Now Hear This

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. I don't care who you are. If you were to come up to me and say, pornography is a great benefit in my life for this reason. You are lying to yourself and we all know it. Where are the women rising up and saying we've got to put an end to pornography? Where are they? You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Jude says, when presenting the gospel to the world around you, Christian, he says, on some have compassion. There are people who are broken and people who know that they're alienated from God and you are to be compassionate to them. He says, on some having compassion, making a distinction. It means that you share the love of God and the righteousness of God and they come up to you and they say, I need God. I need forgiveness. I need a new life. And here Jude tells us to be extending to them compassion. Verse 23 says, but on others, save with fear. The word fear in Greek, there is phobos. It means to be blunt with the truth. Some people mock and they ridicule and, oh, that's ridiculous, that's ridiculous. On those people, Jude says, don't give them compassion. Compassion's not going to help them. You turn to them and you tell them, unless you escape the life that you're living, you are going to be swallowed up by the grips of hell itself. You are going to be consumed by the very thing that Jesus died on the cross to liberate you from. Hopefully from the city of destruction, as it were, in John Bunyan's Pilgrim progress, run quick. You would run. You would grab whatever you have that's of importance and you would run and you would flee. And Jude is saying that to some that you would save them with fears is even so, look at this, pulling them out of the fire, having even or hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Man, there's people like that, you look at people, I look at people, we look at people and we look at them and we think, man, that person is just too far gone. Boy, that person's lost, there's just no hope for them. The Bible says, don't you dare do that. Our Christianity will not break, it won't melt, it's not flimsy, it's resilient and we don't have to protect it. Oh, I can't go talk to that person. They got a pierced, they got a nose piercing and a lip piercing and their faces tattooed and they're half dressed and they're smoking pots. I can't talk to them, why can't you talk to them? Are you afraid somebody might take a picture of you talking to them and you might have your reputation damaged? When we see people that are either look so lost or in fact are lost, we go to them and speak to them and ask them about God and if they say, God, this happened to me truly in life, a pastor friend of mine years ago, this is almost 40 years ago, walking down the boardwalk in Newport Beach, walked by a bunch of bikers, it was a nasty, mean looking biker gang and we were witnessing the people and witnessing the people and we saw this biker gang and they're drinking beer and they're cussing and we got really quiet and we just walked by, we're intimidated by them. Terrified by them and we were walking by and I have never heard God speak audibly, I just have not, maybe you have, I've never heard him speak audibly but when he speaks, however he speaks, you know it. He didn't say any words that I heard. This is what happened in my heart, why did you not share my truth with them and in my mind in three seconds I said because they scare me and I immediately stopped and I said Richard, we have to go back and I walked back and I'm not kidding you. I walked up to the guy who is the biggest, gnarliest cussing, beer, drink and dude. This is right by Babbo up here and Newport Pier, by Newport Pier and I said, I said, this is exactly what happened, it was a miracle because I didn't even plan this. I said, excuse me but before you kill me for telling you about Jesus, I want you to know that I'm a Christian and God wants me to say something to you and he goes, that's funny man. And I said, this is who Jesus is and I told them, all of his buddies were standing around. He got stoned, face serious, his friends were mocking, he told them all to shut up. He let me keep talking. You know what the conclusion was, he said, listen, I want to thank you for telling me this, but I have been such a bad man in my life. There is no way that God would ever let me into heaven. He said, no, it's pretty soon someday I'm going to get stoned out of my mind, I'm going to open up my heartily on the freeway and I'm just going to roll myself off the back and kill myself because I could never make it to heaven. And all I could leave him with was this, Jesus said, the person who sins the most and is forgiven is the one who loves the most. And I walked away, I don't know whatever became of him, I know that God's word doesn't return void, but we need to be careful that we don't get so Christianized that we don't tell people who don't look like us or think like us or have sex like us that we do not announce the kingdom of God to them for fear. Romans, Paul is speaking to a Roman culture that had been sex crazed and the women had given themselves over to one another because they divorced themselves as it were from the natural use of a man and men gave up on women and went after one another two thousand years ago, the Bible speaks about it and here we are today. And so this is vitally important church, we pick it up where we left off and I'm sorry again if you've missed these messages, go back and view them. I'll simply tell you this, that in the previous announcements we looked at these verses and we saw that behind the mask there's the abuse, we talked about that. And in the abuse there's the abuse of the body of the soul and of the mind. Previously to that we looked at the destruction behind the mask, the destruction of morality. Once we cross that line and we don't make corrections we become immoral but it's a bizarre immorality because when we become immoral according to the Bible we begin to justify our new created morality, we begin to justify our wrongs and then we begin to lose a reason. We can't think right anymore, destruction and then we saw, remember we ended this last time when we are in the state of destruction and we're alienated from God, we lose all sense of boundaries, anything goes, which is why friends listen, which is why today there are clubs that you can join, what is the the man boy club, the man, man, man, man, you can club where men in relationships with boys, there's groups that you can sign up, there's all these things going on and our culture, our culture just turns away from that, does that not say anything about it? What's going on? Why, listen, if, listen, if we were born good and man is an ain'tly good then why is it, as I mentioned last week, why is it that we continue to allow pornography to be legal? It does nothing but destroy people. Listen, I don't care who you are, if you were to come up to me and say pornography is a great benefit in my life for this reason, you are lying to yourself and we all know it. Where are the women rising up and saying we've got to put an end to pornography? Where are they? My argument is this, it's a spiritual matter, Paul told us 2000 years ago it's a spiritual issue. We're living in the last days, I have overwhelming evidence that I could never fit into a one hour sermon but it's here and so now we come today to what is known as behind the mask is the verdict and we see that the verdict is final. There's a finality to it, verse 28 and even as they did not like to retain, hold the thought of God in their knowledge, God responds, He gives them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting and here's why. Look back at verse 24, therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts. Remember we talked about last week the burning inside, the burning inside, the lust and when that's not put in check or controlled with self control, applying the word of God to it, I don't believe there's any cure for it by the way but the word of God. What happens if you don't seek God, you'll dishonor your body among yourselves, among themselves and you'll exchange the truth of God for the lie. This is a remarkable statement because what happens is there's a finality, there's a line that's crossed that says, I am going to now take my body, I'm so craven over sexual pleasure that I can't get enough of it. I did this, I did that, I did the other thing, I did, I did five of this and two of the other and seven of these and then a whole party and then it wasn't enough and so I went this way and it never stops. Ted Bundy, anybody remember Ted Bundy? Wow, okay, I didn't, those of you who do not know who Ted Bundy is, you should study or read or look at the documentaries about Ted Bundy's life. His life of serial killing started by looking at his mother's bra and panty catalogs and it turned him into an animal, a legendary predator. There's a finality to it. If you let your life continue to go and God says that's it, there comes a moment when you give yourself up away from the truth and you believe the line, you go after the lie and today we celebrate and say things like stand in my business. It's funny, the people that say stand in my business, they make sure that their business is in front of everybody else's business. Look, I'll be honest with you, what you do in your own bedroom, I don't care if you're from Mars, I don't want to know about it. God knows, He'll set a score in the end. But when you bring it out public, you got to be able to take the heat of the public. It's the way life works, but nothing is hidden from God. He sees everything. By the way, side note, it's not in my notes, maybe God is laying this on my heart right now. How many Christian couples, husbands and wives are in here right now? Raise your hands. Christian couples, husbands and wives. Okay, listen, Christian, husbands and wives, I'm a big fan of this. When you come together, I don't know, I don't think there's young people here. It's too early for service, right? There's no young people in here. Is there a young person in here, racers? Okay, all right, then I'll say this. Listen, Christian couples, let me just, this always blows the non-believers' mind when they hear this, because they've never heard this before. The God of the Bible created sex, and the Christians should have the most fantastic sex than anybody else in the planet. Okay, and so here's the thing. When you're wrestling with your spouse, that whole precious thing should end in an embrace. And I think the man, I think the husband should say, Lord, thank you so much for this radical gift you've made. Wow, God, you're amazing. I mean, come on, God, because he invented that. What does the world do? The world takes it and breaks it. And the world lies to you. In fact, the Bible says the Christian couples should not stop doing that except for fasting and prayer. No wonder why the church is growing around here. A lot of babies being born. I'm sure I'll get letters on that, but probably won't read it anyway. But they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, to a remarkable thought, because they exerted pressure. They gave energy against what is natural. They fought it. They knew inside, but they fought it. And they believed the lie. They inverted reality. Verse 28 teaches us. Verse 28 goes on to tell us that God gave them over to a debased mind. Notice this. This is the judgment of God that has revealed in Romans chapter 1. God's not being mean. He's not having a bad day. God says, okay, it's yours. You want it? You can have it. And that word debased means a way of thinking that cannot stand the test. It means to be thinking in a way that fails a test. It's interesting, isn't it? It means to be thinking in such a way whereby your thought process in the evaluation renders you failed or to fail a test. It means like this. It's task a question. What do you see? Regarding male-female relationship in this area that he's speaking about regarding sexuality. And you hear people say, I see whatever I want to see. Bible says, you're flirting with a debased mind. See, Jack, how can you say that? I didn't say it. The Bible says it. That's right, man. Well, I just want to do whatever feels good. You're flirting with a debased mind. A mind that's thinking in such a way that fails the test. Well, what's the test? Take a look. Do some homework. Do some science. Read a book. It's obvious. Think about that today. Is this truth and the sadness of it being lived out in delivery words in hospitals today? Are nurses being told not to mark the gender of the child? Did you know some hospitals or some nurses, some doctors are taking pictures of the baby's gender when it's born because of all the confusion that's going on. What's going on? What's happening in our world today? It's exactly what the Bible talked about. By the way, before we move on, verse 28, it's quite a statement. If you think about it, look at verse 28. God gave them over with your Bibles open. Look at verse 24. God gave them up. You hear that? They did this. They wouldn't listen. God gave them up. Verse 24. Look at verse 26. They did this. God warned them. God gave them over. See that? Look at verse 28. We're red. They did this. God warned them. God gave them over. Three strikes. Three warnings. And what is it? It is to do those things which are not fitting. The word not fitting here, the word the Greek language means not allowed or not correct. It's not beneficial. God says there's some things that are not allowed. God says there's some things that are not correct. God says there are some things that are not beneficial. Does that quench you? That's so narrow. That's okay. Nero is good. Nero is a good thing. It means it doesn't work. It doesn't come together. It's not according to design and God has warned. And what I'm telling you is the Bible said this is exactly what would happen in the last days. This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supporting. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.