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 --> 00:00:11.840 truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Jesus Christ is the first and 3 00:00:11.840 --> 00:00:16.360 the last eternal God who came into this world to die in the cross, to be 4 00:00:16.360 --> 00:00:23.120 resurrected from the dead and to grant you or to gift you eternal life. 5 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:30.320 You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. 6 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:36.240 Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, 7 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:42.960 then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, 8 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:48.400 then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has 9 00:00:48.400 --> 00:00:56.240 to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Now watch this. If you detect some divine sarcasm in here, 10 00:00:56.240 --> 00:01:02.400 I think it's because Paul's landed on. First Corinthians 15 verse 13, he says, 11 00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:08.480 but if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. By the way, 12 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:14.960 the world would love to leave that right there, wouldn't they? And if Christ is not risen, 13 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:23.280 then our preaching is empty. And your faith is also empty. Wow. Yes. And if we are found false 14 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:29.120 witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise 15 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:35.920 up. If in fact, the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. 16 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:42.960 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile. You're still in your sins. 17 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:49.520 You know, it's awesome about that. You're still in your sins. Now the Christian, listen, 18 00:01:49.520 --> 00:01:54.160 the Christian hears this and says, yeah, yeah, okay, good. Keep reading. No problem. 19 00:01:55.360 --> 00:01:59.360 Because the real Christian here in this room right now, or maybe you're watching by TV or by 20 00:01:59.360 --> 00:02:04.560 whatever modes you're watching right now, the real Christian knows something. They know they're 21 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:09.360 not in their sins anymore. You understand that? The Holy Spirit has already born witness to the 22 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:13.680 real believer. Hey, do you remember when your sins used to control you? Sure do. Is it 23 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:16.560 it awesome now that they don't control you anymore? Sure is Lord. Thank you. 24 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:22.000 Everything that Paul is saying, the Christian is not fretting. It's like, oh, Pastor, 25 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:27.360 that's very threatening when he was saying, oh, no, oh, no, what if the Christian today's saying, 26 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:33.840 keep reading. Just keep on reading. It's all good. That's why I'm telling you that Paul is laying 27 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:42.560 it on, remarkably, powerfully. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile. You are still in 28 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:50.000 your sins, then also those who have fallen asleep or died in Christ have perished. If in this life 29 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:58.960 only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable, pathetic. But now Christ 30 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:05.920 is risen from the dead. In verse 20, he just shuts the door. Christ is risen from the dead. You 31 00:03:05.920 --> 00:03:12.640 say, well, that's your opinion. It's not my opinion. It's a matter of fact for a lot of reasons. But 32 00:03:12.640 --> 00:03:18.240 one of them is thousands of people just in one service alone here today at this service can bear 33 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:25.600 witness to the fact that you've been transformed from the inside out, that the work of God is literally 34 00:03:25.600 --> 00:03:33.760 something that you can qualify by changed lives. And Paul's is one of the most amazing changed 35 00:03:33.760 --> 00:03:43.520 lives. You see, our lives now are wrapped up in him. It's the power of the gospel. So who is this 36 00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:51.440 Jesus? Watch this. John is recording the vision of the book of Revelation and notice who he's 37 00:03:51.440 --> 00:03:57.840 speaking with or who is speaking to him. And when I saw him, capital H, you'll see who this is 38 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:03.040 in a moment. John says, I fell at his feet as dead, but he laid his right hand on me saying to me, 39 00:04:03.040 --> 00:04:10.720 do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. Okay, if you know your Old Testament, you just 40 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:17.520 found out that the God of the Old Testament is speaking to John. There's only one first and last 41 00:04:17.520 --> 00:04:23.760 ladies in gentlemen. There's not two. In fact, two have two is to commit blasphemy, which in the 42 00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:28.400 Old Testament would have you stoned to death. God says there's only one first in the last. There's 43 00:04:28.400 --> 00:04:35.520 only one who was who is who is to come the Almighty. Are you tracking? Only one. Only one. Think 44 00:04:35.520 --> 00:04:41.360 about all of those religious founders. I mentioned a moment ago that ever even had the Hutzpah, the 45 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:50.720 thought of saying such a thing. None of them have said what Jesus says. Verse 18, I am He who 46 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:59.600 lives and was dead and behold Him alive forevermore, amen. Wow. And I have the keys to Hades and of 47 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:06.080 death. Chapter two, verse eight. And do the angel of the church at