Truth Divides Us

0:00:01 - Speaker 1 Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. 0:00:10 - Speaker 2 The Bible makes it very clear that evil is an outcropping from original good. You can't have evil without first something preempting evil, and what preempted evil was good. You can't say that's good and that's bad, unless you understand that evil comes out of good. 0:00:36 - Speaker 1 You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com 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. 0:01:05 - Speaker 2 You and I know we can bear witness to the fact. We're a little bit embarrassed because we don't always cling to the truth. We wander from it sometimes, but we know this. We belong to the truth. The Bible is God's truth. The Bible does not contain God's truth. The Bible is God's truth. And right there he opens up by saying I find, then, a law, that there's a law that is at work. It's a spiritual event. It's transcendent from this world, church, family. Listen up, this is not religion he's talking about. He is saying that there's something inside of me that is speaking to me constantly. I find, then, a law. There's a voice in my conscience, there's a voice in my soul. There's a voice speaking to me. In John, chapter one, verse four, the Bible says in him was life and the life was the light of men. The truth of God speaks to every man, woman, boy and girl. You don't have to make excuses about it and you don't have to try to cover it up. It's a fact. I remember years ago this just popped into my head. There was a man Like maybe in God's grace he's watching right now, though I doubt it. For those of you who don't know, I did not always do this. In my life I was working, I was a supervisor over an awesome laboratory research and development lab at the University of Virginia Baxter now it's called Edwards Life Sciences incredible corporation, and I had a blast there. When the church outgrew our ability to maintain it, I had to quit that career job. I loved it, but by God's grace, I wasn't shy about it. And so this man his name was Gene, so, gene, if you're watching right now, I hope this hits you right between the eyes. He was a sassy, stubborn little arrogant atheist, but he could afford to be because he had never had any problems in his life. That's why atheism is such a joke. It only comes out of people who've had the luxury to criticize the God that they don't believe in. It's funny to me how angry they are about the God they don't believe in. But anyway, I said hey, I just heard you adopted a little girl. He said yep, that's awesome. Well, god bless you with that. That's amazing gift. He said no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't believe in God in our house. He said I'm gonna make sure I teach her that she is a product of evolution. I said you're sick. No, I told her. I said you're really sick. I said I'll tell you the reason why. Kids have a natural propensity to not only believe in God, but they also have a natural propensity to deal with truth. They may lie against truth, but they will never deny truth. They know it because when they got the cookie dust all over their face and you ask them did you just eat that cookie? And they say no, they know they're lying against the truth. Where, adults, we perfect it. We begin to tell lies so much that we begin to believe that is true. And, by the way, that's one of the judgments of God is that when you lie against the truth, you can lie against it so much that eventually and that's what we're hearing on our culture today Well, that's my truth, I don't doubt that it's your truth, but it's only your truth because your judgment has been fried by sin and you're justifying your position Thus you must agree with the trend of the culture. Where I have my truth, you have yours. Listen, our truth stinks. There's only one truth in its gods. John, chapter eight, verse 12,. Jesus spoke to them again saying I am the light of the world. By the way, ego emi, the light of the world, that means he's the only light of the world, the great I am. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life. Awesome, disturab truth. We know when we belong and we belong in the truth, and the Christian can detect that. Imagine the Spirit of God inside of you and he is, and he's very jealous over you. I mean that in a holy way. And Imagine His job is to make sure that you gravitate and know and discern Truth from good and from evil. Secondly is the reality. We belong to the reality. Definite article. I stress the reality. What really is? You see the word evil, that evil is present with me. So he says I find them that there is a law and that law is this that present is evil, or evil is present within me. I submit to you today that only a strong believer Like Paul can admit such a thing, as you can, as I can, Because when you and I are not believers, we are not sensitive to the fact that there's evil present within us. We might think about it, but we don't care much about it. No, we know the real identity. See the word evil. We'll have it on the screen. That means bad, badness, harmful, loathsome