Witness

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. The term Christian is an insult. You remember what it means? They said, look at them, they're little Jesus', they're little Christ walking around, loving one another, preaching the gospel, oh look at them, let's call them Christians. The term stuck, the believers went, that's exactly what we're trying to do. That's when people say, you guys are a bunch of Jesus' freaks, yep. 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. The Bible tells us regarding this word convinced, a tremendously strong and powerful word. Look at the word convinced, it's beautiful. It means that this one who was once the killer of Christians encountered Christ on that road to Damascus wound up becoming not only a lover of Jesus, but a lover of the church, the believers of Jesus, he began to love those Christians which now he became one of them. This conversion was so poignant and so powerful that Paul is able to say these words. And I say this, friends, because I believe God expects He wants, He desires you and I to be able to not only say these words, but to say them with conviction because they're real in your life. And it's this confident, confident. I mean it when I tell you right now, there's a lot of things that I love to do. I love the ocean, I love being in the water. But I'm not confident, I'm not going to swim to Catalina. You pick your thing, I was talking to somebody the other day who races funny cars, they just love it. Now in my mind I'm thinking, I don't know, I mean I'd like to go fast, race cars that's amazing, but getting into something like that where you, you know, in three seconds your guts are still back where you started and your skeleton is, you know, a quarter mile ahead. I don't know if that's really, that's fun, huh? But how confident can you be in that when you're taking a car at 300 miles an hour and a quarter mile and it's made out of fiberglass and metal, excuse me, I'm not in on that, but some people are kind of confident, but they're not sure. God wants you confident in Him. Let's be honest, look I'm very biased, there's nothing in this world that you and I can produce whereby which we can have absolute confidence in, period. Why? It's man-made. I saw a sticker the other day, made in America and I had to pause, honestly, I'm not joking, I had to pause and say, is that a good thing anymore? It used to be the standard, now it's not, but we put this together, we did this thing or the other. It may be great, but I'm not confident in it. I have learned in my old age to be confident in one thing and that one thing is not even a thing, it's Him. He's the only one I'm confident in. Why? It's not even my ability to have confidence in Him, it's in His ability to perform what He says, that wins you over. Pulse's confident, certain, made aware of have come to know fully persuaded, God wants you fully persuaded and this is what He is saying to us right here in all of this, that we are to be fully persuaded and confident. How we live our lives, the things that we portray as brothers and sisters, having a clean conscience that at the end of the day you've lived your life for God, there's no greater way to live. Can you lay down, when you lay down, you test yourself. Can you lay your head down at night? Are you free? When you're all alone with you and God and you put your head on your pillow, are you free? Oh, if you don't know what that is, friends, God wants you to live like that. So come on over to His side and find out what it's like to be, well, frankly, used by the Holy Spirit of God. Why not? And you can be confident in Him, in Him. First Timothy chapter four, verse one, we'll start with this. First Timothy four, one. Now the Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, expressly says that in latter times or the end times, end of days, last days, some will depart from the faith that's happening now. What are they doing? Giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons? Wow. What do they do? They take lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. In other words, they'll film a murder instead of trying to stop the murder. Forbidding to marry, they get cult-like and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Notice that, huh? Those who know the truth can eat anything or nothing doesn't matter. They give God thanks. These cult crazies, they can't do that because they're all about control. And so, he goes on to say verse four, for every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, verse five, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. Every creature of God is good. Now that's a statement by God himself in the Bible, every creature, and what is the atmosphere? What's the theater by which this is being discussed? To eat or not to eat? He's not talking about what pets are available. I mean, to me, that is a liberty that it's beyond me. I don't have that much liberty. This looked this morning every day, by the way. I should have you come over to the house from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m. It's like a circus or a zoo. My backyard, you can almost sit a timer. So the raccoons, they come, they sit on the seat, they wash in themselves and the pool. It's the funniest thing. Then they go, and then the skunk comes, and the skunk is eating, and then his girlfriend or boyfriend comes, and then sometimes they get married, because earlier this spring we had baby skunk, and the cutest things in the world. And then after they leave, and I'm talking within minutes, they got it all down. Okay, next, skunks, move in, and then comes the possum. And they're so ugly, they're cute, and I'm watching this stuff, and it's unbelievable. And then there's a, we don't, the neighborhood has a big, feral cat. He's everybody's cat. You should see this guy. He walks right by the possum, he walks right by the possum, and he goes like this. Possum looks at him, the cat walks right by the skunk. The skunk doesn't even list his head, he's eating, and the cat goes like this, but he walks right by him. They're all kind of, what's the word, symbionic? They're kind of in an orchestra of working, right? It's working. Completely different in every way, shape, or form, and yet they're getting along. They're making it work. And they got a schedule, they arrive, and those orders. It's amazing to me. Having a clean conscience is knowing that you're living your life before God and you're free. To the point seriously, if somebody, do you realize if somebody at that farm that we were at, we're at a farm on a little tour in Peru, what if somebody would have said, we'd like to have the two of you tour home tonight. We've never had an American in our house before. We'd love to have you over tonight. You know, you're feeling it right, you're here, it's like, hmm, what are we going to