What Are You Thankful For?

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Once a world champion wrestler, now a champion for Christ. Once the Russian nightmare, now the devil's worst nightmare, and your tag team partner, Nikita Kolov. It's time to man up. Welcome back. Hey, it's Nikita Kolov, the man up hour.

Well, half hour, but the Russian nightmare, no the devil's nightmare. Can you tell we just have fun with this? Hey, today's a special show. I say that every week, don't I? Well, today really is a special show, because this is a Thanksgiving tribute show.

And it's even extra special, because I have the man of the hour, the tower of power. No, I'm not talking about the American dream, death of the road, baby, yeehaw. I'm talking about Robert Dilmo, my man, the Christian car guy, yeehaw.

Robert Dilmo, Robbie, welcome to the Mad Up Show. Oh, man. I am so excited about this, because it's a topic. Well, and I'm excited to have you know, the Christian car guy. Hey, for those who don't know, give them a quick backdrop on the Christian car guy.

Wow. Well, that's a show that I've had on the Truth Network for I guess about 16 years. Started out to be about cars, but actually we try to talk about God a lot more if we can.

Testimonies, people around the world. I think it's on over 100 stations now. God's blessed it. And we have a chance to see what's God's doing. And again, a big part of it is the Jesus labor love, which is car repair labor for single moms, widows, and families in crisis. And so we have a network across the country of people that help single moms, widows. They fill out a form at christiancarguy.com if they've got a car need. So if you're hearing this and you know somebody like, man, there's a single mom with a problem, well, the cool thing is Christian Car Guy people around the country donate to that. And we have a fund right to help these single moms and widows and families in crisis because if it's a veteran or something, we help them to and have for years. And we also have guys around the country that participate in a car repair shops.

You have no idea. And I always am amazed because along the idea of Thanksgiving, you know, and it's not very many applicants that come here can say thank you. But I can assure you, every single person that provides service, they're always like, man, Robbie, I was just looking for a way that I could give back and I can't tell you how thankful I am that I can help this person, I can help that person. It's really cool because you can see that kind of Thanksgiving. Darrell Bock Well, what's really cool is, you know, obviously today is a Thanksgiving celebration broadcast, so to speak. But what you just described is that we don't just have to be thankful one day a year when we eat a bunch of turkey and stuffing and potatoes and pumpkin pie, but we can be thankful every day of the year.

That's what you just described. And all these others who get to contribute in some capacity, as you said, whether it's repairing cars or making donations for these widows and orphans, I think that's biblical, actually. I remember reading something about that in the Bible. Darrell Bock It was his idea. Darrell Bock Yeah, take care of the widows and the orphans. Darrell Bock And all those praying, like lots and lots and lots of people praying out there, and that, you know, and it's cool. Darrell Bock And families in distress. And so not only those contributing on that end get to do something with a heart of gratitude and be thankful, but then the people on the other end, the receiving end, right, gives them the opportunity to be thankful for.

Darrell Bock Yeah, I can tell you a story just happened yesterday. I'm thankful that I was on my way home for lunch. And this lady calls, and she is crying. I mean, she is so upset. Her car's been broke down for two months. She can't take care of her family. You know, she's trying to figure out a way to go to work.

She can't get it towed to where she needs to get it towed to. And she just, somebody had told her in her church about our ministry, and so she calls me. And I don't know where she got my number, but I'm glad she did. And I could just hear in her voice, man, this lady is really distraught. And so I just said, you know, can I pray for you? And God gave me a prayer for these ladies a long time or, you know, whoever I'm talking to say, God, thank you that they had the courage to call me. And I know you're in this and help her to sense your presence that you're going to take it, this is going to be all right, she's going to be okay. And it's amazing how many times, then this is the part I'm really thankful that the Spirit of God comes through those prayers right there.

And you can sense in the person on the other end of the phone that all of a sudden they have some confidence that God hears them, God sees them, and that, you know, something's going to be done. It's funny, I was over at a church trailer packing up some of my resources, you know, my books and CDs, and this woman walks up, she says, hey, is it okay? She goes, my car just broke down, my water pump just went out. And yeah, she goes, and I had to leave it in the front parking lot, would it be okay to leave it there a day or two until I can get it towed, and this, that, and the other.

