Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of Hopelessness That Turn to Hope Here is your host, Mike Zwick. If not for God with Mike Zwick, and I am excited to be here today. We've been talking a lot about Charlie Kirk and Charlie Kirk lived a great life. Charlie Kirk did a lot of wonderful things.
He stood up to the enemy, man. That guy was bold. You know, but I'm also reminded of what Steve Hill said, who was in the Brownsville revival. Sid Roth was actually asking him one time, Robbie. He said, You know, tell me about all the things that went on in the Brownsville revival.
You had over a million people come. You had this happen, that happen, and the other. And Steve Hill said, yes, the Brownsville revival was great. A lot of great things happened. He said, but he said, I'm not interested what was happening back then.
He said, I'm interested in what was happening right now. And so, Robbie, we were talking about repentance. And one of the things that I thought was interesting is you were just talking with a rabbi about this. And you were talking about what is it, the new year? Is it what is it called?
Rush Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah. which means the head of the year, which happens next Tuesday. And so I I I'm thinking that's the twenty third, if I'm not mistaken. But nonetheless, uh in the Hebrew calendar, uh fascinatingly, the seventh month is considered the head of the ear.
And even though you would think it would be the 12th month because you're going to go into a new cycle, and even though. God said in Exodus that This month, the month of Passover, the month that Jesus would be executed, because it lines up perfectly with Easter, as you may know. This month the first would be that Nisan would be the first month, which is again number one. And on the 14th day of Nisan, or on the 14th day of the first month of the year, you're to slaughter the Passover lamb, which lined up beautifully with Good Friday. And so those things become very confusing when you think, wow.
on this day of Roshoshanah, as they are blowing the trumpet, they are to look at their year. And to think what kind of fruit, okay, because this begins the season for them of what they call in-gathering. That that they have left their sheaves of grain standing in the field since They harvested it back at you remember at Pentecost, was five weeks after they planted the grain and the first fruits began to show.
Well, they harvest that and they leave it out in the field. And now, here we come into the seventh month, and it's going to begin, it won't be long, the Feast of Booze where they have an in-gathering, right? And so, at that point, what they're literally doing is bringing in the sheaves. And as they look at those sheaves, they're thinking, gee, how much fruit. Have I Gotten.
You know, you'd be counting your fruit too if that's how you got paid. But they look at that spiritually.
Okay. As begin to think, hmm, what kind of fruit does that look like? And you might say, gee, what does that have to do with repentance?
Well, as you begin to look at your fruit and you realize that, wow, it hasn't been so fruitful this year, you may think that, wow, I need to change my ways.
Well, there's a beautiful story in the book of Nehemiah. Where um There on Rosh Hashanah, on the very first day of the seventh month. That they The high priest was ordered. Nehemiah ordered Ezra the high priest to read from the book of the law. You may be familiar with the story, it's very famous.
And as he was reading from the book of the law, The people g began to weep. And cried because obviously they saw the shenanigans that had led to the Babylonian exile and all that had gone on, and they were very distraught. Interestingly. This very famous passage, I bet everybody, most of the people listening that know the Bible well, would be able to quote. this passage that's coming.
That's what happens is the priests and the Levites and Ezra go running around. No, no, no, no, no, don't cry, don't be upset. You need to be happy because the The joy of the Lord is your strength.
So you see, the combination here is fascinating, right? That here we come into this. Repentance situation, right? They see that shenanigans have led to bad fruit, really bad in this particular case. And Yeah.
Part of that repentance is not supposed to be sadness and tears. It is supposed to be the joy of the Lord.
Now, As we just talked about, That And I could go into a lot of discussion, and I will if you want me to, about how a month. Is different than a year because a month is how long it takes the moon, right, to make one rotation around the earth and each. position, it's changing constantly. The sun, however, which is how you'd figure a year, is the earth is going around the sun, is a different measure of time altogether. And that takes three hundred and sixty five days.
And I imagine you figured out you can't You can't divide 28 into that, nor can you divide 30 into it. It can't be done.
So, a year is different than a month. That's just to begin with. But a moon is always changing. Every moment it looks different based on how it reflects the light, how close it is to the light. And so are you.
based on how you reflect the light. The sun, on the other hand, is constant. Yeah. And it's a beautiful thing that in seven Months. Right?
