This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your Chosen Truth Network podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. 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, I'm back with my friend Robbie Dilmore. And there's a verse in the Bible, Robbie, and it's where Jesus is saying, He said, I am the vine, you are the branches. Without me, you can do Nothing.
Nothing at all. And I was watching a sermon illustration by It was Francis Chan. And he was talking about a uh There was something that somebody was doing And what they were doing is they were holding a branch, but it was a dead branch, and he was just holding it with his hand. And he said, With this branch, can I make any fruit grow? No.
Can I make this branch come alive and start to bear fruit? No. It says the branch is nothing. Without the tree. And Robbie, you and I are nothing without Jesus.
And so we know that some people have self-esteem problems. They don't feel too good about themselves. But then other people, I think they feel a little too good about themselves and they start to photo bomb Jesus. And you actually have a story about that. That was a, I did a number of shows on photobombing Jesus, so I don't know the story that you were referring to, but I would love to know what you remember about that.
Uh, basically, how you know what photobombing Jesus means is that so, okay, so I'll give you an example. I go out and I pray for people, and praise God sometimes. There was a lady yesterday, she had a kidney issue, she was hurting really bad. And I prayed for her, and I said, I believe Jesus is going to heal you. And I prayed for her, she said, It feels better.
Prayed for her again, and she said, I think the prayer worked. And I tell you what, man, it's pretty easy to say, oh man, look what I did, you know, oh, you know, I've got the gift of healing, man. You know, it's like, nope, I just happened to say a few words.
Now, I had to have the faith. He tells us to do that in the book of James. But I had to have the faith. But Jesus is the healer. I have never gone in and prayed for somebody and actually healed that person myself.
Now, in Mark chapter 16, Jesus' last words in the book of Mark, he says that these signs shall follow those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons, they will heal the sick, they will raise the dead. It even goes in one point and it says if they drink any poisonous thing, it will not affect them in any way. And uh there have been some stories of missionaries who have gone out. And people, they've literally been poisoned.
And I just heard a story about this yesterday of a guy who went to, I think it was the Philippines, and they did not like this missionary. And they tried to poison them. And they kind of waited and waited and waited a while. And they said, okay, you must be the real deal because we just poisoned you and nothing happened. But see, the truth is, that's nothing that we can do of our own account.
It is the goodness of God. It is the goodness of God. And so I think, especially for folks who are, you know, you may be posting on social media, or you may have a radio show, or you may be on television, or you may be a pastor. And you can start to think, hey, I'm doing some pretty good things. But we got to be careful not to photobomb Jesus.
Yeah, the valley of humiliation is where the fertile soil is. And you know, it's a fascinating thing, the the idea of humili humility is that it seems like The lower that you can get the more God can trust you with. And the perfect example of that is Moses. King David, obviously, Jesus is the absolute perfect example of that. But when you think about it, Moses, according to God, At the time was the meekest individual which is Really, a picture of humility, the meekest individual that had ever, that was upon the earth, is what he described.
Yeah. He poured into Moses the entire Old Testament, you know, or the entire Torah, the first five books of the Bible. In other words, Would you think about How low Moses got when you get low, then God can put things into you. But without that, so it's interesting, apart from how low can you go? Right.
It's sort of a limbo contest. That if you really want. Two See what God can do for you, it requires this idea of humility. And here's what I learned. Right.
about that word that just blew my mind this week. that when you think about it, the the word to forgive in Hebrew is NASA. Did you know that? It's that's how it's pronounced, but which actually means to lift up, which I think's really cool that NASA in in Hebrew is is what our space stages but in order to lift up. You know, who's going to do the lifting?
That would be God. But you first have to go down, right? And the first letter of that word is a nun. You can hear the N sound. And what that is, it's a picture of a seed that is dying, it's going into fertile soil.
And it's dropping his little root and it's going to die. But after it gets down there in the soil, after it drops that little root, it becomes firmly emplaced, and through faith, it begins to rise.
Well, the perfect picture of that, the absolute amazing picture of that, is literally Jesus.
So, when you think about he was the fallen one, nobody fell fallen. further than Jesus. You think about the beating that he took on our behalf. You think about the nails that he took on our behalf. You think about the thirst, the people that were reviling him.
You think of all the stuff that was going on for him when he could have just stood up and called his house name. But no, he went low, low, low, low, low, lower than anybody had ever gone, and actually into the dirt, into the grave. For three days. Yeah. But when he came out, it was a morning.
See, light was coming. You see, and the same thing is true for us. You see, if we will get that low and really crucify ourselves, like take up our cross, then that's the only way that God will be allow us to reflect the light that He really wants us to have. And so it's a beautiful thing, what you're talking about, that Through keeping your eyes on Jesus, you can see what humility really looks like.
Well, absolutely. And Moses, when he came, when God came to him and he said, Hey, I'm going to use you, I'm going to do all these things with you. What did Moses say?
Well, God, I stutter. Nobody's going to want to listen to me.
Well, What if they still don't listen to me?
Well, then throw your staff down and it'll turn into it.
So, in other words, Moses wasn't looking for the spotlight. No, he was looking to hide. Right, he was running from it. In Luke 18. In verse 13, it says, And the publican, standing afar off, would not even lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but he smote, he beat upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
And Jesus said, This is what he said: he said, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone that exalteth himself. Shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. And so. I guess that you could say that we win by losing. We win by losing.
And so when we try to promote ourselves, when we try to make a big deal out of ourselves, then we get in trouble. But it's almost like, you know, there's an old expression that I heard, Robbie, and it says that if you run after the world, the world runs away from you. But if you run away from the world, the world will run after you. And I thought that was a good analogy. Another good analogy that I just heard.
Was by Jensen Franklin, and this is what I was telling you about before the show. But he holds up, he's got a pizza box in his hand, and he said, Here's a pizza box. I'm going to set it down for a minute. Is it Steph Crust? It might be.
He said, But if you. If you order a pizza and the pizza delivery guy comes to your house and he's holding the actual pizza, which is hot, in his hand, and he's got the cheese running down his sleeves and he says, here I am. I've come to deliver your pizza. You're going to think that this guy has gone mad or that he ran out of boxes or something happened. And he said that you have the box because the box is what actually delivers the pizza.
And so in other words, when we go out and we share the gospel, God chooses to use regular people, just like you and me, Robbie, and people who are listening, to share his word, to pray for the sick, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, do all these things. He causes regular human beings, just like us, he asks us and commands us to do his work. But what happens is, is a lot of times we start to think that we're the pizza. And we forget that we're just the 50 cent box. And the pizza.
Is what we're delivering. And if we focus on the pizza and focus on the people, because God loves people that we're delivering the pizza to, we're not gonna get in trouble. But if we focus on ourselves and we say, oh man, this is a wonderful box, they really love this box, then people will look at us like we're a little crazy and we start to lose credibility and we also lose humility as well. Yeah, there's a lot of folding that could happen to your box, just saying. I think we've all experienced that way.
You know, there's some other wonderful biblical examples of that when you think about. Isaiah, in the famous, you know, Isaiah 6, you know, a lot of people think of, you know, here I am, send me. But before that happened, It was I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live amongst a people of unclean lips. In other words, he saw. What God was, and in comparison, you know, immediately, what can you do but fall on your face?
Exactly what he did. And what all of us are going to do when we actually see, like, oh my goodness, here's what I am as compared to nothing. Right? And so then. When he said that came the tongs.
To touch his lips, which obviously is God, which is Jesus, right? And then he was in a position to say, Here I am, here I am. Domino's, or would you prefer Papa John's?
Okay. But the other one that I love, I always love this picture, is Peter, right?
So, you know, he's in the boat, he's fishing. You get the picture. You know, throw your net on the other side. And when he sees these fish, man, the first time, not the time he jumps out of the boat and swims ashore, but the first time, what does he do? He hits the deck.
He says, get away from me. I'm a sinful man. You can't look at this. That's right. And so he was literally.
You know, here he is, the rock of the church, but but how many times in Peter's life do we find him there on the ground taking a good hard look at at You know, the valley of humiliation. That's right. You know, in Revelation chapter 3, and I think to at least five of the seven churches, except for Philadelphia and Smyrna. And it was interesting, Jesus didn't have anything bad to say about them. And I believe they were both small churches, especially Smyrna.
It was a small church. It was kind of dying out, but he didn't have anything negative to say about them. And that's why we have a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, named after one of those places. And there's places in the United States named Smyrna. But to the church of the Laodiceans.
He had some good things to say about them. He said, Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee.
So he tells some good things. The other side of this is he says, In verse 14, Revelation 3.14, he says, Unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceaans, write, These things saith the Amen, the faithful and the true witness. The beginning of the creation of God, I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I'd rather you be one or the other.
So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of thy mouth. Because you say, I am rich, I'm increased with goods, and have need of nothing. And knowest that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
Now, God, He gives them an opportunity to repent because He loves people. But at the same time, what are they doing, Robbie, in verse 17? Why have they become lukewarm? It's because they look at what they've done themselves. I've become rich, I've made a lot of money.
I mean, it's almost a little prosperity gospel going on there, man. Oh wow. You know that. When it comes to the church of Laicidea, it's so beautiful. One of the things that you may know, um David Jeremiah teaches this beautifully, is that in Laodicea that they they their specialty, what they made all their money on, was a Iceland.
Right? And so when he counsels them to buy ISAF, you know, in other words, here's the deal. And it's a deal for me too, by the way, Michael. I'm blind. I don't know how blind I am.
But Isaiah got to see a little bit how blind he is, and Peter got to see a little bit how blind he is, and Moses clearly got to see a little bit how blind he was as he saw this bush that would not burn up, right? That it would not be consumed. And so it's interesting. He said, I would counsel you to buy this Isab. I would counsel you to buy.
Gold, right? I would counsel you to buy oil. What was the problem with the virgins, right? That were waited on the bridegroom. No oil.
And when you think about it, what it takes to get oil, you've got to have some serious crushing going on of some olives in order to do that. And then when you think about how many blind people did Jesus heal? And how did he go about healing them in so many different ways. Um And you can see our own need, our desperate need, to be able to see with God's eyes. You can see our desperate need for the Holy Spirit and the oil, as he would even talk about in the Revelation, that he would be walking around the lampstands.
And what do the lampstands need in order to be a light? They need oil. And so our churches. They need a pastor who's an angel, right? That's a star, you know, but not a star in their own right.
They're reflecting Jesus' light. They need a lampstand. They need oil. And they certainly need people that, apart from me, you can do nothing. And so you just see it just pushes us all closer to him.
And the closer we get to him, the more we see the light that's available. And the less blind we are.
Well, yeah, and one of the things, because now you're a pastor, one of the things that I've heard again and again and again and again, and one of the names I've heard of is James Baker back in the 80s. You know, the whole PTL scandal, you know, was praise the Lord, but then they started calling it past the loot.
So, you know, it was that was one of the things that they called it. But they all said the same thing. When James Baker started out in the ministry, he was doing it for all of the right reasons. He loved the Lord. He did this.
He did that. And then it became about the fame. Then it became about the money. And somebody actually asked him. They said, James, they said, when you became a pastor, they said, you know, we noticed you started, you know, you fell into sin.
You did all these other things. They said, did you no longer love God? And Baker said, No, I loved God. He said, But I no longer feared God. I no longer feared God.
And so the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, or some versions say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom or the beginning of understanding. And so, yes, we have this reverence, we have this awe, we have this fear of God. But at the same time, Jesus also, remember, he told us, he said, I no longer call you servants. He said, but I call you friends. I mean, it's pretty amazing, Robbie, that no matter what happens to me when I wake up in the morning, that I know that I'm a friend of God.
But on the other hand, I wake up in the morning and I know that I'm not God. That's important as well. Yeah, the fear of the Lord is Um An amazing opportunity for all of us that it seems like you can't go too far in that direction. Yeah. And interestingly, when you look at the seven spirits of God in Isaiah 11, right there, they start out with wisdom, then they go to understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and then they go back to the.
The sixth one is the fear of the Lord. And the seventh one, in my opinion, and this could be debated by some people, but I think I'm right. Like, you probably think you're right. The seventh one, in my opinion, says, but he delighted in the fear of the Lord.
So there's a place you can get to where you realize that, oh, my word, even. If I die on my way home tonight, God didn't make a mistake. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be awesome for my family. It's going to be awesome for me.
Because you're so delighted, like you understand completely that, oh my goodness, the providence of God can give you that peace that transcends all understanding. But you don't get there without that progression of wisdom and understanding and counsel and might. And then you get to this point of fear of the Lord, but then, oh man, you level up. And there's a place where, like, my dad is so big and so bad, and he has this thing exactly right. You cannot possibly do anything.
that aren't in his plan. Yeah. My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do. Amen. He made the earth.
But it's true. And I think Jesus talks about this in the Bible. He says that if you want to come to me, if you want to follow me, you have to have the faith as of a child. And so my son, Christian, he was sitting in his class one day, and all of a sudden he was sitting there, and he said he heard the word, he heard somebody say, Christian. He said he looked around.
Nobody was talking. Nobody was there. But he heard the audible voice, Christian. And he said he sat there for a minute. And he said, God, what are you trying to tell me?
And he waited a few days, and he waited a few days.
Well, a little while later, later on this year, he was in first grade. and he heard an audible voice again, and it said, I care. I care. And he said, I said, What do you think God was trying to tell you? He said, I think God was trying to tell me that He's here.
He loves me. And he cares. I think sometimes we can get so sophisticated, you know, and we can become so puffed up with our own selves that. Man, sometimes I just want to have the faith like my son Christian. Yeah, or you know, when you think about God's perspective, you know, what child.
that that you you know you you have a grandson or or whatever baby, maybe it's your own child, you know, what do you do when you see that little baby? You you can't help but make eyes at it, you know, make Sounds do something to try to get that child to smile. And when they smile, you just delight in that little smile. Like, oh my goodness. Or if you play peekaboo with them or whatever.
And I quite often think there are all sorts of things that are going on in my life every day, just like God did for your son, where it's like peekaboo, Robbie. Maybe it was something in the scriptures that you read this morning, or maybe it was like yesterday, right? Yesterday, I'm working at the church with one of the good members there. And he took me to lunch. How awesome was that?
And as we're pulling out of the parking lot of the church, out of the restaurant, We see this young girl, and she clearly has a flat tire. He didn't see it. I saw it, I guess, because I'm a Christian car guy. And I said, Oh man, look at that poor girl. She looks forlorn to like she was like, What am I going to do with this?
And so we kind of came around the corner. He rolled down the window and he said, Do you want some help changing that tire? And she says, And again, when we got up closer, you could see she was really young. She says, I don't have a jack. Do you have a jack?
And I said, Well, you should have a jack, but we'll figure it out. Let's see what we can do. We'll get your tire shaved. She goes, Oh, my parents are so far away, I can't get them to come. And she was in a tough spot, right?
Yes. And So My friend and I, we didn't, it didn't, because you know, again, I'm the Christian car guy, he was pretty handy. I mean, it didn't take us five minutes to change this tire. And by the way, she did have a jack, she just didn't know where I was in the car. And so, you know, we're changing her tire.
And I was like, so, you know, where do you go to church? You know, she goes, oh, well, we used to go to church because, you know, my grandfather was a pastor, but, you know, we don't anymore. And I was like, well, you know, the good news is the pastor at Kill D Church just changed your tire. Yeah. And her name was Abigail.
We got a chance to pray for with Alega. You know, it was just really. If that wasn't a peekaboo moment for me and Brian, It's just like your healing experience, right? Yesterday you saw where you actually, here was a divine appointment, but just like you said, God orchestrated the whole thing. Right.
He You know, she had the flat tire. We saw her. We were able to minister to her. And it was interesting. She was a junior in a high school.
And I could tell when she talked about, because I said, oh, your name's Abigail. Did you know your name is in the Bible? That Abigail was married to King David? And she goes, Yeah, my grandfather was a pastor. And he told me.
And I could see the affection that she had for God and her grandfather and the fact that she knew that. And I could see that, you know, that's a really neat opportunity. And I. I'm like you. If you accept that, that was a peekaboo, well, then you better smile back.
What an opportunity you have for God to delight. Right. And God gave you the opportunity, Robbie, to do that. Right. But you still had to get out of the car and you had to change the tire and you had to open your mouth and say, hey, I'm the pastor at Kildie.
Maybe you don't have a place where you're going to now, but this is an opportunity for you to know. That God loves you. That you know, God literally God sent me by here today to help you. And it was kind of like the lady yesterday. Yeah, she was sitting there, she was in all sorts of pain.
Now, could God have just healed her without me saying anything? Yeah, but He hadn't done it yet. That's why, that's why He sent me by because I went and I prayed for her, and she was able to see the goodness of God. But in that situation, Robbie, not only was she there, she's an insurance client of mine, but her son was there in his 50s. And he got to see the whole thing too.
And I felt like the Lord was telling me, Yeah, you could have done this at the beginning, but her son needed to see this as well. And so the Bible says, Let your light so shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify who? My God, Father in heaven. Your father, not glorify you, but glorify your Father in heaven, but they've got to see your good works. We've got to do the works.
You know, it's funny, my wife looked up something on Facebook. They were looking to hire somebody. It was one of these. Towing, not towing companies, but one of these handyman companies. And one of the things that they said in there was 2 Thessalonians 3:10.
Do you know that? We have told you this from the beginning, that he who does not work neither shall he eat.
So, God gives us the opportunity to work. He gives us the opportunity to get a job. He gives us these opportunities, but we have to take the opportunity. And so, so this company had put this in their ad? Yeah.
And my wife texted it to me. Did they quote the verse? I thought this was really fun. Yeah, they quoted that verse. Ha ha ha ha ha.
I love it. I love it. But that's true. Like, man, if you want to work here, you better plan on working. Mm-hmm.
There is no free ride. There is no free ride. But, you know, so many times we can sit there and we pray. I know you've studied some of these revivals, and I have too. But in particular, Charles Finney, they see all the great things that he did at the end.
And he would literally walk into a town and walk by a factory. And without him opening his mouth, he was outside of the factory walking by. And these workers inside of the factory would just start to weep and repent and confess their sins just as he walked by.
Well, this didn't just happen. That was after years of prayer. When Charles Finney, when he went to Rochester, New York, and 100,000 souls were saved. He had this guy named Father Daniel, who would precede him, and he would pray weeks before. And he said that's where the power came from, was the prayer before they ever got there.
Yeah, that is where the power comes from. And again, the beauty of it is we've talked about it all, show that. You're just a little kid that is looking up And he's saying, you know, you want to help me, son? And you're like, oh, dad, where can we go? You know, yeah, I would love to.
You know, that's. You know, we say the word work, it has this interesting connotation in it, but when you're working with the father, it's like going fishing with dad, right? Like, it couldn't be any more fun. And the picture of what we've talked about all show is that of a relationship. Right, this unbelievable relationship that you pointed out about the branch right at the very beginning, we can be attached to it, and in so doing, we can have a relationship with Christ.
But it starts somewhere, and that's by admitting. that you need one. Admitting that you're a sinner. And you can ask him right now, say, Lord, forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you.
And if you really mean that, if you say it and you believe it from your heart, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. If Not for God. If Not for God. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty's wick.
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