And you know, you can tell she's probably not a woman of much means, let's just say that. I go, honey, I'm sure it's going to be totally cool that you leave the car there, let's just double check inside, you know, and they're like, you know, that's why. She goes, are you the wrestling guy? Like for real, for real. I go, yeah, yeah, I'm the wrestling guy.

She's like, oh my gosh. So anyway, so yeah, you just never know on any given day, there's an opportunity to help somebody and see Thanksgiving unfold on any day. Okay, now we're going to jump into this here in a couple of minutes, but before we do, there's something else too. So I mean, you do, you do that, you got the successful radio show, but you also do camps too. You know, of course you've been to Man Camp, we've talked about that. You shared, you shared your heart at camp, how it impacted your life. An entire week to chase after the heart of God, right?

Just like, oh my goodness. A rarity. I mean, rare in the sense that most, many people won't do that, right? My experience in 15 plus years of doing these, you know, guys get every excuse to why they can't go chase after the heart of God for a week, but they could go hunt Bambi for a week. You do a camp as well, a masculine journey camp and something else you're doing. Just tell real quick about the masculine journey camp for guys who might want to go to that. Yeah, we have done these camps based after John Eldridge's Wild at Heart boot camps he does in Colorado.

We've done them for about 10 or 11 years. And so it's the same kind of deal, like helping men see the role that God really gave them in their masculinity and then, you know, life is so much more than, you know, sitting on the couch watching TV. God had a really huge role for you to play.

And it's manning up. And how can we do that? And how can we learn what our role is in life? And how can God equip us to fight the battles of our own family, if nothing else, right?

Yeah. Where could guys find out more information about the masculine journey camp? Visit masculinejourney.org. Masculinejourney.org. And I want to encourage you too, if you haven't already, download the Truth Radio app because that will open up a whole plethora of not only the Man Up podcast, but Christian Car Guys, so many amazing podcasts and you'll be able to tune in, dial in to all the different radio shows. I mean, Alistair Begg, Greg Laurie, Dr. David Jeremiah, so many amazing speakers and ministers and programs on Truth Radio. So dial in to that.

And Robby, let's transition. It is, okay, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Day. And, you know, I'm not going to assume anymore that everybody just knows their history.

I'm not just going to assume that, oh, everyone just knows history. With that said, I thought, you know what, let's just talk for a couple minutes about Thanksgiving Day. You know, it's a national holiday.

This year, you know, it's occurring, coming up Thursday. But going back to 1621, that's a long time ago, bro. The Plymouth colonists and the, I don't even know how to say this, maybe you do, Wampanoag, Wampanoag, I don't even know. Indians, Indians, they shared an autumn harvest feast by most accounts that's acknowledged today as one of the first, one of the first, anyway, Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. And then for more than two centuries, days of Thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states, and it wasn't until 1863, so what's that, my math isn't good, but that's a couple hundred years later, in the midst of the Civil War, actually, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. That's pretty cool.

Let me just add another little caveat to that. September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower. The Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers, an assortment of religious separatists. Here's what they were doing, seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith. Apparently, their faith was a bit in, their practice of their faith was a bit inhibited over in the United Kingdom or England. So they were seeking asylum, if you will, and lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the, quote, New World.

But interestingly enough, and I can't picture this, I don't know if you can, Robbie, that trip lasted 66 days on sea, wow, before they dropped anchor at Cape Cod. And so, you know, just establishing some history, and then just fast forward just quickly to today, nearly 90 percent of Americans, here's what Thanksgiving's become about now, right? About 90 percent eat the bird. Of course, you're talking about, I don't even know how to, how do we make a turkey sound, Robbie? And they gobble. Gobble, gobble, gobble, yeah. And they drink out of goblets, right? Oh, they gobble and drink out of goblets.