Smirna, right? These things 48 00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:13.440 says the first and the last who was dead and came to life. If somebody ever tells you that Jesus 49 00:05:13.440 --> 00:05:20.240 Christ never claimed to be God, correct them regarding their biblical ignorance. This is a profound 50 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:27.040 declaration of deity none other than the very name of the Old Testament God, Jesus applies to 51 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:35.520 Himself. And not only that says, I lived, I died and I'm now living again. That's exactly what 52 00:05:35.520 --> 00:05:41.920 and who you need to take care of the sin question and to guarantee your entrance into eternal life, 53 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:52.160 a loving, holy, working Savior. That is Almighty God. What a great, great truth this is. And for the 54 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:57.360 life of the believer, I'm telling you right now, friends, if this Bible is true and I'm being 55 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:02.000 sarcastic right now, if it's true, don't you think we ought to see evidence of it? No, we do 56 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:09.280 archaeologically. That's fine. We do historically fine. But if this God or the Bible lives and this 57 00:06:09.280 --> 00:06:18.080 Bible is true, ought not to be evidence in our lives now, I have no stomach to have a spectator 58 00:06:18.080 --> 00:06:24.560 relationship with this Almighty God. If God moved them, then I believe He can move now. 59 00:06:25.200 --> 00:06:32.320 Don't you think things are bad enough for Him to move? How much worse can it get? I guess I 60 00:06:32.320 --> 00:06:40.400 shouldn't put it that way. Much worse, but isn't it bad enough? This is the worst our nation has 61 00:06:40.400 --> 00:06:48.960 ever been. And our culture, marriage, life, friends, children, on and on and go, stick of it. 62 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:55.440 And we can sit around going, it's just so bad. So wait a minute, did not God know that these days 63 00:06:55.440 --> 00:07:03.440 would be here right now? Yes, that's why you've been born into these days. That's why you're here 64 00:07:03.440 --> 00:07:08.640 right now. How do you know this or not? Where there's people who get together on Friday mornings 65 00:07:08.640 --> 00:07:16.480 and pray for these seeds. You might say, well, I don't care. My parents said, if I go, they'll buy me 66 00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:23.520 breakfast this morning. I just came for breakfast. Yeah, little do you know that you were prayed for, 67 00:07:23.520 --> 00:07:27.920 even though we don't know you, and God used your parents to bribe you with breakfast, 68 00:07:29.440 --> 00:07:33.680 and you're going to hear a truth today that's going to make you think, and you're going to make 69 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:39.920 a decision in your head. And you're going to have to sit with it. Trust me, because what we're 70 00:07:39.920 --> 00:07:45.600 saying is not human, it's supernatural. You see, is it over now? And you're going to leave? No, 71 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:50.480 and by the way, it's not over now. We have a long way to go. When you leave, you won't be able 72 00:07:50.480 --> 00:07:54.240 to get this stuff out of your head. You want to know why? Because the spirit of God's going to go 73 00:07:54.240 --> 00:08:01.600 home with you, and he's going to be tapping on your heart. All of this truth. Jesus Christ is the 74 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:07.200 first and the last, the eternal God who came into this world to die in the cross, to be resurrected 75 00:08:07.200 --> 00:08:12.080 from the dead and to grant you or to gift you eternal life. But he didn't leave us alone when 76 00:08:12.080 --> 00:08:16.400 he went back to heaven. I'm going to read you a section of scripture. I always get so excited 77 00:08:16.400 --> 00:08:21.040 about this. These two passages from these two chapters have meant everything in my life. 78 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:30.480 For over 40 years, it's been incredible. First one is John chapter 14 verse 6. You guys know this 79 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:41.600 verse, but John chapter 14 verse 6 says, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. 80 00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:49.440 No one comes to the Father except through me. Isn't that kind of a boy? That's narrow, isn't it? 81 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:56.160 Are you Christians? You're so narrow-minded. We're not narrow-minded. We're narrow-instructed 82 00:08:57.760 --> 00:09:02.480 because Jesus said, I'm the truth, I'm the way, I'm the life. There's no other. 83 00:09:04.560 --> 00:09:07.600 That shouldn't offend you. That should come as a great relief deal. 84 00:09:08.400 --> 00:09:16.480 The God took upon human skin to go to the cross to pay the debt that you and I owe him for our 85 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:21.440 sins that we could never pay. Can you imagine somebody writing the check right now? Can you imagine 86 00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:27.520 somebody come in and you go home today and somebody says, how much you owe in your house? A trillion 87 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:37.520 I live in California, I owe a trillion dollars for my shack and that person writes a trillion dollar 88 00:09:37.520 --> 00:09:46.000 check and says, your house says, no, you'd be pretty excited about that. What if you had a debt 89 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:52.960 that you couldn't find the currency to pay the debt? It wouldn't be in dollars or crypto. There's 90 00:09:52.960 --> 00:10:01.200 nothing but blood. And then you apply your blood, sweat and tears to it and it's not enough. 91 00:10:03.680 --> 00:10:08.560 And then Christ steps in and says, are you done now? Trying to save yourself because that's what I 92 00:10:08.560 --> 00:10:14.080 did for you at the cross 2000 years ago. What you're searching for was already done. The problem is 93 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:20.000 you've not connected the dots and I'm knocking on the door of your heart. No one comes to the 94 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:26.240 Father except through me. Verse 16, I will pray the Father and He will give you another helper. 95 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:33.920 Notice capital H, it's paracletos. It's the another name for the Holy Spirit that He may abide 96 00:10:33.920 --> 00:10:40.160 with you forever. He's not an it. My Jovo witness friends, the Spirit of God is not an it. 97 00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:50.080 He's a he. He is God the Holy Spirit. He that He may abide with you for how long? 98 00:10:51.040 --> 00:10:58.240 Forever the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. 99 00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:04.000 But you know Him for He dwells with you. Every true believer knows this and shall be in you or 100 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:10.400 will be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. This is Jesus speaking to the 101 00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:16.800 disciples. I'm leaving. I'm going back to heaven. Don't worry. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit up 102 00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:23.440 until now you guys have walked with me. But when the Spirit of God comes, He's going to come inside of 103 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:33.040 you and He's going to secure you for heaven. In fact, the next next passage, John 16. But these 104 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:39.440 things I have told you, verse four, that when they, but that when the time comes, you may remember 105 00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:45.280 that I told you of them, verse seven. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I 106 00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:52.480 go away. You never would have agreed with Jesus. If you were walking with Him 2000 years ago and He 107 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:57.040 says to you, it's after all the things you've seen and heard from Him and He says, it's better for you 108 00:11:57.120 --> 00:12:04.560 now that I leave. Excuse me. I love you Jesus. You're amazing. We've been doing okay up until now. I 109 00:12:04.560 --> 00:12:11.520 don't think you leaving is a good idea. Up until then, listen, the disciples walked in this shadow. 110 00:12:11.520 --> 00:12:17.040 They, can you imagine if anybody was going to beat up on Peter or somebody, they could just run to 111 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:25.520 Jesus. The Pharisees and the Sadducees start coming with their religious garb to mess with your 112 00:12:25.520 --> 00:12:32.640 mind. All you had to do if you were Andrew, Jesus. You ever seen a little kid like that? I heard a 113 00:12:32.640 --> 00:12:37.280 story recently. It's kind of a place to this where this little guy, he was just a little guy. He 114 00:12:37.280 --> 00:12:42.640 was in junior high little guy and everybody made fun of him because it's a little. And so people 115 00:12:42.640 --> 00:12:46.080 take advantage of him. You know this bull, I don't know if you know this or not, but bullying, 116 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:50.480 you can talk about bullying all you want. It's never going to stop. You can pass laws, you know 117 00:12:51.040 --> 00:12:54.960 that stuff. You can't do a thing about it because you can't change the human heart. Only 118 00:12:54.960 --> 00:13:01.040 guy can change the human heart. Kids are going to bully other kids. Terrible. So this one guy, 119 00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:09.920 we'll just call him Freddie. Freddie keeps beating up on little Bobby. And Phil was this big Christian 120 00:13:09.920 --> 00:13:16.000 kid and his heart was broken. He sees this little guy, Bobby getting beat up all the time and 121 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:21.200 it just made him sick and one day he just couldn't take it anymore. And so he went over to Freddie 122 00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:26.880 and just grabbed Freddie by the throat. It was, I mean it's just a beautiful sight. He just, 123 00:13:26.880 --> 00:13:31.520 he didn't punch him, he just grabbed him on the throat. And he just shook him a little bit. 124 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:38.960 And said, leave him alone or you have to deal with me. And the guy backed off, that's what bullies 125 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:47.280 do, you know, when you grab him by the throat and they back off. And I heard in that story that 126 00:13:47.280 --> 00:13:57.200 from that moment on, little Bobby, wherever, whoever, who's the good guy? Phil. So wherever Phil 127 00:13:57.200 --> 00:14:08.640 was at, little Bobby was at. Wherever Phil showed up, there's little Bobby. If Bobby ever felt threatened, 128 00:14:08.640 --> 00:14:17.040 he would move closer to Phil. I think that's very good. If you ever feel threatened, you should 129 00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:24.400 move closer to Jesus. Just hang, just stay in Jesus's shadow. Bobby stayed in Phil's shadow 130 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:31.840 because Phil said nobody messes with this little kid. God is saying to you right now, 131 00:14:31.920 --> 00:14:40.480 everything that's going on in life. Nothing's getting past God. It's all going to come to a grand 132 00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:46.880 and full reckoning someday. It's all going to come to a day of judgment. 133 00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:53.680 If there's no judgment, then there is no God because to be a holy righteous God, you have to have 134 00:14:53.680 --> 00:15:00.000 judgment. The difference will be, will you be judged? Listen, will you, will you be judged with 135 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.960 Christ as your advocate or not? According to the Bible, on that day, you'll either have Christ or 136 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:16.000 you want. It's your choice. But what a powerful thing this is that God says, I will put my spirit 137 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:20.800 in you. In the book of Ezekiel, God prophesied and he said, that there's a day coming when I will 138 00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:25.520 no longer deal with Israel according to the law and the commandments that I gave them, that they 139 00:15:25.520 --> 00:15:31.120 broke. But a day will come when I will do away with the first commandment and bring a second 140 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:36.640 when I will dwell within them. I will set up camp within the heart. 141 00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:44.400 And so John chapter 16 goes on and this is so, so comforting. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth 142 00:15:44.400 --> 00:15:49.040 for seven years to your advantage that I go away for. If I do not go away, the helper, the Holy 143 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:56.160 Spirit will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he has come, 144 00:15:56.880 --> 00:16:02.240 he will convict the world of sin. Did you know that? He's convicting the world of sin right now. 145 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:06.240 And even, listen, and his children too, you and I, when we do something wrong, doesn't he 146 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:12.880 convict us? He says, Jack, what are you doing? We don't do that anymore. And to the world, 147 00:16:12.880 --> 00:16:18.800 he convicts the world of sin. I know it doesn't seem like it, but he does. The word of God's faithful 148 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:26.320 and of righteousness and of judgment of sin because they do not believe in me, 149 00:16:27.040 --> 00:16:33.280 because I go to my father and you see me no more, because the ruler of this world is judged, 150 00:16:33.280 --> 00:16:38.320 a reference to Satan. Listen to this. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot 151 00:16:38.320 --> 00:16:44.560 bear them now. The word bear them now means you cannot take what I'm about to tell you. 152 00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:51.520 You're going to have to have an internal witness to emboss this into your soul. That's why the 153 00:16:51.520 --> 00:16:57.520 spirit of God needs to come. Look, verse 13, however, when he, the spirit of truth has come, 154 00:16:57.520 --> 00:17:03.360 he will guide you. Notice this. It is the Holy Spirit that guides the believer into all truth 155 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:09.680 for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he, 156 00:17:09.760 --> 00:17:15.920 the Holy Spirit will tell you things to come. He will glorify me for he will take of what is 157 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:22.480 mine and declare it to you. Is that awesome? The Holy Spirit Christian, you must be acquainted with 158 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:28.480 the Holy Spirit in your life. Jesus is in heaven. It's the Holy Spirit that's in you. 159 00:17:29.520 --> 00:17:35.520 Speaking to you about God's truth, leading you along the way. And you want to ask yourself always, 160 00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:40.800 am I dependent upon the Holy Spirit? The Bible says, watch out. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. 161 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:49.040 He's the one that is with us. Look at verse 35 and verse 36, who shall separate us from the 162 00:17:49.040 --> 00:17:56.160 love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress or persecution? Listen, famine, nakedness, peril or 163 00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:00.880 sword. That pretty much covers it, doesn't it? I mean, there may be something that you're saying 164 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:05.440 is going on in your life, but it's going to fall under this, anyone of these described in this 165 00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:12.000 category here, tribulation, hardship, hard times, trying times, distress. Do you ever feel like you're 166 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:19.280 being crushed by the weight of this world? The pressures of this world, the evil of this world? 167 00:18:21.360 --> 00:18:28.000 And so mark this down if you would please. Your security is guaranteed as a believer and we don't 168 00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:35.920 any longer need to worry about the outcome of it. You're safe in the hands of God, 169 00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:40.480 according to the Word. Look, it says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? It means 170 00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:47.840 it's impossible to be separated from the love of Christ. There's no way that you can be detached 171 00:18:47.840 --> 00:18:52.000 from the love of Christ. The question is today, are you a true follower of Jesus? 172 00:18:52.240 --> 00:19:00.480 Are you really his? And you see this word separate or to separate? Look at this meaning of this 173 00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:08.480 word. It's awesome to divide and have or intersections to make into parts or into pieces. The Bible says 174 00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:15.760 for the believer, watch, I'm going somewhere with this, watch, hang on, that you cannot ever be cut 175 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:22.720 into pieces regarding you in Christ. It's not possible. You can't be divided up. 176 00:19:27.360 --> 00:19:33.360 This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. 177 00:19:33.360 --> 00:19:40.480 Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more 178 00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:41.680 and stay connected. 179 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:14.320 At least one discount. See if you could save when you switch to progressive. 180 00:20:14.320 --> 00:20:19.040 You'll feel good about making a savvy choice. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a 181 00:20:19.040 --> 00:20:22.800 little extra cashback. Progressive casual tea insurance company and affiliates. 182 00:20:22.800 --> 00:20:28.080 National average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive 183 00:20:28.080 --> 00:20:32.640 between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.