have? Right? Have you ever traveled internationally in such settings? I have enumerous countries, it's kind of terrifying. I'm telling you, and that you sit down and they bring out, you know, they bring it out, and it's like, and you're like, what is this? I'm telling you, I'm speaking from experience. You can't say, what is it? And they say, like in Russia, oh, it's eel from the Bay of Finland. We got it ourselves, really. You say, you honestly say, Lord, help me, I don't want to offend them. You've got to help me now. I'm not going to work right, God, I need you now. And you eat eel. If we sat down and prune the family would have been offended if we say to them, yeah, no, we can't do that. I could tell you right now the Holy Spirit will say to you, eat it. Don't stumble them. Now use your Christian liberty as a great strength. And when you eat, no, you can make a true statement. This is the best guinea pig I've ever had in my life. Of course, maybe the only one, but it was the best one you've ever had. But this is actual conduct. We were in a Russian home when on the streets in Russia, we even have it on film. We were preaching Christ and the man got saved, the young man got saved. I remember his name, he was a Georgian, living in Moscow, and his name was Kaha, and he was walking by, and he stood out because he was so tall, and I said, hey, you. He stopped, and he looked, and he just stood out. So I thought, I noticed him. He stood out. We're preaching Christ in the streets. This is a divine appointment. Can I talk to you, spoke perfect English, long story short, the guy prays right there in the spot and gets saved. And then I don't see him again that day, and then later on in the end of the day, he comes back and he says, you guys are all coming to my house. To my dad's house, I went home. I told my family that I'm going to bring you home tonight, and you, he points to me, you are going to tell my entire family the gospel tonight. No, listen. And he's like, this is amazing, this is like the book of Acts. And we went there, and the father opens the door, and they're all star struck because they had never had Americans in their home. They're touching us. No, no, no, like this. And before we could go in the house, the father gets cognac. Then you might know what it is. I didn't know what it was. How do you know what it is? They used it to take paint off of cars. And my translator is with me, and the father, and she's telling me, you have to go like this, and you have to, with what, with the cognac. And I said, yeah, yeah, no, not going to happen. And she goes, yeah, yeah, you are going to do this. She says, you have no idea what's happening right now. She goes, I've heard of this. I'm a Russian. I've heard of this. I've never seen this done before. This is amazing. She says, I'm dying to see this myself, but you will do this because if you offend, this is the patriarch of the home. He's like 80 years old. And you go like this, and you put cognac like this, and I'm thinking, Mark's gospel says, we can take up poison. And I told Lisa, God's got to protect us. There are four others with this, including my translator, God has got to protect us. This is totally the Bible happening right now. The Bible says, we can take up poison and drink it and won't kill us. And we just went like this. And then they bring the bottle and they top it off. No, I'm good, listen. Not ten times. During the night, not twenty times. Just about everything, everything. And they had vodka and cognac, all this poison. And none of this, listen, just the fumes alone would have killed you. But nothing happened to us and nothing happened to them. When it all was done, the sun stands up and it was awesome because there was no messing around with him. He said to his family, listen to what he has to say. And when he's done, I want all of you to become Christians. He did. It was amazing. It's like, it doesn't work that way. But it was amazing. It was amazing. And I gave the gospel and you leave this up to God. When it comes time, again, speaking through a translator, when it came time for them to receive Christ, all of them except Christ. But listen, you say, well, that's because the sun made them do it. I don't know, you don't know, only God knows, right? Think about that. Only He knows. But when we walk with Him in those steps, it's exciting, it's thrilling. And even in a world that's got all of its things from cognac to guinea pigs. None of these things stop God who announces to the world. My son, Jesus, is the way, the truth, and the life. He's the only way to heaven. What you could not do of yourself because your sinful Christ did for you by having come into this world, living a perfect life on your behalf, because you can't. God says, because I'm righteous and holy and I cannot change my word. My law is true. But none of you could keep it. You broke it in thought and or deed. And so I sent my son to be the atonement for that sin of yours. He died in your place and not only did he die in your place by taking upon himself your sins at the cross. But on the third day, he rose again from the grave, guaranteeing your salvation. It's called sanctification. Christ rose from the dead that we might be justified and sanctified by the work of God. It's all his work. So what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to receive that gift out of a heart of great thankfulness, love and joy. We'll talk about that next week. I really had big plans for that part about peace and joy and the Holy Spirit. And we become free no longer restricted by the confines of man and man made religion. We become free to follow in Jesus' footsteps wherever he's going. Here's the beauty about all this. If you follow him, now if you decide to follow him, you don't know where you're going to be tomorrow. So no, I'm pretty sure we got these plans. That's not a man. If you're going to go to work or if you're going to go on a little labor day trip, it doesn't matter. You think God says to have it, God announces in heaven. Everybody in America is labor day. So there'll be no witnessing. He doesn't do that. Wherever you go tomorrow and the day after and the day after until Christ comes for you, He actually has footsteps for you to follow in. He literally, Scripture says that God knew us before we were ever created and that He has created for us works that we should walk in them. So instead of strapping on big foot feet, imagine in your mind strapping on Jesus' feet. Because if this world is going to experience any love, any forgiveness, any mercy, this is such a brutal world that's, for example, it's a hard world. If this world is going to experience anything good, it's going to come from you, it's going to come from us. This Jack Kibb's podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. 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