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In today's world, standing for your faith isn't easy, but it is incredibly important. The culture is shifting fast and the pressure to stay silent is growing. In his powerful resource, Called to Take A Bold Stand, Pastor Jack Hibbs shares how believers can rise with courage in uncertain times. With biblical insight, real world examples and practical wisdom. This guide will help you speak truth with love and boldness influence culture without compromise and face fear, fear, rejection or opposition without backing down. It's time to live with bold faith, unshakeable hope, and kingdom purpose. We'd love to send you a copy of Called to Take a Bold Stand as our thanks for your generous gift of any amount to Real Life. Go to jackibbs.com radio or call 877-777-2346 to request your copy today. Stand firm, be and keep your eyes on Jesus. Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture.
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Hey, everybody, listen. I am gonna be shamelessly. It's because I have to promote the next book. Forward is written by the one and only Franklin Graham, who I will be eternally grateful for the title of the book Called To Take a Bold Stand. We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna. So I hope you are blessed by the podcast and I hope you are blessed by ordering the book. Pre order the book right now and get a copy for yourself. So let's do it. One, two, three. Let's go.
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You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhips.com podcast today. If this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, and 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.
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Well, hey, welcome to the Jack Hibbs Podcast. And we're just very, very excited to be with you guys again. Like always, I have to say it's. I hope this doesn't sound bad. I mean, I love what God has called me to do and I'm grateful that it's a lot of different things that I get to do every week, but this is my favorite time together. I think it's my favorite time together because we can be more unplugged and I love being unplugged. I don't like being scripted. I have a hard time with that. And so I like to Even in delivering of a sermon for me, if I'm going to speak to a congregation, the church or an audience, I want to be studied up and I want to be loaded up with the information that God would have me to share. But once I'm loaded up, I still have to be unplugged and let God let that come out as he sees fit. Which reminds me of the incredible power of the Bible. Listen to what God said nearly, I mean technically 2000, over 2,700 years ago. This is what God said through the prophet Isaiah and Isaiah 55:11. So shall my word. This is the word of God that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void. And it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. The power of God's word. Think about that. When God says, I've given you my word, this is my word and my word that I send out, it is of such a nature that it doesn't return void. Think about the, Think about the, the truth of what you're hearing right there. If there was a financial advisor giving you that information, he would say something like this. I'm going to work so hard for you. I'm going to set up your investments in such a way that even if the world falls apart and everybody loses their fortune, you won't, because it's going to come back to you just the way that I designed it to, to work for you. Wow, wouldn't that be something? Or if somebody were to say that they did all this and they threw themselves completely into it while everyone else failed at it, this person, so to speak, struck the gold or got the gold. God says, I sent my word out. Notice, think of the technology of God. I sent my word out. There's a lot of sending right now of God's word going out. I think it's also one of the indicators that we're in the last days, is the gospel is going around the world now to everybody, everywhere. It's remarkable. Of course, the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that there'll be two different sets of angels near the end of the tribulation period where they will proclaim the everlasting gospel to the entire world. That's going to be wild. And then the end comes. And that is spectacular. That's when C.S. lewis is the author of the play, steps onto the stage, is evidence that the play is over because the author appears. The author is going to appear and that's Jesus Christ. But God says that his word will accomplish that thing for which he sent it. It doesn't come back. Void the Bible. You never waste time reading the Bible. You never waste time studying the Bible. You never waste time going to a biblically pregnant sermon or a biblically fertile devotion or whatever it might be. Never wait. The greatest investment you can do is to dive into the Bible. And so Isaiah 55:11, the authority of God's word. Having said that, let me pivot from that. And