The Wheels Of Conviction

Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Death Nox using your sin. Remember that the older you get and the closer you get to death and if you have the grace of God to extend you a time to contemplate you'd want to repent of your sin because death knocks on your life, knocks on your door. 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. In Judaism, in Paul's day, when a child was born from the beginning, listen, the baby is born and many Jews do this to this day, the moment the baby starts to breastfeed after birth. The mother will not say what she says until she, I guess, women you know how when the baby starts to actually intake milk, you know this. We don't know. Let's guys. And so when it happens, the mother knows. And so notice the position of the baby, the baby's ear is closest to the mother's mouth. Baby's nursing mother detects. He's eating. He's being comforted. His tummy's being filled. He's, he's, this is great. And that's when she says in Hebrew, the Lord, he is God. The Lord. He is God. The Lord, he is God. Is it precious? So from, from Paul's moment of nursing, he had heard the Lord he is God all the way up until the age of 12. He was in a certain category of teaching in the traditions and in the scriptures to the age of 12. You want to know what's important about the age of 12 in, in first century Judaism was this. At the age of 12, you now become the son of the law. You had a son of the law party. Kind of like a 13 year old, now what bar mitzvah, bar mitzvah for the, for the young lady. And now he's 12. And he's now the son, a son of the law, which now he studies other portions of scripture. And this is what most scholars and historians understand. Are you guys getting this? It's kind of fun. I love this stuff. It's this. Okay, I'm 12. I'm in class. What's up? Okay, get out your pen. Here we go. Thou shalt not covet. And he says, what? And it's believed from that moment from the age of 12 to who knows what Paul's age was when he was converted that the wheels of conviction began. How about you? A lot of people, by the way, confused this reality with teen rebellion. They start thinking, wait a minute, I know, I know this, I know that. And they start having emotions and they start making decisions. And instead of making decisions on facts, they make decisions on feelings and emotions. We again, psychologists say, oh, he's in a state of teen rebellion. The Bible says he's come to the age of accountability. It's not 13. It could be 11. It could be 17. It's the capacity of the child. He or she, doesn't matter. But when they begin to push back from your faith, that's the time when you get your good close friends and fast and pray because your son and your daughters is now walking away from your faith that's got to happen. It's like a spaceship disconnected from the booster. It's got to happen. It's got to happen. They can't live under your faith forever. But then they come to this place of their own thinking. And that's where all of your years of prayer and in Bible and life and consistency and children's ministry to help. And all that goes to work. And the kid has a struggle. What's the struggle? They wake up to the fact, I'm a sinner. And I want to do this now. And I can't if I want to. What am I going to do? They got to choose. Their will has been brought to the place of decision. Just like Satan, as Lucifer, just like Adam and Eve, just like you and I, remarkable. We're illuminated. The reality does that to us. And so because he didn't know anything about the law when the law was made known to him, he found out I'm a covetous person. He got nailed by the 10th commandment. And the Bible tells us that when the commandment came, that is, the light bulb, picture this, the light bulb in verse 9 turned on over his head, sin revived. Notice, sin was always there. It just puffed up and said, I'm in control now. And he said, when that happened, I died. I died. Wow. I want to give you this quote. It says there, we get, I think we'll have it on the screens. No pastor would want to admit what I'm about to say. But unless you understand the purpose and the function of the law of God, there is no possible way for you to understand the purpose and function of salvation. The cross of Jesus Christ in the empty tomb. There's no possible way for you to be saved by having your sins forgiven unless you understand the law. Think about that. Oh, please forgive me for what? Right? Think about it. Okay. Listen, my son wants to be baptized or I want to be baptized. For what? Go to heaven? Right? Wrong answer. It is a pastor's job to make sure that the congregation under his teaching knows that without faith in Jesus Christ, it is impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven. It's a fact. Have you experienced the rescuing from the law? God's law is awesome, pure and amazing. But God's law, because you and I can't meet its requirements, it has condemned us. And when we hear this, it kills us. And yet this is exactly how the path of life must proceed. We must understand that we are lost without him before we can be found in him. Maybe this will help, because think about it. When you were young, you thought the world was your oyster. I was going to say fruit salad or whatever the thing is. Okay. The world is your oyster. What is it? I don't get that. Who likes oysters? That's like a curse. Oh, the pearl? I don't like that. So here you go. Galatians chapter 5 verse 16. Now let's just place ourselves into this. I say then walk in the spirit, capital S. Walk with God. Walk with Jesus in your heart and your life. And you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Stop right there. The Holy Spirit puts the law inside of you. He does it and he activates it so that you actually wind up doing the impossible because you can't do it. But the spirit of God begins to do it in you. Amazing. That's that born-again experience. And these are contrary, or sorry, verse 17, for the flesh lust against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another. That's how you know you're a believer. Are you at war with yourself? There's two realities fighting inside of you. So that you do not do the things that you wish, verse 18. But if you are led by the spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident. This is the world. This is the this is what the the unbelieving world lives for, which are number one adultery. You know what adultery is? Adultery is where both of the people are married to other people, but they're in union and sex. They've had they've committed the Greek word pornia. It doesn't mean that they had this some young faces around here. It doesn't mean they wrestled all the way. It means that they entered into an activity that even though they didn't wrestle, they did other things. You know what I'm saying? Things. Okay, the Bible calls that adultery. One, both can be married or one. Somebody's got to be married. It could be both or one. If it's the one, he's not only she's not only committed adultery, it falls under the realm of fornication. When two people who are not married before the eyes of God, their experiencing or they're engaged in what is known as fornication. By the way, the four of these are sexually based. Uncleanness, ludeness, and verse 20 talks about really something that encompasses everything. Adultery. Adultery is a very highly passionate, driven form of covetousness. Sorcery is a weird word. We see sorcery, but in the actual Greek language, it's pharmacai, where you get the word pharmacy, pharmaceutical. But the word means to bend your mind, to ingest something that changes your way of thinking. Things like this, I can't cope. It's too much. I need a drink. So, okay, listen, if you're not a Christian, drink away, buddy. Right? Let's be honest. If you're not a Christian, drink up for tomorrow, you die. He drink and be married, right? He drink and be married. For tomorrow, we die. Go ahead. If you're a Christian, that's what God gave us prayer. Give me a beer. Give me an ear? No. Pray, Christian, are you stressed? Call out to God. Are you stressed? It's not going to kill you. I'm going to take a pill. Stop, stop, stop. Get on your knees. Get on your knees. Literally, get on your knees. Lift your hands. Pour out your concern to him. Pour out your concern to him. That's why in my office, I told you before, I have incredible. I'll show them to you someday, prescription pads. It's like a doctor's office. You can't tell the difference. It looks like a real doctor. I could probably go to jail for a life. They look real. But if you look real close, it says, for example, you know, amount of refills, and I have, take your medicine, don't miss this thing, and all of these promises that are written on this pad are based upon the word of God. And I give them, I give them Ephesians five and Psalm two, and then I sign it and put their name on here. Here, go. I'll show it to you someday. I just have to remember. Why? Because that's the real fix. That's the real prescription that you and I need. So now watch, see, even right now, the spirit of God is starting to hit some of you and you're going, wait, what are you saying here? What are you saying here? I'm not saying anything. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. Hatred, we live in a hateful world. Contentions, best way to remember contentions is this person that has contentious spirit about them. They get to fight with everybody about anything. They get to fight with an ant. And they're just everything's what. Isn't it a nice day? Why is it nice? It's like, man, back off. Who, who are you telling the back off? It's just like calm down. Don't tell me to calm down. You know those kind of people? They're horrible. Gelacies, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, people who just cause divisions everywhere they go. They just leave a wake of destruction. Heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in the time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's called heaven. You're not going if that's how you live. Now listen, in the crowd this size, or maybe somebody's watching on TV before they turn out the channel, they're like, get the remote. Turn them off. Why? Because the spirit of God took the word of God and got them. Why would he do that? Because he loves you. He loves you. You guys, reality exposes. Look at verse 10. Exposes you and I to the real you. You know, you have an MRI machine. You ever seen other things work? You'd feel completely fine. Dr. Says, you need an MRI. I feel fine. Just doing MRI and you do an MRI and it reveals stuff inside of you. God's word does that. Third and final point, we end with this you guys, verses 11 and 12, and that death stands waiting at your door. Just when you thought it was over, and the fact is, oh, you know what? Lured my life. I've come to the end. Just when you thought it was over. I don't know if you've had a chance to see this as pastors. We see this. I've lured my life. I'm fine. I've handled everything my way. Me and Frank Sinatra. And you know, as long as they still have that in them, you just have to wait. They haven't suffered enough. And then you come to a point where it's just really tragic for the family and for that individual. When you as a minister, you're dealing with the family and if you see the individual go one way or the other way, there's no middle ground. The individual will double down and die cursing God. Isn't that funny? Die cursing God. Die cursing the one they do not even believe exist. They slip into a Christless eternity called hell because that's where they wanted to go. Or there are those who are fighting against God and they start softening up as the pain increases and they wind up bowing their knee in the heart as it were and they accept the lured, the power of that. Death knocks using your sin. Remember that. The older you get and the closer you get to death, and if you have the grace of God to extend you a time to contemplate, you would want to repent of your sin because death knocks on your life, knocks on your door. Sin took advantage by the commandment and deceived me since deceptive friends. Just take a bite, Eve. It's beautiful, isn't it? The Bible says when she saw that it was good to look at and good for her life and tasty, she took of it. And by it killed her. Death knows that you're not perfect. Death knows that. It is swirl in your mind. You've never believed in God. You fought against God all your life, the God that you don't believe in, but now the hour has come. You don't have to do. Listen, Lisa's dead when he was dying at USC, a believer, the whole room full of believers were all in there. It was amazing. He's dying. He's got his air on his mask. We're all standing around. We thought we were doing pretty good, but he takes his mask off. He goes, can't you guys sing a hymn or something? Sing some hymns. I don't know if the cancer killed him or the sound of our voice killed him, but I'm kidding, of course. But I remember one of the doctors saying, we've seen this happen before. He should be gone by now. It's like he's waiting. I mean, these are God moments. Nobody can explain this. He should be dead, but he's not dead. Why? Because his oldest son is getting a late flight out of Spokane to get down to see Dad before he dies. It's bigger than that. The oldest son needs to make up with the next oldest son. So the oldest son shows up. He's the last one to finally get their shows up, and her dad says to the older one, make up with your brother, give your heart to Christ. It's like a Joseph moment. You need to make up with your brother, and you need to come to Christ, and they had a sweet moment together, and then, Dad, well, not Dad. He just moved to heaven. But that's quite remarkable. When death comes knocking, what are you gonna do? Save over $900 on average. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.