wrong. It implies the departure from what is good, goodness, beneficial, healthy or right. Evil Pastor, do you mean to say that you believe in evil 100%? And I don't need to talk to you about it? I just need to remember my old life and I can also look at my current life. Now I don't go out, do I don't go out? Do doing evil? I don't, just, I don't do that. I Used to do that. We said well then you're not evil. Oh no, you don't know what I battle in my head. That's evil. I battle the evil. That's in my head, that's in my mind. So, do you Listen? When I throw myself out there under the bus, I'd love for you guys to say, yeah, amen, man, me too, me too, we should start a movement, me too. Paul is saying I have, I battle this and I say me too. That's the reality. And then that's the word present. It means to be right alongside, that is as a little ride alongside of you, to be within. Not only to be present, the word means, but to be Presenting evil. It is as though evil is on parade. That's how one Greek scholar put it. That this verse right here, verse 21, is announcing that evil is on parade within me, Constantly fighting we do as believers this Parade of evil. You know this, I okay. This is one of those moments. Um, I have learned in my life and the life that I lived before I came to Christ If I relax my the, the guardrails around my mind. Now I thank God, for some 46 years those guardrails have been up. And what's? What are you talking about, pastor? It means that I've got guardrails up, because if I let him relax, if I just rest my mind Without having what did Paul say in another place gird up the loins of your mind, if I let them down, if I relax and let my thinking become lazy, sloppy, evil comes in like water, like into a ship. And that evil is not your evil, that evil is my evil past. And why is it that I have a hard time remembering really good things? But I can tell you, at the age of 17, that this happened in technicolor. And how is it that in my mind, I see it instantly in technicolor? How is it? Because it's evil and I deal with it and you deal with it. Why? Because it's part of our flesh that is yet to be redeemed. If you're a Christian today, you've been born again by the power of God. You've got a renewed mind and you have a brand new heart, but nothing is referred to regarding our bodies. That's why death, for the Christian, is awesome. Get rid of this rotten, stinking thing, because I got it. Listen, death sets me free from the appetites and demands of this and then one day, in the resurrection, we'll have a brand new, sinless body. That's going to be incredible. By the way, listen to this Plato. Listen to what he had to say. He said the physical aspect of our humanity blocks the mind's ability to penetrate ultimate truth. You remember? Now this guy goes what is he? When was he? 400 BC, 200? We're going way back, man, but the mind, or the soul, is eternal and free and in touch with ultimate reality. The obstruction to a vision of truth is found in the body. Isn't that interesting? He knew that? Why? Because God wrote it inside of Plato and therefore the body is something from which we need to be redeemed. Plato in Socrates was said to be having a conversation, and it goes this way. It's quoted this way. It may be that God can forgive sins, but I don't see how they understood that there was a need for sins to be forgiven and that there was an internal lust that man has for sin. And you can almost see those guys throw their arms up in frustration about that. Now the fact, the real factual evidence of evil is a powerful witness church. I put it this way it's the antithesis, it's the opposite of which is good, of what is good, evil. Can you pick out? Listen, atheist, even right here, right now. Maybe you're watching. Do you know what's good and evil? How do you know? I don't believe in God. Well, is it good or evil to do this or that? Oh, that's evil. They'll have their standard of judgment. Are you with me? Everybody does Think about this. You who say there is no God, how is it that you have some form of morality? Where did that come from? The Bible makes it very clear that evil is an outcropping from original good. They can't have evil without first something preempting evil. And what preempted evil was good. He can't say that's good and that's bad Unless you understand that evil comes out of good. There had to be a starting point. We know where we belong. Thirdly, is that we belong to what is right? He says that all this is happening to the very one himself, the one who wills to do good. He says I wanna do good. I'll submit to you today that down, deep inside, according to the standard of God, the atheist, the non-believer, whoever you may be outside of Christ, you do not will, you do not determine, you do not strive to do good. You may, will, you may strive to exalt yourself, to get in the picture, to get your name out there, but that's not good. Now the fact is, this is the true new creation in Christ speaking, and I love that he inserts that the one who wills to do good. That statement is one of a person who knows Christ. Number two in