It's a cycle. Right? Seven days end up a week. Yeah. Well, the number eight in Hebrew is a miracle.
That you know the children were named, or they were circumcised on the eighth day, the temple was cleansed on the eighth day, because that's a miraculous day. You do what you can for seven days, and then God does the miracle. And honestly, when I think about the resurrection, It's on the eighth day. It was on the eighth day after the triumphal entry.
So that number eight, think about it, you've gone through seven. months to get your fruit.
Now, what's going to happen on the eighth day is the miracle. In other words, I've worked and worked and worked, and my fruit ain't so good. Yeah. Okay, it's not. But God.
If not for God. Because it's the eighth, right? Which is going to be the actual feast of ingathering. And when you think of the other holidays, because this is a high holiday season, and so they have the Day of Atonement, which comes after Rosh Hashanah. And that Day of Atonement.
Still along the idea of repentance and then the feast of in-gathering, which goes on for eight. Days. And on the eighth day was the day that Jesus, you know, did this huge blessing, which is gigantic. All that to say this.
Okay, and I know that's a lot. to think that oh oh my goodness Mm-hmm. Repentance, as we talked about in the last show, is an unbelievable. If you've ever seen somebody. When they just came to Christ, I had somebody tell me recently, being the Christian car guy, they have a new car smell.
They have a new Christian. They have a new. I knew we'd get a joke out of you, Rolly. Robbie. They have a new Christian smell, right?
They are so on fire. They're running around. I mean, you see it, and it's a beautiful thing. This is not a picture of. Remorse and crying.
Yes, yes, yes, that's part of repentance. I get it. Surrender. All right.
However, The outcome Is to joy. And who did it? It wasn't me. I didn't save myself. It was God.
I've got to work harder. I've got to work harder. I've got to do more. I've got to do more. But when you truly fall in love with Jesus, that other stuff many times comes naturally.
You know, one of the things that I was thinking about when you were talking about you're working so hard the seven days, and then they don't see anything until the eighth day. One of my favorite stories is about the Chinese bamboo tree. Oh, right. And I don't know if you're familiar with this. It sounds like you are.
But for five years, it takes five years for the Chinese bamboo tree to really shoot up and sprout. And for the first four years and 11 months, That this is happening, that the person who is Helping to grow the Chinese bamboo tree, they're watering it. They're putting seed, they're putting fertilizer on it, they're doing whatever they have to do. I don't know what to sell the soil, yeah. All that stuff.
Cultivate. And for the first four years and 11 months, they are seeing absolutely nothing. But then, at that five-year point, Within six weeks, the bamboo boo tree can grow up to ninety feet tall. Ninety. Ninety feet tall.
And can you imagine if at any time during those first five years they would have stopped? Can you imagine if they stopped at four years? Can you imagine if they stopped at four years and nine months, four years and 11 months? They would have said. This whole thing was for waste.
It was all for naught. But by waiting a little bit longer, they ended up seeing the fruit that the bamboo tree Produced and it grew up to 90 feet. I wonder if there's somebody right now that you've been talking to about Jesus. There's somebody that you've been praying for who you want them to know, the Lord Jesus Christ. Like that bamboo tree, you've seen absolutely nothing.
Keep praying, keep talking to them, keep asking them, inviting them to church, keep sharing Bible verses with them. You never know what is going on inside of the heart of that one person.
Now, the Bible does say at some point, Jesus said, He said, you go out to a stadium, you go out to a city, you go out to a different place, and he said, You share the good news of Jesus. He said, If you're, you go into their house, and if their peace settles on you. Then you stay in that house. If the peace is not there, then you go somewhere else. And it actually says that when you share the good news of Jesus Christ, it says if they will not receive, or if that city does not receive what you're saying, he says, shake the dust off of your feet against that city.
He says, it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in that day than for that city. But I think sometimes, Robbie, we just give up on people really quickly because we and we quote that verse, but we realize that it probably took a long time for people praying for us, Robbie. It took a long time for people quoting the Bible to us. It took a long time before it actually set in. I wonder sometimes if, like that seventh day or like that eighth day, I wonder sometimes if we're not giving up too easy.
And so I did a show this past week on how do we communicate the message of the gospel. And my friend Rick Pearson, and he said this to me. He said, Mike, he said, the greatest way that you can communicate the message of the gospel is by the way that you live. In other words, People, you know, you can't sell. You can't sell a, let me turn that off.
You can't sell a dream if you're living a nightmare. You know what I mean? Like, you literally, you cannot sell a dream if you're living a nightmare. If people do not look at you and say, I want what you've got. It's going to be hard to share the gospel.
Now, on the other hand, we can say, you know, like Saint Francis of Assisi said, he said, preach the gospel constantly, use words when necessary.
Well, at some point, we're going to have to open our mouths. You know, people, there's not too many people that I know, Robbie, and maybe you know some who are mind readers who can just read your mind.
Okay, this guy's a good guy.
Well, because he's a good guy, I'm going to give my life to Jesus.
Well, no, you got to open your mouth. You know, was it Philip, I think, who was in, who was taken away in the spirit to the eunuch who was reading Isaiah 53, who was reading about Jesus at that perfect time. At some point, he had to open his mouth. And he believed the eunuch said, I want to get baptized. What's going to keep me from doing it?
Let me go do it. But at some point, we have to open our mouth.
So, yes, it is the way that we live our lives, but it's also sharing the good news about Jesus Christ. And on that vein, there was a preacher I heard about one time, and they said he was such a great preacher. He was such a great speaker. They said that the way that he preached that he never should have left the pulpit. But they said the way that he lived He never should have been in the pulpit in the first place.
And I was reminded of a story about a preacher I heard about recently. And the preacher would get together with his friend every Sunday after church, and they would have a late lunch or an early dinner. And so he said to his friend, he said, Hey, you're not going to believe what happened today. He said, I was at church and my bike that I ride was inside of the church. And he said, What do I do about this?
And his friend, who was also a preacher, said, That's easy.
Next week, when you go to preach at that service, he said, I want you to preach the Ten Commandments. He said, And then you get to the commandment about thou shalt not steal. And he said, It'll guilt one of those guys or girls who took your bike to give your bike back.
So the next week, these two guys meet again. And the preacher who lost his bike was all smiles. And he looked at his friend, and his friend said, You did what I said, what I told you to do, didn't you? And the preacher said, Yes, I did. He said, And they gave that bike back.
He said, Because you told them, Thou shalt not steal, right? And he said, No, he said, I was about to get to that. He said, He said, I was about to get to that. He said, but before he said, what I did was before I got to that point, he said, I was actually able to preach about thou shalt not commit adultery. And he said, I said to the crowd, thou shalt not commit adultery.
And he said, and I remembered where I put my bike.
So we've got to live a life that is worthy of the gospel, especially if we're going to preach the gospel. But man, I don't know about you, Robbie, but I think a lot of people, ever since they've seen what happened to Charlie Kirk, they've gotten pretty excited about Jesus. Yeah, and I and There's another point I want to Get to, and I know you know this, Michael, and I know you live it. I know you pray for these people, but essentially, we don't save anybody. Mm-hmm.
It's not. You know, that's the Holy Spirit, that's God. And it's usually, I'm not saying it's, but everyone I'm familiar with happened with the Word of God. Right? And so the word of God.
Many people who have come to Christ, and I didn't realize this, a lot of them came to Christ just by reading God's Word. Like me. Right, that's I didn't come to Christ because somebody preached to me.
Well, I shouldn't say that. Norman Vincent Peele. Wrote a book, The Power of Positive Thinking. And in that book, he said. If you want a positive middle attitude again, I was trying to sell more cars.
I mean, that was my purpose. He said, if you'll get up an hour earlier every morning and read the Bible. Then you're going to get a positive mental attitude, which seemed insane to me at the time I did it.
However, it led to my salvation. The point being that Without Norman Vince Appeal opening up his mouth, writing the book, I never would have made it to where I got to.
So there was a person involved.
However, it was not Norman Vince and Peel's words, nor would it be Mike Zwick's words, nor would it ever be Robbie Dilmore's words.
However What we can do always encourage people to read the word. We can speak the word. Right? When you're sharing Christ, and I know you do this, Michael, that you're sharing Bible verses. If anybody I know on the planet, You know, a doctor date the word cars and he shared constantly.
Right? But you have all this scripture. that that essentially are the are the bullets. That you're going to fire in hopes that the Holy Spirit will take one of those and it will make a difference. Because when you hear from Robbie, it means absolutely nothing, I assure you.
When you hear from God, Right? When when you know that oh, God said this in his book. Like And as he begins to take those words and transform them, it is only by his power and his spirit that we really are effective and the joy of it. And I can always see the joy of the Lord in you, Michael. I really can.
And the reason is because I know you're walking with him in the adventure to go after people and in the adventure. Um to be able to speak his word as I know Charlie Kirk. Was doing that very thing in full realization that it would never be Charlie Kirk's words that saved anybody. It would be essentially the word of God. That's right.
And, you know, one of the things that I've seen with that is that we have to make sure that we're sending a clear gospel message. And you and I talked about this a little bit earlier, Robbie, that you know, the whole once saved, always saved versus can you lose your salvation? And, you know, I don't always like titles and names and stuff like that. But, you know, one of the things that I look at is what are we sharing with people if the whole point is to get somebody to say a prayer and then that's the end of it. I don't see that in the Bible.
Well, it says in Romans 10:9, if you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth, you shall be saved.
Okay, I get that, but there's a lot more that it says in the Bible as well. And so, like you were talking about at the beginning of the show, about how this new season or the new month or whatever it is, it's repentance. You know, and there was something that I've heard of one time called the Shemitah cycle. I'm sure you know a lot about that. But I'm going to look at 1 John chapter 3, verse 4.
It says, Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you.
Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you. You, he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin. He that committeth sin is of the devil.
Wow. Wow. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seen remade seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this, the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
Now, if you go back to the Greek with that, it's not talking about somebody who sins every once in a while or repents, because in that same first John, and I don't know where it is, maybe four, it says that if we do sin, That we have forgiveness for sins when we have. I'm sorry. 1 John 1:9. And what does it say? It says.
You know, if you Ascot if you No, I'm trying to remember the exact verse, but essentially he'll be faithful. Here it is right here. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, We make him a liar, and his word is not in us. And so, what I'm saying is, I don't see anything in the Bible at all.
That would tell me in any way, shape, or form that I can sin, I can live the way that I want to live. And I'm fine, I'm okay. I don't see that at all. But what I do see is that if we truly love God, if we're truly saved, that there is going to be something in our lives that has to change. And if something in our lives does not change, that is a major problem.
You know, and here, here we got something else as well. It's 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 24. It says, Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize.
So run that ye may obtain. And he, in Paul, this is the Apostle Paul. This is just not anybody else. He says, But I keep under my body and bring it under subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. And I've always said this, Robbie.
I would rather believe the worst case scenario. and then later on find out that it's much better. Versus believing the best case scenario now and later on find out that it's much worse. I don't see repentance as optional in the Christian life. And we were talking about this before.
It says in Matthew chapter 6, I believe it's 13. But it's Matthew 6, where Jesus says, If you forgive men when they sin against you, he says that your heavenly Father, who is in heaven, will forgive you of your sins. He says, But if you do not forgive, Forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will not forgive you of your sin.
So, in that case, it is conditional. And I'm not saying we talked about this a little bit before, Robbie. I'm not saying that you have to live a perfect life or you're not going to make mistakes because then everybody would go to hell. And Michael Zwick, Robbie Dilmore, and even little Ann over here would split hell wide open. But what it does mean is that we don't make a practice of sin.
And I actually heard an argument about this the other day. There was a guy who said, He said, I am reformed. I am reformed. He says, So I don't believe that by you sinning that you go to hell. He said, But I believe, he said, that by you sinning, it turns your heart away from God.
And that eventually you turn away from the faith. I heard a preacher say this one time, and I never forgot it. He didn't explain it. He said, But that sin actually leads to atheism. There's a guy named Cliff Connectle or something like that.
I don't know if you've seen him. He's real popular. He goes out to college campus as an older guy. But what he said was, he said, when somebody says, I don't believe in Jesus anymore, I walked away from my faith, he'll ask them the question. He'll say, Okay, when did you start having sex with your boyfriend?
When did you start having sex with your girlfriend? Because a lot of times, what they'll do is if they know something is wrong, they can either let it drive them crazy or they can move away from their faith. And so a lot of times they say, I don't want to feel guilty anymore, so I'm just going to move away from their faith. But when they're sleeping with their girlfriend or boyfriend, or when they're living their life the way that they want to live, what they don't realize is that the wages of sin is death, and that people who have multiple sexual partners, Robbie, it actually, especially amongst women, it actually Actually, it leads to a greater deal of depression, and it doesn't make you happy. The Bible doesn't say that the way of the righteous is hard, it says that the way of the transgressor is hard.
Now, we know that we have hard times as Christians, but I believe if you're not a Christian, Robbie, you really have some hard times.
Well, the really neat thing is that I. And I said a lot. You did say a lot. And so, you know, you're sitting there wondering, how do I begin to discern all this information? And the beautiful thing is that in Matthew 28, Jesus' last words.
Uh in Mat in the book of Matthew. Simplifies it for me as far as what is my role in all this.
Okay. And it says, it doesn't say, go ye therefore. And save people. It doesn't say that. 'Cause you can't do it anyway.
What it says is, go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and I'll be with you always. And so, what the promise there is. In Matthew 28. It's clearly he's going to be with you, but also it gives you a clear job description, which is how do you make disciples?
Okay, so you're left with this question, and the word disciple. It means a scholar. A scholar of what? The Word of God. Simple.
It means disciple comes from discipline.
Somebody who's got some discipline. And obviously, Michael didn't get these Bible verses and the understanding that he had on his own. He studied them with the Spirit. An enthusiastic learner is what a disciple is. And when you're out there and you're actually after somebody.
Praise the prayer of salvation.
Now discipleship begins, right? And now that begins, like, and where does that begin? In the Word of God. And so, wow, what do we begin to teach them of disciplines of A daily time with God in his word, a daily time of prayer, a daily discipline of sharing God's word and all those things. And so it's kind of a neat thing that God gave you a game plan.
And the game plan is. Again, to go therefore and make disciples. And that's what. Feeding my sheep is about. It's putting the word of God in front of them so that they can eat it.
And I did want to say something as well, because I had a friend of mine named Frank tell me this. In the King James Version, this is what it says: Matthew 28, verse 19: it says, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
And so I know a lot of the versions, it will say make disciples, but I like what it says here. It says to teach them, because I can't force anybody to do anything, but I can teach them. And so I think when we're making disciples, Robbie, we have to learn to be good teachers. Yeah, and teaching comes with a whole package, right? It isn't just I've got to teach the material.
It it is it is A lot of time with our lives, as you described throughout this, you know, people look at you, they're always looking at you. And so when I had cancer, All of a sudden, people started looking at how Robbie deal with cancer when I fell out of the tree. How does Robbie deal with a serious injury? How does Robbie deal with this? People are looking at you, especially the people that have you've.
Begun the discipleship process to see, like, man, what does this look like? And so, it's a beautiful way that you walk with Jesus and you walk with people. And I love what you said about teaching the commandments because that's exactly the deal.
Well, what was Jesus's commandments? Pretty simple: love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your strength. And. Your neighbor as yourself. And so love.
Right, as Paul would go on to describe that, is. The way that people recognize that you got that. And so, when people look in your face, do they see somebody that's angry? Do they see somebody that is. you know, all bent up on All sorts of or do they see grace?
Yeah. Do they see somebody who treats them as they're accepted and loved and like they are his favorite. Like, do you feel that when you're in this person's presence?
Well, I can assure you because we've known Michael for some time. When you're around Michael Band, you're having fun. You feel like you're part of whatever's going on. You feel accepted. and you feel like your opinion matters and those kind of things.
And so, you know, I always look at that and go, man, how can I be like Jesus? Because if he was full of grace, he was full of it. When you looked in his eyes, you had to feel like, man, he was fair. That's it. Yeah.
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