WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.480 Real Life presents the Jack Kibs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, 2 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:09.480 equip the saints and impact our culture. 3 00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:14.480 God's words true, who don't believe it? That's on you. God's provided everything. 4 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:20.560 It's okay if you're skeptical, that's fine. But you just don't stay there. Dig in, find out! 5 00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:30.000 You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackkibs.com slash podcast. 6 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.920 Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, 7 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:42.720 then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying, Amen or yes. 8 00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:49.200 Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. 9 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:51.600 Here is Jack Kibs. 10 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:24.800 It could only be before mankind, but not before God. Look at the latter end of verse two. This is 11 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:31.680 very important. For the believer, we are to be stripped of our pride. And when I mean pride, 12 00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:37.760 I mean this. I don't mean grateful that you are excellent at what you do and you're a tremendous 13 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:42.960 athlete in this area or you are a great piano player. I'm not talking about those things that God 14 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:49.680 has blessed you with and you're delighted. I'm talking about the pride by which you and I approach God 15 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:57.840 thinking that if God has us, it's a sweet deal for heaven. My look, God, you've got me in your 16 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:03.920 family, aren't you lucky? No, the Bible knows nothing of this. Our pride has laid low before God, 17 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:11.840 and that's a great thing. Abraham, he had no place to boast before God. God's the one that 18 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:19.280 initiated it. God's the one that called him out of this pagan land of the caldians. It was God 19 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:26.400 who spoke to him. And it reminds me of just the grandeur of who our God is. I personally believe 20 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:30.800 that it's a very, very backslidden Christian. Look, we're all prone to this, so we have to keep an 21 00:02:30.800 --> 00:02:39.040 eye on one another. We're very prone as humans in our flesh to have some form of level of pride 22 00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:46.080 active at any given time. He said, not me, Pastor, I am so humble. I'm so humble, Pastor, you have no 23 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:55.840 idea. That's really proud. We all have to deal with it. It's like the cancer of our soul pride. 24 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:02.400 But I tell you, listen, we're to keep it under control and God's word gives us that power to do that. 25 00:03:03.200 --> 00:03:09.200 But this is how, in my opinion, this is my opinion. This is how the word of God does it in my life. 26 00:03:09.920 --> 00:03:14.640 I'll give you an example. Revelation chapter 1 verses 17 and 18. Now you're going to forgive me in 27 00:03:14.640 --> 00:03:18.880 advance, right? If I get excited about this passage, it's because it means so much to me in my life. 28 00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:27.200 Read it often, I delight in this. Why? Because it makes me feel really small. I get real tiny 29 00:03:27.840 --> 00:03:36.320 when I read this. Here we go. John said it, and when I saw him, Christ, I fell at his feet as dead, 30 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:43.040 but he laid his right hand upon me, saying to me, do not be afraid. I am the first in the last, 31 00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:48.960 stop right there, verse 17, Revelation 117. The first time you'd be introduced to the first in 32 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:55.840 the last is in the book of Isaiah. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is revealing himself 33 00:03:55.840 --> 00:04:00.960 through the prophet Isaiah, and he's announcing. He said, Isaiah, you tell Israel, I am the first in 34 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:06.480 the last. I am Almighty God. There is no God formed before me, nor shall there be any God after me. 35 00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:13.680 I'm alone. I am God. I am the first in the last. No one takes this title to himself. 36 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:24.880 Well, Jesus just did. Verse 18, I am he who lives and was dead and behold, I'm alive forever more. 37 00:04:24.880 --> 00:04:30.080 Amen. And I have the keys of hell and death. Somebody listen, somebody get excited about that. 38 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:35.920 That's incredible. This is Jesus Christ, the God of the Bible who saves your soul. Why should my 39 00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:42.480 pride be laid low? Because the one I worship is the eternal God, the first, the beginning in the end, 40 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:47.600 the first in the last, the alpha in the Omega, the one who was, who is, who is to come to the Almighty. 41 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:55.680 All of those are Old Testament references to the very person of Christ and whoever he is, 42 00:04:55.680 --> 00:05:06.480 he lived, he died and he lives again. That's it, right there. No wonder why John fell down on this 43 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:13.040 face. My pride, your pride goes out the window when we realize that regarding this God of ours, 44 00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:18.000 that there's nowhere to hide from his grandeur and from his glory and why would you? 45 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:25.120 When you look at who he is in the Bible, I'm not talking about following people. Did we not learn yet 46 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:34.640 again? Did you see the news this week? Listen, people, what did you guys spend so much time in the 47 00:05:34.640 --> 00:05:39.680 Bible? That Bible study was an hour long. Let me tell you what happens when you don't spend time 48 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:47.360 going through the Bible on a regular basis. You wind up taking the name of Jesus and destroying 49 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:54.640 it publicly all around the world. You drag his beloved church through the mud and wind up 50 00:05:54.640 --> 00:06:02.640 destroying tens of thousands of people when you can't keep your pants on, doing drugs with a 51 00:06:02.640 --> 00:06:08.800 prostitute in a hotel and being so stone that you wind up posting what you're doing? 52 00:06:10.880 --> 00:06:15.520 And that's exactly what happened in one of the world's biggest Christian leaders this week. 53 00:06:17.680 --> 00:06:25.680 Have I not been telling you to keep your eyes on Jesus? But listen, to do that, you must go through 54 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:31.440 the Bible. And when you do not go through the Bible and teach sermon ads for Christian ads, 55 00:06:31.440 --> 00:06:39.920 you wind up having no power. And this is a tragic time for the church. As long as we had the right 56 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:45.920 lighting, as long as we had the right superstar singing, as long as we had the right feel, as long 57 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:51.680 as we made the church so much like the world that the world wouldn't know that when they came to 58 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:55.200 church that we were anything different than the world. And then they would come because we're 59 00:06:55.280 --> 00:07:02.720 just like the world. And that's what they did. The church doesn't need to become like the world. 60 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:09.440 Listen, guess what, church, the world is much smarter than the church believes. The world is sick 61 00:07:09.440 --> 00:07:14.080 of sin. Many people are sick the death of sin in the world. And they're looking for hope. They're 62 00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:17.840 looking for the answers. They're looking for Jesus. And they don't know how to look for him, but 63 00:07:17.840 --> 00:07:24.000 they stumble into a church. It's just like the world. God has offered us change in a whole new life 64 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:29.920 and a whole new kingdom. And it's a whole new beginning. It's not something that has a tax 65 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:37.360 exemption that's just like the world. It's a horrible thing. It's a tragic thing. 66 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:48.160 God's Word levels us in our pride. We should all be laying down on our face with John and saying, 67 00:07:48.960 --> 00:07:54.080 wow, he's the alpha and the omega. He's the first and the last. He's the one. It's Jesus. 68 00:07:54.960 --> 00:08:02.000 And he's a life forevermore. He's my God. He's my Savior. Isaiah, chapter 6 tells us, verse 1, 69 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:08.160 Isaiah gives us the Old Testament version of this. In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah said, 70 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:15.120 I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled or the glory. 71 00:08:16.080 --> 00:08:22.640 Rob, both the same, filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim and jealous creature, 72 00:08:22.640 --> 00:08:29.360 strange thing. Each one had six wings. With two, he covered his face, with two, he covered his 73 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:35.760 feet, and with two. So he had three sets of wings. With two, he flew. And one cried to the other 74 00:08:35.760 --> 00:08:42.560 saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the 75 00:08:42.560 --> 00:08:48.000 post of the door and the John is seen heaven. The post of the door were shaken by the voice of him 76 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:55.120 who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said, this is John, this is Isaiah speaking, 77 00:08:55.120 --> 00:09:02.960 woe is me. The word woe is condemned. Undone, condemned. I'm, I have no hope. I'm done. I'm 78 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:12.400 undone. I got nothing here. Woe is me. For I'm undone because I'm a man of unclean lips. And I 79 00:09:12.400 --> 00:09:18.240 dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes, here's the reason. For my eyes have seen 80 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:25.200 the king, the Lord of hosts. This is the God of the Bible. This is the God that is to be 81 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:32.800 governing our lives as believers. It's not for us that people should see us living and being 82 00:09:32.800 --> 00:09:39.120 and speaking and acting different. It's for his name. It's for his glory that we live. Well, 83 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:49.920 listen, we are supposed to be followers of Jesus. Not some snobby, legalistic, right? Unapproachable 84 00:09:50.720 --> 00:10:04.080 religionists. And Isaiah was laid low at the scene of his God. Daniel put it this way. Daniel 8, 85 00:10:04.800 --> 00:10:12.240 verse 27, Daniel said, I, Daniel fainted and was sick for many days after when he saw heaven, 86 00:10:12.240 --> 00:10:17.840 Daniel got sick. Wow. Can you imagine? I just want to see heaven. I want to see a vision. Are you sure? 87 00:10:20.400 --> 00:10:22.480 He's probably safer to read your Bible and go with that. 88 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:32.640 In Philippians 2.2, verse 10, Philippians 2.10 says, and we read it last week, but it bears repeating, 89 00:10:32.640 --> 00:10:36.160 that at the name of Jesus, listen, this is going to happen someday. 90 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:43.040 By the way, as I read this, I highly recommend you do it now instead of later. 91 00:10:43.280 --> 00:10:50.160 If you do it now, it's going to go well with you later. If you do it later and not now, 92 00:10:50.160 --> 00:10:57.440 it's not going to go well for you. At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven, 93 00:10:57.440 --> 00:11:03.600 those on earth and those under the earth, the underworld, spirit realm, and that every tongue should 94 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:09.440 confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. Why? Why? Because Jesus Christ 95 00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:18.080 is Lord. He's Lord. He's the one. I mean, there's nowhere to go with that. See, it comes down to 96 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:23.680 this choice. Do I believe this or not? And then, number two, this is our second point in our 97 00:11:23.680 --> 00:11:28.400 study when eyes can hear us, is that there's no way to lose. These are, again, all positives. 98 00:11:28.400 --> 00:11:33.040 Paul is not beating up the church in Rome. He's giving them incredible, encouraging statements 99 00:11:33.760 --> 00:11:38.240 that there's no way to lose church. That's what we see in verse three. Number one is this, 100 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:43.520 in verse three, is that salvation is founded upon the scriptures, the scriptures. I'm so grateful 101 00:11:43.520 --> 00:11:50.480 for this, the scriptures, the Bible. For those of you who don't know, did you, or have you ever 102 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:56.160 considered why or how has the Bible endured thousands and thousands of years? It's kind of a fun 103 00:11:56.160 --> 00:12:06.880 question. We're in the 21st century. Isn't this thing old? That's a hard question. I guess it's old, 104 00:12:06.880 --> 00:12:14.880 but it's for now and it's eternal, so it's ageless. This book's timeless. This is the book that 105 00:12:14.880 --> 00:12:20.960 wrote down the future in advance on the pages. It's called Prophecy. This is the book that says, 106 00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:25.840 regarding the Hittites, that they live in a certain region, and then everybody says, 107 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:32.080 that's ridiculous. There's never been anything found that ever substantiates the Hittite kingdom. 108 00:12:32.160 --> 00:12:39.840 And then people start digging around in the dirt. And then they find out Hittite artifacts. 109 00:12:40.880 --> 00:12:44.640 Then they say there was not even a King David. There's no evidence. We can't even find if there 110 00:12:44.640 --> 00:12:51.200 was a King David. And then they start digging around and they find artifacts displaying David 111 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:56.240 from the House of Jesse. Well, you know what? The Bible says that this guy, 112 00:12:56.720 --> 00:13:02.320 Cornius, was the governor of Syria at the time of Christ, and we can't find any evidence about that 113 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:07.440 until some archaeologists start digging in the dirt and find out that there was a governor in Syria 114 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:15.600 by the name of Cornius. The Bible says in some, oh, I'm going from memory. Watch it. 115 00:13:16.400 --> 00:13:27.760 Going from memory here. Song 45, I think, maybe around verse four says that the truth, 116 00:13:27.760 --> 00:13:32.880 the earth shall cast out truth. Are you able to draw truth out of the earth? Man, if I was an 117 00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:40.400 archaeologist, I'd have a t-shirt with that on it. You know, it's so cool. Read your Bible. Go 118 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:46.000 get a shovel, get a ticket, fly to the Middle East. I think I met somebody before service. They're 119 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:52.800 from Persia. There you go. Did you know Persia's Bible land? People used to say there's been 120 00:13:52.800 --> 00:13:58.160 no these empires. And then listen, if you don't like what I'm saying and you say, that's not true. 121 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:04.480 I'm going to fact check that. Okay, can you note to self, fact checkers are fake. 122 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:11.600 It turns out that the fact checkers who check the fact checkers regarding fact checking 123 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:17.440 that something like seven out of ten of those companies are owned by George Soros. 124 00:14:18.400 --> 00:14:23.680 How funny of that. Of course, he's going to be honest. So don't listen to anybody, 125 00:14:23.680 --> 00:14:29.440 just like the resurrection guy on the tarmac. They're at the airport. Get in an airplane and 126 00:14:29.520 --> 00:14:38.720 fly to London. Go to the Museum of History in England. And you can spend days going through all 127 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:46.640 the Babylonian displays or the displays of the Persian Empire and of Cyrus and Daris and all 128 00:14:46.640 --> 00:14:51.520 of these kings and all of these despots that ruled when people used to make fun of the Bible. 129 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:58.880 People used to mock the Bible and then in 1948 or 1949, a shepherd boy is looking for his sheep 130 00:14:58.880 --> 00:15:04.000 is lost, ran into a cave and the kid didn't want to go in the cave. So he said he threw a rock 131 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:08.400 into the cave and he heard glass break. So that kind of freaked him out. So he went in there and 132 00:15:08.400 --> 00:15:15.680 found these huge urns, beautiful urns. And wound up telling people about it, long story short, 133 00:15:15.760 --> 00:15:22.560 turned out to be the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Bible in those scrolls, in those urns, 134 00:15:22.560 --> 00:15:26.880 opened it up. You can go to the Jerusalem today, the Museum of the Book, take a walk, 135 00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:33.840 it's all laid out and there's the scripture and they'll point out in that museum in Jerusalem 136 00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:40.960 that there's no difference from that to the Old King James Bible. God preserves his word. 137 00:15:41.920 --> 00:15:44.640 God's words true. Who don't believe it? That's on you. 138 00:15:46.640 --> 00:15:53.120 God's provided everything. It's okay if you're skeptical. That's fine. But just don't stay there. 139 00:15:54.720 --> 00:16:03.200 Dig in, find out. But know this. God is awesome. You can't save yourself. You need to believe in him 140 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:07.760 just like Abraham did. And God transformed his life. We'll learn about this more in a moment, 141 00:16:07.760 --> 00:16:13.760 but it's all founded upon the Word of God. So listen, I wrote this note to myself, but look, 142 00:16:13.760 --> 00:16:18.800 if I get tormented by these things, I am going to bring them into a message and share my torment 143 00:16:18.800 --> 00:16:25.680 with you. And it's this. A note to myself. Maybe it's to you. How responsive am I to following 144 00:16:25.680 --> 00:16:33.520 directions? Me. So ask yourself the question. And when it comes to obeying a command or reading 145 00:16:33.520 --> 00:16:41.360 the instructions in a manual, how compliant am I to those directions? And I have to be honest 146 00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:46.800 with you. You guys, my first thought was how responsive am I to following directions? Me? 147 00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:55.680 Listen, totally. I thought totally. I grew up in a Marine Corps home. Some of you did four years. 148 00:16:56.160 --> 00:17:05.840 I did 19 years in the Marine Corps. I left my, I left home at 19. So I was in the Marine 149 00:17:05.840 --> 00:17:16.480 Corps for 19 years. And I learned how to obey. And I have to tell you something. This is a little 150 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:21.440 side note. It has nothing to do with their Bible study exactly. But I wound up working for a 151 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:30.480 corporation. And I wound up being in a position at a corporation and supervised over people 152 00:17:31.280 --> 00:17:36.800 in this global corporation. And you know how I got that job? I should say, you know how I kept that 153 00:17:36.800 --> 00:17:43.600 job? Doing what I was told. That there was a time when human resources said, listen, you cannot 154 00:17:43.600 --> 00:17:48.800 tell people that you didn't go to Stanford or that you didn't go to San Diego State and that you 155 00:17:48.800 --> 00:17:53.360 didn't go to Northwestern because you got people working underneath you that graduated from 156 00:17:53.360 --> 00:18:02.320 Johns Hopkins and they think you did too. So you cannot say a thing. Did you know? It was crazy. 157 00:18:03.280 --> 00:18:11.520 Why? Because I grew up learning how to obey. Now I grew up with a whip learning how to obey. 158 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:20.800 When God says obey, you need to know it's not going to be by whip. It's because he wants your life to 159 00:18:20.800 --> 00:18:28.400 be blessed. And so when you evaluate yourself at the second one really got me because I don't read 160 00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:35.760 instructions. So I don't obey after all. We get a, you know, get a tricycle for the grandkids, 161 00:18:35.840 --> 00:18:41.520 putting that baby together. Look, do I have to come on? Just like, do I? Guys, do we have time to 162 00:18:41.520 --> 00:18:50.720 read instructions? We got to go. We got things to do. Then Lisa comes into the garage and says, 163 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:56.720 I thought it was a tricycle. What's this? Where's the other wheel? Three, try. Three, try 164 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:04.160 wheel. Try sickle. What is that? Then I have to read the instructions. It takes me twice as long. 165 00:19:05.840 --> 00:19:14.240 I didn't read the instructions. Instructions. Right here. You'll just chase yourself in the desert 166 00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:25.760 without these instructions. He gives us instructions. This Jack Hibb's podcast as well as all the 167 00:19:25.760 --> 00:19:31.200 broadcasts out reach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us 168 00:19:31.200 --> 00:19:38.640 through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.