our study today verses 22 to 23, is that we know what the fight is all about. There's a great fight that's going on. I've been overruled every time. I've told you guys this before, but I've been overruled on this. I've floated it past Lisa. She said no way. I've mentioned it to a few staff members trying to go around the wisdom of my wife to see it. In no way, and that is. I'm just a super fan of Peter Jackson's version on the silver screen of Lord of the Rings. It's extremely graphic. There's no sex, okay. So it's not that kind of a thing when I say graphic, peter Jackson takes you into the bowels of hell, and it's the closest manifestation to what I read is a biblical hell where you see what's going on and all of the activity and that bottomless pit and the camera descends and descends and descends down. And as it's going down, you look around, as it's descending and it's all of these orcs and others that are being either fashioning tools of weaponry for battle against the humans, or there is these demonic entities that are bringing forth out of this like soup membrane type of soup the birthing of more demons, a Massey and an army. To do what? To go to war against man. And that's what Tolkien saw in his imagination regarding the spirit realm. It kind of freaks people out. I think Christians should watch it, but then it's pretty heavy. Don't have your kids in the room. They'll have nightmares. But we shriek at that. But yet there's things after us worse than that, but you just can't see them. The awesome thing is you and I know what the fight is all about. The beautiful thing is about in verse 22 is that we learn that the fight is from victory. It's from the angle of victory, christian. If you've read your Bible, you know this right now. We are never given the permission to be defeated, ever in the Bible. Do you know that? The Bible says we're more than conquerors, over and over again. I'm reading right now through chronicles and it's incredible how many times David consults God and God says yes, go to war with the enemy, but do it this way. It's always key. By the way, when you're reading the great battles in the Bible, always watch what God says. At one point, the army was gonna go and attack and God said no, no, no, gideon, here's what I want you to do. I want you to get a bunch of torches and okay, all right, so we're gonna do night fighting. All right, torches, god, here's the torches. He said okay, you got a sword, yeah, all right, now you're talking. Then God says you got a pot, you have a big jar. Yeah, light the torch, put the torch in the pot, carry the torch, get out your sword and go toward the enemy in the middle of the night. And when I instruct you guys to yell, yell. This is God's battle plan. When you yell, I want you to take the end of your sword, I want you to break the pot. So the torches appear Isn't that cool? As soon as the torches could be seen. The pot had to be broken for the torch to be seen. Soon as the enemy saw the instant hillside covered in fire, they freaked and they jumped up and they said the sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon is upon us and they freaked out. Now you don't go to battle like that. But when God says, go to battle this way, you do it. And God says when you go to battle, christian, every day, you know what the fight's all about. And remember this you're fighting from the angle from the position of victory. Verse 22, he says for I delight in the law of God, that's victory. I could close my bottle and walk away right now, right there. For I delight in the law of God that all it just removed forever. This silly conversation about Paul is speaking about being a non-believer. The non-believer does not delight in the law of God. He says I delight in the law of God. According to the inward man, we're coming from the angle of victory. For I delight in the law of God. I read the Bible and I look at it and I read it and I say, oh God, do that in my life, isn't that what you say why? Because we delight. The word is that we rejoice in it, we're joyous about it. To be light of heart, I'd love that Confident. Our confidence isn't in us. It's in the fact that he's told us the war has been determined already. You do clean up battles in your life. You're fighting evil. You're fighting this. You're fighting wokeism. You're fighting racism. You're fighting poverty. You're doing all those things that express the love of God in whatever that thing is Christian. Don't ever let some knucklehead tell you that if you get involved in feeding the homeless or the abortion issue or the homeless issue or the border issue, that you're getting involved in politics. You're showing the love of God in every area. That's what you're doing. I don't want anything to do with the Christianity that stays within the four walls of the church. Who needs that? That's how our nation got messed up. No, listen, it's out there and we speak truth to the issues and we expose the falsehood. Why? Because we're coming from the angle of victory. Christian. 0:19:11 - Speaker 1 This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected