. From the ocean up to eight, nine, 10,000 foot peaks in our 91 00:10:41.040 --> 00:10:47.120 either sear and Nevada mountains, the San Gabriel mountains, the San Bernardino mountains. 92 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:51.680 I mean, they're epic and they're spectacular. What am I talking about here? The things that God 93 00:10:51.680 --> 00:10:58.720 has made, we need to muse upon those things but be careful that we're not amused while doing it. 94 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:06.000 Well, regarding life, we are living life and in one of two arenas. We are either living life 95 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:13.120 demanding that we be amused, make me dance, make me happy, play me music, keep it perfect. 96 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:20.400 Set the thermostat to 75 and don't change a thing because that's the way it's got to be. 97 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:30.960 That's non-reality folks. And wow, the city of Los Angeles, I think, has 4.5, maybe more 98 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:38.560 city of LA, close to 5 million people. I think I may be wrong about this. The county of LA, 99 00:11:38.560 --> 00:11:47.280 I believe, is 13 to 14 million people. Southern California is about 28 million people. Our state 100 00:11:47.280 --> 00:11:53.040 has some 40 plus million people and all of a sudden, half the state's been baptized into reality. 101 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:58.720 And already, the fires have, you know, it's been a week and a half and people don't want to hear 102 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:05.920 about anymore. And I'm saying to you today, we need to all grow up, take a wake up pill, 103 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:13.360 a dose of reality and realize, it's time for us to roll up our sleeves as humans and certainly 104 00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:22.800 as Christians to get involved. This kind of stuff could very well not go away. We have not had 105 00:12:22.800 --> 00:12:31.680 rain here in now eight months. We have had record-breaking catastrophic, what is known as Santa 106 00:12:31.680 --> 00:12:38.560 Anna Wins or Santa Susanna Wins or Santa Anna's. We in Southern California call them the devil 107 00:12:38.560 --> 00:12:45.600 winds. Nothing good comes out of them. Never has for, I don't know, 500 years as long as I don't 108 00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:50.960 know. Long time record indicates these things have always happened. All of a sudden, we've had 109 00:12:51.760 --> 00:13:00.000 a mega, mega dose of these horrific damaging winds, which leads us to the reality of all that's 110 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:06.080 going on. I get it. People who don't know God, they don't want to hear this. You've already 111 00:13:06.080 --> 00:13:11.040 turned me off. There are people who are taking this strong pill and this strong coffee and you're 112 00:13:11.040 --> 00:13:17.360 saying, what are you going to say next? And I want to say this next. I want to say that I have never 113 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:24.400 in 36 years having started this church that I passed her in Southern California to today. I've 114 00:13:24.400 --> 00:13:32.160 never seen it shine more beautifully. Oh, don't get me wrong. It was illuminated during COVID when 115 00:13:32.160 --> 00:13:39.040 the governor demanded that we shut down and not only were we open, but some 13, 14 maybe close 116 00:13:39.040 --> 00:13:46.160 to 15,000 people would come on a Sunday for quite a few years during the COVID experience because 117 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:52.400 Northern churches were really open. And so I was so proud of this staff, so proud of this church 118 00:13:52.400 --> 00:13:58.240 because they just rose to the occasion. Why? How could they do that? Because they were taught the 119 00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:07.440 Bible and all of their assimilation of the Bible in a situation that was dynamic and terrifying. 120 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:14.640 They knew what to do. They knew what to do and they followed God through it. They obeyed the Lord 121 00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:19.920 through it. And now, you know what? Our church is known around the world for the church that 122 00:14:19.920 --> 00:14:27.600 baptized over 3,000 people during COVID and just by God's grace just grew, grew so much. And 123 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:33.120 we get no paths on the back for that. We simply obeyed the Bible. Now we are going through 124 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:40.640 these recent days, skipping a few things to get to the point, the fires. And I just want to 125 00:14:40.880 --> 00:14:47.840 encourage you. If you're going to take a vacation, why don't you take a vacation to Southern California 126 00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:54.000 but make an emissions trip? Instead of going to some part of the world or instead of going on a 127 00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:03.760 mission trip to Ghana or to Brazil, I encourage you to come take a missions trip to Southern California 128 00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:10.240 and join with us for the next several years of rebuilding the lives of people who have been 129 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:18.560 devastated in a land of amusement. Because we can go to Nutsbury farm, we can go to Disneyland, 130 00:15:18.560 --> 00:15:25.200 we can go to Sofie Stadium to watch the Rams, or we can watch the Chargers, we can watch the 131 00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:31.760 California Angels, or we can watch the Dodgers, we can go down south and watch the Padres, 132 00:15:32.400 --> 00:15:42.160 or we can watch the ducks play hockey, or the Kings, or the Lakers, or the Clippers, or I'm sure 133 00:15:42.160 --> 00:15:47.360 I'm forgetting somebody. I don't mean to. All within driving distance here, within a month, 134 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:56.320 within an hour less, amusement. And now we've had a wake up call. So what do we do? People are 135 00:15:56.320 --> 00:16:03.040 saying, what do I do? What do I do? Now's the time to find a spirit, 136 00:16:03.040 --> 00:16:10.960 biblically based community to worship God. Now's the time to worship God. God, what do I need 137 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:19.280 God for? Because listen, reality showed up and people have been reduced to what foundations do they 138 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:26.160 have? What strengths do they have in life? And all of a sudden, the simple things have become 139 00:16:26.160 --> 00:16:32.160 the most valuable things. And what they did own is no longer important to them because they're still 140 00:16:32.160 --> 00:16:38.560 trying to find one of their daughters a week after the fires. They're still trying to find their 141 00:16:38.560 --> 00:16:44.720 dad, or they're still trying to connect with their grandparents who they haven't seen since 142 00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:51.680 a day or two before the fires started. That's what concerns them now. This is why we as believers, 143 00:16:51.680 --> 00:16:58.720 listen to this. The epistle that John wrote, first John, listen, first John 3, verse 17, 144 00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:06.960 but whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother or sister, of course, in need and shuts 145 00:17:07.520 --> 00:17:15.200 up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? In other words, you cannot 146 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:24.560 really be a real believer, truly a Christian, going to heaven, knowing Jesus, you can't be like 147 00:17:24.560 --> 00:17:30.160 that and not get involved. If you say, I'm not going to get involved because it makes me sad, 148 00:17:31.040 --> 00:17:36.720 then how dwells the love of God in you? In other words, it doesn't. So watch people who are 149 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:43.360 affected immediately by the fires. Their lives are being tested, but my friends listen up. 150 00:17:44.320 --> 00:17:48.880 Everyone in America right now, their lives are being tested by what happened here in Southern 151 00:17:48.880 --> 00:17:56.000 California. You say, well, Jack, go to the stretch. Is it now? Where were you? I know some of you 152 00:17:56.080 --> 00:18:02.640 may not have been born yet, but what did you do? Where were you on Tuesday morning, September 11, 153 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:07.760 2001? Where were you? I know exactly where I was. I can tell you what I was wearing. 154 00:18:10.320 --> 00:18:15.120 The next thing we did was, within a matter of hours, people without announcements showed up 155 00:18:15.120 --> 00:18:23.360 at the church, started praying, then teams were formed and went to New York. Where were you 156 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:31.440 throughout when Katrina hit? Did your church, did your life, were you responding to the needs of 157 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:40.480 those in Louisiana? The church community that I'm involved in, the family that I'm involved in, 158 00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:46.320 this church mobilized immediately. In fact, it was amazing. My goodness, this is TMI, but 159 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:54.160 I was speaking to, at the time, the governor, Bobby Jindel at the time, and my good friend, 160 00:18:54.160 --> 00:19:00.880 Tony Perkins, there in Bobby Jindel's pickup truck. FEMA was there making sure people didn't 161 00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:09.200 get any help or food. We literally had people in our church slaughter some of their cattle 162 00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:16.080 here in Southern California, turned it into steaks and hamburgers. We had two refrigerator trucks 163 00:19:16.080 --> 00:19:24.080 that made it across all the way to the state line to Louisiana and FEMA stopped them and the 164 00:19:24.080 --> 00:19:34.640 governor of Louisiana by order had our trucks get in there to start feeding the people around FEMA 165 00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:39.200 because FEMA was holding up the food because you didn't have a food service license. The food 166 00:19:39.200 --> 00:19:44.320 had not been respected by the FDA while people were starving. That's what government does. They 167 00:19:44.320 --> 00:19:50.800 screw everything up. Okay? And so thank God that when the time of crisis came, there was a believer 168 00:19:50.800 --> 00:19:55.280 as governor of Louisiana who said, shine the federal government. There are a bunch of buffoons. 169 00:19:55.280 --> 00:20:00.640 They're just going to starve everybody. We've got tens of thousands of motor homes, barbecues, 170 00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:04.720 and all of this stuff that's going on that we can't use because it doesn't have a special 171 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:11.040 transportation label by FEMA. There's vehicles that have been donated, but they haven't have the 172 00:20:11.040 --> 00:20:19.120 particular operator's license tag craziness. And we had to go around that. But my point is this, 173 00:20:19.120 --> 00:20:26.880 God's people rise up and get involved when people hurt. And this is what we must do. And this is 174 00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:33.280 what we're doing. I encourage you wherever you're at, find out how you can help or in your community 175 00:20:33.280 --> 00:20:38.720 get ready to help when your community gets hit because it eventually our love is going to be 176 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:44.560 challenged. We've got to do this. So just really really quick. The mobilization of people, 177 00:20:44.560 --> 00:20:52.960 I just want to encourage you with this. Since the fires hit, I know this church, I can only speak 178 00:20:52.960 --> 00:21:01.280 for this church, but I'm sure there's other churches. There is the response by the faith community. 179 00:21:01.280 --> 00:21:05.840 And I say faith, I'm being generous right now. I've only seen Christians responding. 180 00:21:06.320 --> 00:21:16.000 I haven't seen... Maybe it's happening, but I haven't seen a Muslim-led group of people 181 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:22.560 bringing relief. Maybe it's there. We've not seen it here. Maybe there's a Jewish contingency 182 00:21:22.560 --> 00:21:28.720 of relief efforts happening here. Maybe there is. I've not seen it. Let me tell you 183 00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:36.720 awesome awesome the overwhelming response on street corners. We were looking at street corners 184 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:45.120 where there were people that pulled up trucks. It was great to see Southern California monster 185 00:21:45.120 --> 00:21:51.120 trucks, right? These these awesome trucks that people drive raised up gnarly. These trucks got to be 186 00:21:51.120 --> 00:21:56.480 $200,000, $250,000 trucks. They never see dirt. They don't even allow them to go out in the rain. 187 00:21:56.480 --> 00:22:04.080 They're so perfect. They were filled up with chairs, with diapers, with water, and these gnarly 188 00:22:04.080 --> 00:22:09.920 looking guys getting out. I saw this with my own eyes. It was so cool. Tatted up guys. I mean, 189 00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:13.760 if I saw them in any other situation, I'd say, stay away, man. That's like, that's a gang. 190 00:22:15.040 --> 00:22:21.840 These guys were climbing out of their rigs. They're four three fifties, four two fifties, 191 00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:28.240 GMC Chevy Sierra's, whatever they do. Oh my gosh. These guys pulled up and all of these guys 192 00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:34.960 had their LA hats bomb backwards and they're just doing it. And we're saying, how do these people? 193 00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:41.680 And it's just one thing going on. And it turns out these are believers. These are believers. Listen, 194 00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:46.240 if people, listen, if you think Christians have got to have a cross around their neck and the 195 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:51.120 women's hair is back into bun and the guy's got to have, you know, his hair shaved off or whatever 196 00:22:51.200 --> 00:22:56.160 it is and his shirt button up to the top to be a Christian. You know, listen, you're going to be 197 00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.920 shocked when you come to Southern California because people that you see is like, what in the world 198 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:04.960 is that guy? That guy looks like he'll tell your head off. And then the guy, the guy's given people 199 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:10.560 stuff and he's crying. And then you ask him, how are you doing? I'm doing fine, man. Jesus 200 00:23:10.560 --> 00:23:18.720 awesome. God is great. I got to tell you, I love this place. But get involved either with what's 201 00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:26.480 happening here or something. But Christian, how do all of the love of God in you when you see 202 00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:31.680 your brother or your sister in need and you shut up your heart, your life of compassion? 203 00:23:32.800 --> 00:23:38.480 How do all the love of God in you? Well, the Greek demands the answer is it doesn't. You 204 00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:44.080 say, Jack, this is, this is strong. This is strong. What you're saying? Where's the fault in this? 205 00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:48.400 This is called exhortation. It's never even said today in churches anymore. 206 00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:57.760 Exortation means means this. Watch. It's a it's a smack in the rear to get you up and going. 207 00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:07.600 And Paul the Apostle Peter also was great at that. And so the world we live in now is a world 208 00:24:07.600 --> 00:24:15.280 of opportunity. So I'm not feeling it. Our company's closing its doors or the taxes or the this, 209 00:24:15.280 --> 00:24:21.440 that's not what I said. For the believer, you and I live in a world of opportunity right now. 210 00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:26.880 And listen, there's things that have gone horribly wrong. I'm not going to get into that. I've 211 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:35.360 already done it. You can find that out later. The exposing of the governor, the exposing of mayors, 212 00:24:35.360 --> 00:24:42.960 the exposing of Southern California Edison, the exposing of various institutions and Los Angeles 213 00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:47.120 Department of Water and Power. They're all busted. They're in the hot seat. They're getting fried 214 00:24:47.120 --> 00:24:53.760 and they're getting they're getting basted. And so there's people doing that. And so that's great 215 00:24:53.760 --> 00:24:59.360 because it needs to happen. There's so much wrong, but we didn't even know it was so wrong, 216 00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:04.960 but the fires exposed this. So that's good coming out of the devastation. 217 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:13.040 There's so much being done right. The private sector. And you don't have to be Christians to pull 218 00:25:13.040 --> 00:25:19.360 this off. Crystal Geyser. I don't know anything about Crystal Geyser water company. But man, 219 00:25:19.360 --> 00:25:25.120 did they come through? What about organizations right now? For example, like in and out burger, 220 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:30.640 in and out burgers responding with their trucks, I was told last night to the National Guard to feed 221 00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:36.400 them. What about home depots, certain home depots? What about certain things? Look, people got upset 222 00:25:36.400 --> 00:25:42.880 with me because the the first responders they asked for monster drink. And I got rebuked for us. 223 00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:47.520 We went and bought about, I don't know how many thousands and thousands and cans of monster drink 224 00:25:47.520 --> 00:25:52.480 because that's what the first responders wanted. People told me that that's a satanic company. 225 00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:58.960 They wound up donating just more and more and more to the fire effort. Listen, what's wrong with 226 00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:06.000 people? This is ridiculous. Listen, I don't know anything about monster drink. Well, don't you know 227 00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:12.320 that the M stands for Satan? I didn't know that. But I don't really care about that because if a 228 00:26:12.320 --> 00:26:18.880 Christian can take a monster drink, how about this? We'll circumcise it from all of its evil and 229 00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:25.600 we'll hand it over to the National Guard or the LA County Fire Department. I'm okay with that 230 00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:29.920 because you know what? There's some people that just sit around and Twitter with their theological 231 00:26:29.920 --> 00:26:36.320 thumbs until everybody either starts to death or the crisis blows over eventually. And then they 232 00:26:36.320 --> 00:26:42.000 feel better because there's nothing to respond to. And I'm not into that. And I trust you're not 233 00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:48.800 either as you wouldn't be following this podcast. We are Christians. We follow Jesus. Didn't Jesus 234 00:26:48.800 --> 00:26:55.120 say when all of these people, and I got to wrap this up, when all of these people were following 235 00:26:55.120 --> 00:27:03.360 Jesus and it was getting late, Jesus seen the need, said to the disciples, why don't you guys feed 236 00:27:03.360 --> 00:27:11.520 them? Hey, you 12 feed those thousands of people. And the guys were like, what do we do? And they 237 00:27:11.520 --> 00:27:17.600 said that. We don't know what to do. And Jesus said, make them sit down and and divided up small 238 00:27:17.600 --> 00:27:27.040 groups. Have them sit down. And then Jesus picked up baskets and he held them up and he prayed 239 00:27:27.040 --> 00:27:36.240 to the Father of bread and God supplied the bread. He took an impossible situation but because 240 00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:42.640 he was invited into the situation, God knew what he was going to do. But he loves doing it with his 241 00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:48.480 people so that his people who see the miracle happening and service are freaked out and blessed. 242 00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:54.880 And the people who are in need are freaked out and blessed because when God rolls, when Jesus rolls 243 00:27:54.880 --> 00:28:01.920 everybody's blessed. But I'm encouraging all of you to take inventory and ask yourself this 244 00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:12.000 question, do you have active love? Does your does your love get dirty? Does your love smell 245 00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:25.040 smoke? Does your love smell flesh? Does your love smell? Does your love get into the mess? Because Jesus 246 00:28:25.520 --> 00:28:33.920 does. And that's what we must do. What love is this? John would say to us, you know, wait one more 247 00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:41.440 thing before before we go is there's always a Pharisees online or in the camper in the group. And 248 00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:46.800 these are people that don't do anything. They just criticize everything. Let me explain. Somebody 249 00:28:46.800 --> 00:28:52.560 might say something like they can say it but it doesn't stick here because we do something about 250 00:28:52.960 --> 00:29:00.240 it. Why don't you guys do something for the Caroline as they were devastated by the horrible storms? 251 00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:12.000 Well, if you ask the Samaritans purse organization, we sent nearly three million dollars to help them. 252 00:29:13.840 --> 00:29:20.080 So there you go for that. Well, you guys are talking about the fires in LA. But what about Maui? 253 00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:30.320 We've sent help to Maui. We've directed aid from other organizations to Maui. We have friends in 254 00:29:30.320 --> 00:29:39.840 Maui. So what did you send to Maui? Or what did you send to fill in the blank? See, here's the point. 255 00:29:41.600 --> 00:29:48.400 I happen to be blessed to oversee a very large organization and the church, which means we have 256 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:53.280 and we get the opportunity because this is what God gave us, faithful and little faithful and more 257 00:29:53.280 --> 00:30:02.080 to give to others. But this is the key. There are people that are literally in the epicenter of 258 00:30:02.080 --> 00:30:10.080 their community's needs. So for example, the churches in Hawaii have they all banded together to 259 00:30:10.080 --> 00:30:19.200 help Maui. Help first your own Jerusalem. Then Judea, then Samaria, then the outermost parts of the 260 00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:25.920 world with not only assistance, but of course with the gospel. Those people in the Carolinas 261 00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:31.360 have all the churches in the Carolinas come together or are they sitting away, sitting around, 262 00:30:31.360 --> 00:30:35.920 waiting for people from California to send their money. You see what I'm saying? We have the 263 00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:47.040 opportunity to do both. You have the opportunity to do something. So if you want to help, we promise, 264 00:30:47.040 --> 00:30:59.200 we promise, we promise, we promise. 100% of your assistance. If you donate water or donuts, 265 00:31:00.080 --> 00:31:10.080 a dollar or a million, 100% of it is a tax write-off by the way for you. Thank God we still have that 266 00:31:10.080 --> 00:31:19.120 in America. So take advantage of it. But 100% of it will go to those in need. We don't take 267 00:31:19.120 --> 00:31:26.320 5% off for administration costs. We don't do that here. 100%. Guaranteed. God is our witness. 268 00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:33.200 And we promise you that. But stay tuned because the next two years are going to be critical. 269 00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:39.040 And we do need to throw people out of office. Everybody's working on that by the way. I was going to 270 00:31:39.040 --> 00:31:44.800 say we're working on that. Everybody's working on that. And there's actually a movement among 271 00:31:44.800 --> 00:31:50.800 Democrats actually to remove Democrats from office. I think that's hilarious. That's how bad it 272 00:31:51.280 --> 00:31:56.400 is here in the realm of politics. But you know what? Politics come and go. But the word of the Lord 273 00:31:56.400 --> 00:32:05.200 of Bites forever. The Lord loves and the Book of Job. The Book of Job might very well for this 274 00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:12.320 time and season be a book that is suspended over the fires of Southern California because at the end, 275 00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:20.000 Job turned out better than he was at the beginning. And what was taken from him was restored 276 00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:30.000 tenfold. I believe that God is going to do a remarkable, awesome thing in California that has 277 00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:38.640 never been seen before and I for one will not miss it by his grace. Listen, we believe that it's time 278 00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:43.760 obviously it's time to live out what you believe in. It's time for real life. And that's what 279 00:32:43.760 --> 00:32:48.720 we're all about here. God bless you guys. Share this with somebody. Let us know. Like it, hit the 280 00:32:48.720 --> 00:32:57.520 notification bell and make sure that we can stay in touch with you and that we are united together. 281 00:32:57.520 --> 00:32:59.600 So until next time, God bless you guys. 282 00:32:59.600 --> 00:33:10.240 This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. 283 00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:17.440 Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more 284 00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:19.520 and stay connected.