I have been asked, and I know you're going to write me notes and you're going to say, I don't like when you do this kind of stuff. I agree with you. Why don't you let somebody else do this for you? I agree. I wish I could. But part of this world and how it works is that when books are produced or written, to my left, your right, living in the Days of Deception. There's, there's my authorship of the book, but then the publisher has their business to run. It's the way the world works, people. And so having said that, part of all of this in this world that you and I live in, is promoting books. And it was weird for me to promote Days of Deception because here I am talking about a book that I'm intimately involved with, right? But then it was easy to promote it because having written it and taught it, I could say with confidence, get this. And so it's that time of the year again, it's that season again. And so here is the next project that is going to be hitting the bookstores wherever books are sold on September 16, I think it is. And if I have my mind right, this is September 11th, I think. That said, please hear me out on this before we dive into the book because I know some of you will have to break away. But if you would please listen to the tactic. Here's the tactic that in the book publishing world and the book sales world, there is, as you can imagine, algorithm. There's computers. Faceless, nameless, soulless computers. And what they do is they monitor and they tally preorder sales. I don't know why that's a big deal, but pre order sales before book release is such a big deal to Amazon and to Mardell and to Barnes and Noble Online. Barnes and Noble, it's such a big deal to them that they project the rest of the book's future on pre order sales. In other words, if a book does really good pre orders, then they make a long term plan to have it at Costco, to have it at Walmart, and Target and also, of course, wherever books are sold. So here's what I'm asking you to do. If you're going to get a copy of this book, and I hope that you do that, you get it now, that you get it now, order it, preorder before September 16th. Because you will be communicating to the algorithm at Amazon and others that this is a book worth buying. In other words, if everybody's in line, you're wondering, why are people in line? And so then you get in line to find out what you're in line for. It's the same logic, but in a technical way. Please do us all a great favor. And by doing this, you would be saying, keep going, keep writing, don't give up. And that is get yourself a pre order copy of It's Time to Take a Bold Stand. And look, this is a super practical book. It's called To Take a Bold, Resilient and Effective Faith for a Godless Age. And it's very practical. I like to look at it this way. I actually think it's part two to this. In my mind, I see Days of Deception. Listen. Days of Deception. We're in the Days of Deception. Oh no, what do we do? It's time to take a bold stand. And maybe the third book will be, you know, let's get out of here. Hopefully the Lord's coming, I don't know. But it would be great if you could do that. And, and, and to do that, by the way, you would simply, you simply go to the link that's in the description and you would, you would click on there and you would go about ordering that or Simply go to Amazon.com okay, having said that, why should you buy it? That's a good question. Who cares? The first thing is you should buy it. Just because a rarity happened. It's such an honor and I thank God for this. And that is. The forward was written by Franklin Graham. That's not easy. First of all, Franklin Graham's feet are rarely in the same place for longer than an hour. This guy is covering the globe trying to bring relief to people hurting through his global ministry, Samaritan's Purse. But Franklin Graham has written the forward. And Franklin, if you're watching this right now, I am so grateful for your integrity. And people, this is Franklin's integrity. He said that he would love to do the forward, but he has to read the entire book first. So give me some time. He wouldn't write about it. He wouldn't make his comments like he did in the forward. Until he read the entire book. And that's awesome because this is no small book. This book is something like 242 pages of probably number 10 size font. And he read the whole thing and then he wrote his forward. So, Franklin, I'm very, very grateful to you. But let's see why. Let's see why it's important that you might want to get a copy for yourself. The book opens up by talking about in the first part. It's titled this way, you have what it takes. Now, let's be honest. You and I do not have what it takes, apart from God. God gives us what it takes for you and I to live a bold faith. But in this front end of the book, we talk about the real you. Who are you really? Because God is looking for people that he can use for his glory, that will keep the glory going to God and that you are honest before him. And so God is looking for authenticity. Can I put it this way? God is looking for organics in you. Are you organic? And God is a big fan of that. And I love saying this, and I say this often. As far as I know, God gave me this. God put this in my heart years ago. I've never heard it anywhere else. And I love it because he encourages me. And that is. Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, not for your personality. God delights in your personality. You need to remember that. Now you and I can mess up our personality. We can be stinkers, you know. But God made you a certain personality. And who are you? Who are you really? You can only find out who you really are in the Lord Jesus Christ. And why is that a good place to start? Because why build on a fractured foundation? You want to know who you are honestly before the Lord? Let's get out all the. You know what? Let me take a political word. It's been stolen by politicians, and that is transparency. Well, God is the most transparent, and I think God's people should be the most transparent. And then we go from there. We talk about the book and believing. What does it really, really mean to believe and what should that look like in our lives? We talk about the fact that in our lives as believers, we have literally been asked, required, commanded, commissioned by God to go out to the ends of the earth. That means down the street and be his image bearer. That we bear the image of Christ by word and by deed in the world that we live in right now. And it's very, very necessary that you and I be good examples and witnesses, and that's going to take a bold faith to do that, because the world. Listen, the world is terrified. They just don't. They don't say it. The world is. They're just shaking in their boots. They just hide it. But if you come along and you're comfortable in your own skin because you know who you are in Jesus Christ, and the fact is that God has commissioned you to live your life where you live, where are you in the world right now? God has put you there. See, Jack, I'm in prison. Hey, listen, God may not have put you there, maybe you put yourself there, but you're a believer and he wants to use you there until you're out of there. So remember that wherever you and I go, we are image bearers of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is one of the draws about nurturing and developing a bold faith. The book also calls us to remember. One of the greatest things that you and I can do to strengthen our faith is to remember. Now, look, I'm going to confess to you right now, I am so guilty of what I'm telling you right now of not doing, that I am the hypocrite for this. And you can pray for me, please. I'm not boasting, but I will boast in the Lord. And I'm going to upset some of my pastor friends, but I encourage them to spend 24 hours with me. I believe that I work harder than any pastor. I know this is like a bold statement. It's not. It's an honest statement, but it may be this. The standard that I hold to myself. I believe I'm hitting that standard of working for the Lord, being available and doing for the Lord that, you know what? Hey, maybe I am the most busy pastor. That's not necessarily good, is it? I'm sometimes most, most of the time so busy that it's not good. Because one of the struggles in being involved in this current age as believers is putting food on the table for our families, right? And earning enough money to put it in the offering on Sunday to advance the Kingdom of God. Managing time, all of this stuff that we take into consideration, if we don't schedule time with God, and it's going to be disastrous. It's 10 times worse if you're a pastor. Because in our busyness, we better take the time out to be alone with God. Because if that doesn't happen, the entire congregation is going to feel it, discern it, know it on Sunday. And tragically, we know what happens when a congregation is not being fed by a Pastor who didn't spend time in the Word because the congregation leaves the church service and they're still spiritually hungry. They still down inside, they may not even realize it, but they walked away saying, hmm, I don't know. I'm not exactly what I got. I'm not exactly sure what I got out of that. Maybe they might even try to cover for you and say, yeah, he was a little off today. I think he was tired. That is a pastor's nightmare come true. Why would that happen? Because we do not spend time alone with him to become his image bearer. This book, It's Time to Take, or we're Called To Take a Bold Stand is about maintaining that very kind of things. And that's why I think it's important for you. And then it goes on in that section to be confident. I think it's pretty fair to say today that we live in an age right now where many Christians and many ministries are not confident. And why do you think that's the case? I'd love for you to make comments in the section about what do you think that's the case? I have my opinion, but it's only my opinion. Why would a church or leadership or Christians not be confident at a time like this when everything that's going on around us in the world, we can relate back to scripture like no other time in world history, from Israel to lawlessness to corrupt politicians to wars and rumors of wars. I mean, it's just off the charts, right? So don't you think our faith would be bolder now because we're further down the end time row, closer to the end, and we're seeing the exact opposite. I wonder, I'm just guessing. I wonder how much of our cowardice is connected to apathy. In other words, if we could reverse apathy, you know apathy, right? It's when the Christian doesn't really care. When a Christian is operating in apathy, to them everything is boring. Ho hum. Right? It's just another day. I'm going to go to church. I don't know if any of you, you might be too young, but there's this donkey. I think he's a donkey. In Winnie the Pooh's Great Adventure, he's called Eeyore. Does everybody know who Eeyore is? If you don't, you should. Because I think in the 21st century, Eeyore is like the poster child for the average church. Welcome to church. We hope you enjoy your time. Praise the Lord. The joy of the Lord is our strength. That's Eeyore. You gotta check this guy out. He's like, everybody knows an Eeyore in life. And so I'm saying this to remind you that it's God's desire that you and I be confident that we know what we believe, we stand on it. And when we stand on it, we find out it's super firm. That foundation's not going to crack. It's Jesus, the word of God. And then the second part, the second section is titled Watch Out. And under Watch out, there's five different breakdowns of that. And one of them is watch and listen. Watch and listen. Be watching and be listening to what you're being taught, to what's coming out of you. Because, you know, listen up, everybody. What you're taught will come out of you. That's why. That's why teaching the Bible, that's why. First of all, let me back up. That's why teaching period and influencing period is so critically terrifying, because God will hold us accountable for how we teach and influence others. And it could be no more terrifying than what the Bible says regarding the Christian or the pastor, that when we teach the word of God, the Bible tells us that the very word that we teach God will judge us in the day of Christ based upon what we have been given as knowledge. So pastors and teachers and evangelists and Christians who know so much, right, God is going to hold us accountable to whom much is given. Much is required of us. The book goes on to say, in your sights. And this is fun, because in your sights, God knows exactly what he's doing with your life. You're not an accident. You're not a byproduct. You're not bits and pieces reassembled by some scrap pile down the road. You're not an evolutionary byproduct of Chuck Darwin. Nope, you are exactly somebody who God wants to take a hold of and use dramatically for the calling, listen for the calling on your life. You might say, oh, no, I already tried being Billy Graham, Jack. It didn't work. I flopped miserably. That's because there was only one Billy Graham. There's not supposed to be another one. Well, I tried to be like Charles Stanley and that didn't work. You're not supposed to be like Charles Stanley. You are supposed to discover who you are to be in Christ. And that's how you have an awesome time living for God. It's absolutely thrilling. And you want to have that in your sights because God has a target for you. The scripture announces to us that God has established works for you and I to live out in this life that were foreordained before the foundations of the world, that we should walk in them. Don't you love that? When I woke up this morning, I didn't have to worry about, am I going to be pleasing to God today? Am I going to upset him today? What if I mess up today? Man, I remember when I was a young Christian, I used to think like that. And to be honest with you, there was still too much of me alive to be honest with you. Now it's like, it's so easy. You wake up in the morning, and here's the easy part. Lord, what are we doing today? And you get up, and if you have a schedule like I have, you get up, you live your schedule, and you let God interrupt your schedule. Oh, boy, we had interruptions today. Today. Today was amazing. Poor Matt, my assistant, he's freaking out because when I get up in the morning, I don't communicate with people. I'm alone. Everything's turned off. And so Glenn Beck on the Glenn Beck radio show, he's trying to get me on the air. And I'm like, I can hear birds singing. The sun's coming up. I got my coffee. What could be better? And my poor assistant, he's like, freaking out, trying. He knows he can see that I'm at home, but he can't get ahold of me. And then finally he did. And then in a moment, you know, in a moment's notice, we're on the air, alive, with Glenn Beck across the nation regarding some issues in Sacramento. And, man, I just rolled with it because I get to roll with it now because I just let God worry about stuff. And look, if you live like that, it's going to be really comforting to you. It might drive other people crazy, but they have to learn this also, so nobody can learn it for you. The book goes on to tell us about Watching Out Is this It's Dark Out There. One of the chapters is titled that. It's Dark Out There. The world is dark around us. To deny that is to deny reality. But what are you going to do about it if the world is dark out there? I know what emotions say. Emotions tell us. Draw the curtains. Don't turn on any lights. Don't answer the door. We'll just hide out from the world until we die of old age. That's not Christianity. You're not going to have any fun. You're not going to see any miracles. You're not going to be beautifully Exhausted at the end of the day. Yeah, there's a big difference. And so, yeah, it's dark outside. God told us it's going to get even darker. So what do we do about it? Panic? Nope. We're called to take a bold stand. Stand up against evil. Stand up against what's wrong. Stop being silent. Stop being. Can I say this? I'm going to say this. Stop being polite. Will you just stop being polite? Look, if you're in a. I think it's cotillion, right? If you're in a cotillion course, be polite. That's what part of it is about. That's one of the elements of being in a class like that. Be polite Christian. Somehow we've made being polite, first of all, a bad definition. We don't define the word polite. Right. And then second of all, we somehow stapled it onto the front end of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It's not there. I'm not saying be mean. I'm not saying be ugly. I'm saying be polite isn't something that's going to work in this world. That is evil. And because that's true, what I'm saying is there's a time to command God's truth to the darkness. You know this. In the Bible, didn't Peter and Paul and James and John and Jesus himself command the evil spirit to come out of that guy or to command that the waves and the wind cease? You and I are so. Those things are written in the Bible not for our entertainment, but for our learning, that we would copy what he's teaching us, that we go out. I mean, I really, really believe what I'm about to say so much. So if you don't believe me, get ahold of one of our worship ministry team leaders and ask them. Is that true? Yep. It's this. I always tell our worship team before they go out to do worship. Always remind them and pray for them. You're going out there to do battle against hell. When you pluck your guitar, when you hit your drums, I want you guys to remember that coming out of your instrument and coming out of your mouth are weapons. I have always said this, and then I just got turned on to a song by Brandon Lake and I love it. I'm just trying to remember it. In fact, I'm. I'm going to try to get a hold of his people to see if we can use this song. We have to probably, I don't know, have to pay money for what? Did you get licensed to play it? I Don't know, but I love it. I want it to be the theme song of maybe this podcast or everything else. And it's from his Sevens album and it's. The song is called Sevens. Oh, the song is called Sevens. And in that song he says, ready the weapons of praise. Oh my gosh. I heard that song and I said, that's it. That's it. I've been telling our worship team that for decades. That's it. Ready the weapons for praise. Wow. Hell should tremble when you wake up. Hell should be concerned when you wake up. When your church lets its people out of its doors. The demons should tremble. That these Christians just took this, this hour long sermon and now they're loaded. They're. They're armed to the teeth. And now they're going out into the world. Oh, man. Wow. And then urgent, urgent, urgent. I don't need to elaborate on this. It's obvious you and I are living in urgent times. All you have to do is look around to see how many people are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. The more people you see spiritually asleep, lazy, complacent, the more urgent the call. And then there's the false and the true. I don't need to belabor that either. That is all in chapter two. Chapter three is one of the reasons why I think you should get this book. And that is. What are you waiting for? Isn't this the trap? I'm telling you right now, I'm speaking for all of us. Procrastination is certainly a. A satanic weapon of the enemy. I don't think you can find the word procrastination in the positive in any sentence structure whatsoever. Procrastination is not good. It means that you know what to do, you should do it. It's got to get done. But you wait till the last three days to write your turn paper. And you may think it came out good because you got it done. And then your professor reads it and says, this stinks. Why? Because you didn't marinate in it and you didn't write a little bit each day for the last three months. So you drank three pots of coffee and you crushed it in the end and when you finished it you went, oh, I'm done. Woo hoo. And the professor reads it thinking that you spent three months on it and reads it and it's just garbage. Procrastination is in Satan's toolbox. And don't do that. And how does it look like I'm going to pray tomorrow and tomorrow never comes. Because every day you Say, I'm going to pray tomorrow or I'll take care of that, I'll take care of that next week. And then you say, next week, I'll take care of that next week. You see how that works? We never get around to living out what God has called us to do. How many great, great believers that God wanted to use in a great, great way are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ having missed the opportunity to stand while they had the chance. It's a critical thing. Friend, where are you standing? What are you standing for? Does anyone know why you're standing and for what? Is anyone asking you what's going on? What should I be doing? Think about it. It's so important, friends. And so we're almost done on this is today is the best day. The best day what? Today's the best day to get started. Now, today, right now, the book is going to challenge you that today is really a great day to take courage and to stand. And so I think this book matters. And again, I am shamelessly promoting this book. But can I say this? In fact, I think I'm going to start something. I think books, I think we should have to be honest, don't you? Do you want to read a. Do you want to read an honest author or do you want to read? I mean some people love. Some people love, you know, made up books. They're just like. It was a dark night and I was walking down an alley in the fog of London when, you know, I tripped over a can of beans or something. I don't know. But that's just not my thing. But this book is 100% organic. What do you mean by that? That means not one of the chapters. Did I ask? I don't even have the apps. I refuse to even delve into that world. What is it? Chat, GPT or is it croc or grog or whatever? I don't know what these things. There's some things out there. I can't use it. I cannot. God will not let me use that stuff. I want you to know not nothing was used like that and will not be used in the authorship of any book that I'm involved in organically written. So it's not written very good. It was written by a human. If you want perfect authorship, then get AI to do it. I just don't think God's going to anoint it. And by the way, side note, I don't think God anoints AI sermons either. Just my preference, just my observation. But it's A book that we're excited about called To Take a Bold Stand. And I gotta plug these guys. They didn't ask me to plug them, but I love them. Harvest House Publishers. If you take the time to go to Harvest House Publishers and look at their inventory of authors, they look, they're amazing. Don't tell them this, but I think they really let their standards down when they let me into that group. Because when I'm in that room looking around at all these giants like Frank Turek and Dr. Erwin Lutzer and so many others, I'm thinking, what am I doing here? But they've been so kind and generous to me. But you guys, I'm telling you, go to Harvest House Publishers and check out their inventory of books. Whatever you buy from Harvest House, you can be rest assured the doctrine is safe. You're not going to get weird stuff. And this is a wonderful publishing firm that's been in business for over 50 years and they're great. And so I hope you like the COVID If you guys remember, some of you follow me on Facebook. About a year ago maybe or so I asked, hey, which cover should I use? And I gave you guys some options and you guys picked. This is the COVID you picked. It's a bloody cross splattered on the scene of a ruined world. And what this means is that only at the cross is there healing the blood of Jesus. See how splattered and rough it is on that blood stained cross? Jesus died for you and rose again from the dead, from that garden tomb in Jerusalem. And that's why you and I can be called to take a bold stand. We don't have to be apologetic. We don't have to be fearful or afraid of anything. And look, let's be honest, in this world, if somebody wants to kill us for us taking a stand, do you know that they only assist us in getting to heaven on time? Isn't that remarkable? To live as Christ, to die is gain. God is good. And in the words of that remarkable philosopher Forest Frank, God is good all the time. So listen, you guys, again, pre sale tickets, pre sale tickets, pre sale. The book, get it at Amazon, go there, please do pre sale orders and you'll tell the algorithm to bump it up and Amazon will send it over to Costco and everybody else. You can really help us out with that. And then of course you can go to the link that is there with the description. So we hope that you let people know about this. And so I'm done. I did it. So done with that. May God bless you guys. And as always, remember, it's. It's. We believe. We believe. I hope you do too, that it's time for you to live out what you believe in. And it's time for you to live a real life. And it's time for you to take a take a bold stand. God bless you guys. Until next time.
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