There you go. And some might roast it, some might bake it, and of course, we're here in the South, so anyone want to guess what they do in the South? Deep fry. Deep, deep, they deep fry everything in the South, Robbie. I remember when I first came here from Russia, and somebody right now is going, he is not, is he really from Russia?

I thought he wasn't from Russia. Minnesota, come on. But man, I found out, these people down here deep fry everything.

They deep fry Oreo cookies, they deep fry... Oh yeah, candy bars, Twinkies. Yeah, I mean, picture of health, I'm just seeing flashing across my brain right here. But according, I didn't even know this thing existed, Robbie. According to the National Turkey Federation, did you know that existed?

No, man. The National Turkey Federation, other traditional foods include stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, all my favorite, by the way, fruit salads. What's your favorite go-to at Thanksgiving, by the way?

It's the dressing. My mother gave me the recipe, and I've got to have it. Do you make it? Oh yeah. So she gave you the recipe, so you actually make it? Yeah, I tell our family, it's a tradition that the dressing goes actually, the stuffing goes in the turkey, because that's the way my mother did it, and we actually put ours out on our charcoal grill, with the dressing in it. Okay.

Well, that's interesting. For me, sweet tater, well, yams, I guess, with some brown sugar and some melted marshmallows on top, that's one of my favorites. Yeah, we're going to have that, I assure you. Of course, I do like the cranberries. I like the pumpkin pie. Just give me a whole tub of Cool Whip, man.

I got more Cool Whip than I got pumpkin pie. Do you count this as your cheat day? Because your cheat days are famous from, you know, questions with Koloff. People ask me about this.

Robbie, Robbie, Robbie. I prefer not to call it cheat day. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Treats. Treat day. Treat day, yeah. Cheats also, I don't know, it just doesn't sound quite the same.

I didn't, I'm sorry I misspoke. It's treat day. It's my treat day, reward day.

Because, yeah, for those who know, maybe they've sat in at a Man Up conference, or they came to camp, or whatever. Yeah, Sundays is usually my one day fun day each week, my reward day for eating lean, clean, and green during the week. But then, my goal there is about 300 days, and then that gives me 65 days, flexible days, Sundays, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and some anniversaries. And I'm not super legalistic on that. I mean, I might still have a cookie, you know, during the week.

But I just don't have a whole box of cookies. Now, key to Koloff, the Russian nightmare here for Crescent Automotive. If buying a car is a nightmare for you, my friends, Brian and Jamie Johnson, at Crescent Automotive make it simple to find your pre-owned dream car with no hassle, affordable windshield pricing. No matter where you live, they will get your American dream car to you, baby. DriveCrescent.com is all you need to know. Their whole inventory is right there with the right price.

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This is Nikita Koloff, and I want to thank Clements Carpet for supporting my new show, Man Up, Saturday afternoon at 1230 on the Truth Network. And it's interesting, the Thanksgiving activities and communities hold food drives, say, free dinners for the less fortunate, and parades, which is, what's one of the most notable parades? It's Macy's, we, oh, my family.

Oh, you better believe they're going to be pulling up the chairs, because, thank you, they don't want to watch Snoopy and, you know, the big marshmallow man coming down. Macy's Day Parade in New York City. Hey, any idea when that started? Let me test your memory here. Probably in the 20s.

That's good. You want to narrow it down? You have about nine different chances here. Let's try 29. Okay, well, you know, of course, that was when the big crash was, right? The stock market crash.

How about, well, my dad was born, 1924. Really? 1924, Macy's store started, and it's become the most largest and most famous attracting, check this out, two to three million spectators along the 2.5 mile route, and draws enormous television audiences as well, and of course, marching bands and all that. Macy's, you better sponsor the Man Up show since we're giving you a plug today. I'm just saying. Okay, all right, one more little tad bit of information here. We're going to jump into some of the more meaningful talk of Thanksgiving. So, this annual celebration falls under the category of festivals, but in some of my research, Robbie, it spans cultures, continents, and actually millennia. Did you know that? No. Yeah, in fact, if you go back in ancient times to like Greeks, Egyptians, even Romans, they feasted and paid tribute.

Now, here's slightly different. They paid tribute to their gods, little G, after fall harvest, so still tied into fall harvest, but Thanksgiving also bears resemblance, something you and I were actually talking about before we came on air, to the ancient Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, depending on how you want to say that, which is very interesting. And you've been to Israel, right? And have you been there during that time?

I've not been during that time. We went on a pilgrimage of sorts, a 10-day pilgrimage, I think it was 10, 11 days, but we spent like, it was level, we spent three days in Jordan, ended up at the, oh gosh, the ruins of Petra, and prayed underneath the stars. The next day we were able to lock in a private place in the Jordan River, got baptized in the Jordan River, and yeah, it really was.

We had it for an hour to ourselves. It was so cool. We even had an armed military guard watching over us and our Muslim guide taking pictures of our baptisms. Wow. Yeah, it really was cool.

It made an impact on that guy, Mohammed. And anyway, and then we went into Israel, spent eight days there, walked the streets of Jerusalem, sailed the Sea of Galilee, oh my gosh, there were many eye-watering moments. I can imagine. Yes, there were. So yeah, so I wasn't there during the Thanksgiving holiday, but you were mentioning some things about Sukkot and some of the parallels there.

Talk about that. Yeah, that's absolutely a phenomenal, phenomenal feast, because the Jews, they celebrated, this is their final feast of the last feast, which, you know, if you look and think about harvest in general, and you can see the picture that's being painted, is that the month of Tishri, the seventh month of the Jewish year, is a high holy month. It's where so many holidays come, so it starts off with Rosh Hashanah, their Jewish New Year, and they blow the shofar, which we can kind of know what's going to happen when the shofar blows, right? Yeah, I can't wait, by the way. And then you've got the Day of Atonement.

I'm ready. Which is absolutely huge in that month, right, when they had the priest with the, you know, rope on his ankle to make sure, you know, they could get him out of there if he got Krispy Krittered. Right. But then came the Feast of Sukkot, where it actually goes on for eight amazing days. Right.

Right? And there's so many things in the Bible that line up with the eight. And one of the cool things, if you just read John chapter seven, if you think about this for Thanksgiving this year, read John chapter seven and see what Jesus did during that feast, right?

And it's the feast that represents joy, and there's a lot in Isaiah 12 that talks about joy and what that means in Sukkot. But when the deal for them was the water, right? Not only did God provide the harvest, but in order to have a harvest, you've got to have water. And if you check the story of the pilgrims, they were struggling with the same thing, with rain.

Right. And so, their deal is water. They bring in water on the first day of the feast, but the big hi-hoo-ha deal for them when they do what is called the Feast of Tabernacles for many, and they've been sleeping under these sukkahs for all week, and then this day, they bring in this water and they pour it, they call it a libation offering, and they pour it on the altar.

And they do this to this day in their synagogues, right? And then they, you know, they scream and shout and all, because this kind of represents the rain that they're going to get for that year. Well, look at near the end of John chapter 7, you're going to see Jesus stood up at this moment in time when they were going to pour the water. And then he says, you know, that's when he says, you know, I'm the living water, and he who thirsts can have this water and never thirst again. I mean, it's absolutely a picture of how cool is it, because what does harvest, when you think about that as a Christian, we get to tabernacle with God. Right.

This is the beginning of, it's on my Donkey Kong. Well, it's actually pretty interesting, because I, you bring all that up, because I support, I've been supporting for years in ministry over in Israel. Akiva Cohen is his name. He's a messianic Jew. He lives in Jerusalem.

He's got a special needs son. Really? And so, yeah, and he sends me every month or a couple of months, he sends me updates and stuff. And it's interesting you talk about rain, because he said, I was just trying to find it here real quick, because he said, he was talking about how, pray for rain, because apparently this time of year in Israel, it's not the rainy season. Right.

And they even need rain even this time of year specifically. So, well, that's pretty amazing. And Akiva's ministry is amazing.

He trains, he raises, he's raising up an army, if you will, of young messianic Jewish men and women as evangelists, evangelists over in Israel. And so that's pretty cool. And so what an illustration though of, and I bet a lot of our listeners probably didn't know hardly any of that. So, it's interesting. So, we can tie in John chapter seven.

Exactly. So, this year that might be something you might consider doing. Crack and open your Bible. Maybe you have never done that over Thanksgiving. You know, maybe you said the Thanksgiving prayer and gave God thanks, right, Robbie, for, you know, the food and provision and family and fellowship and football and parades and everything that comes with that. But maybe, maybe you listening out there take a different approach this year to Thanksgiving. Crack open John chapter seven.

Read that to the family maybe, huh, Robbie? Before they have dinner. And then think about the living water. No water, you got no turkey, right?

You got no dressing. None of that stuff on the table's coming without water. And we got the living water that makes it all happen. The living water. And how thankful are we for that, that Jesus came and left the comfort of heaven to put on the dirt suit, as I call it.

No. Put on the dirt suit for about 33 years and walked the earth and modeled for us what it looks like to have a relationship with the Father, with Abba, Papa, and then return to heaven and then said, I'm going to send you a helper, the Holy Spirit, and for those who surrender their life. Hey, what if, here's a what if, Robbie, what if this Thanksgiving, there may even be some listening out there.

Because this show, Last Council, is downloaded in 58 different countries in addition to being on Truth Radio Network. What if somebody out there learned about all this for the very first time and made a decision to surrender their life to Jesus on Thanksgiving Day? How cool would that be? That is, there would be rejoicing in heaven, I'll bet. There will be an even bigger celebration than Thanksgiving in heaven. Because it says, if even just one, I mean, he'll leave the 99 to go look for the one.

I mean, if even just one did that this Thanksgiving, hey, if that one is you, you listen to this message and maybe you don't even wait until Thanksgiving. Maybe you listen to this as it airs and you make that decision. Man, email me. Shoot me an email. Just go to Koloff.net.

Go to my website. You can email me right through my website and say, I listened to your show and, man, I surrendered my life to Jesus today. What a Thanksgiving celebration, right, Robbie, that they could have? The biggest feast ever at that point, right? Nothing would make me more thankful, would it? Bigger, thankful, bigger than any food or anything else that we might, shall I say, shove down our gullet, right?

Robbie, we're almost out of time, but are you like me and perhaps many of our listeners out there, do you always eat way more than you should have at Thanksgiving? Oh, yeah, I like the endorphin feel. Is that a real thing?

That may have to be a whole other show. Is that, like, for real? If it was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the tropopane or whatever it is that's, quote, in the turkey that makes you fall asleep. I think that's psychological.

I'm going to have to research that now, Robbie, to see if that's for real, right? Oh, yeah, eat turkey and it'll put you to sleep. Well, anyway.

So, but I don't know. Yeah, I, for one, always eat way too much. I go way past the whole Nikita guidelines when it comes to Thanksgiving. Me too. So, well, Robbie, it's been fun to have you on the show. Thanks for helping me celebrate this special Thanksgiving tribute.

I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do. Thank you. Thank you for listening.

Awesome. The Christian car guy, Robbie Doomer. Come on down.

He's the next contestant on the Man Up radio show. Hey, thanks for tuning in. I hope you had some fun today listening to this show, maybe learned a thing or two. And, and we're totally on, on a very serious note, man, it would, it would be, it would not bless he and I more than to find out you made a decision today to surrender your life to Jesus. And at very least, make sure this Thanksgiving you give thanks. God bless you. Men, I would like to challenge each of you to consider spending five days with Lex Luger and I at Man Camp, pursuing the heart of God. Ladies, if you're listening, we'll send your men home better equipped to be men of God, Godly husbands, and Godly fathers that appeals to you. Give them your blessing and encourage them to sign up today at mancamp.info. Pastors, if you would like to bring Koloff for Christ Ministries and Man Up Conference to your community, go to koloff.org and email me.

Remember this it's time to Man Up. If you would like to support Koloff for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.koloff.net and donate today. Nikita Koloff here.

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