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Yeah. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.
Hey, this is Mike Zwick with If Not For God with Mike Zwick, and I've got a Robbie Dillmore, the Christian car guy, Pastor Robbie Dillmore, and we are excited to be back. Yes, absolutely. I tell you what, Robbie, there's a lot of stuff going on in the world right now. You can say that about three times. But I wanted to start off with 2 Corinthians 5, and it's in verse 20.
It says, Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And I tell you what, Robbie, there's a lot of stuff in the world that's going on right now that people are worried about. We see everything going on with immigration.
We see everything going on with. And we see everything going on with Israel. I mean, this world is going crazy, but each day we can wake up and we can be grateful to God. And I tell you what, every day I have a lot to be grateful for. And I notice, Robbie, that when I start to complain and when I start to grovel and look at how bad things are in the world or complain about what's going on in my life.
I'm not grateful to God, and I'm not spending as much time praising the Lord. But I think it's important to be grateful. What do you think? Yeah, you can say that in so many circumstances, right? Especially like that verse with thanksgiving, right?
In order to get the peace that transcends all understanding, you know, you got to add in that little ingredient that. You know, God is obviously working all these things out, and I can't help but enjoy the idea of. If you look in Deuteronomy 32, there's a really precious song of Moses right there that he is singing. And maybe you've heard that popular song, Honey from a Rock, which it comes right out of that passage right there. And it talks about how they are going to walk on high places.
The passage that talks about the honey from the rock talks about they're going to walk on high places to receive the produce. From the fields. And then it says that they're going to literally suck this honey from a rock, and then they're going to suck oil from a flinty rock.
Well, when you begin to unpack that whole idea right there, it's an interesting thing that the next thing it says. Is that Jezreel did all that, in other words, Israel did all that, and they grew fat. In other words, here they had all the goodies. They had the oil, they had the honey. The wheat and actually grapes and a bunch of other things that are mentioned in that little passage there, but they got fat because what did they not do?
They didn't exercise. When you really think about it, Mike, think of this. If they had the produce, that was wheat, that's protein.
So if they had the honey, that's carbohydrates. And if they had the oil, that's fats. And so it was a pretty balanced diet. And as you read the rest of that, you'll see that as well. And there's another cool thing about honey: it's made from bees and a whole bunch of worker beads that are all working together in the same idea.
And they're bringing all that honey home with all that pollen home with them. And it's a pretty sweet deal. It's a pretty sweet deal. I love it, man. You know, my wife and I were just talking about this yesterday with honey: is that honey, I think, is the only thing in the whole world that never goes bad.
Right? It actually destroys bacteria because of the way it's made and because of its lack of moisture.
So it's really cool, all the different things that God has given us right there. And you know that, of course, it's the land flowing with milk and honey. And so all those ideas are there. But when you think about it, why did they grow fat? Because We got to exercise our faith.
You know, we have wonderful exercise routines, but I was thinking about these different ideas of exercise. You might like these Yorubaisms. First one you need is deep knee bends.
So if you're on your knees, right, you're doing those deep knee bends. Yeah. That's good spiritual exercise. In fact, you know, it's one of my personal favorites is prayer. Like, man, you know, is like one of the favorite things I ever had my son do is call and ask me for help.
And so you can imagine how honored God is when you call and ask for help. Whatever that may look like, it's exercising your faith. And it's a matter of, you know, burning off some of those honey carbs and the oil and all the stuff that you've been eating. Yeah, and one of the things that I was reminded of is I remember when I went through sales school, when I was selling books door to door back when I was in college, and they told us this story. They said that there were these two little boys, and they both went to a psychiatrist.
And one of the boys was extremely negative. I mean, he saw the worst in everything. And the other boy was extremely positive. And they were actually worried about both of them. Because, you know, you could be positive about stuff that you don't need to be positive about.
And you could be overly negative about stuff that you don't need to be negative about.
So the first boy, they put him in a room. With a bunch of toys, with a bunch of cake, with a bunch of drinks, with all this stuff. Everything that a young kid could want. And they left him alone for about 10 minutes. And the second boy, they put him in a room with a pile of manure.
Right, the optimist boy, right? The optimist boy, he got the man. The optimist boy got the manure. He got the manure, right? I love this story, bro.
So the first boy who was negative, they went into the room about 10 minutes later, and they saw him, and he was sitting there with his hands crossed and with his arms crossed. And they said, what are you doing, man? They said, you're sitting here. They said, there's all these toys here. He said, I don't want to play with the toys.
He said, I could slip on one of the toys and I could hurt myself. He said, well, there's all this cake here. He said, I don't want to eat the cake. It could make me fat. They said, well, there's all these other games to play with.
I don't want to play with them. They could cause problems later on in life. And so they checked on him. They say, okay, we're going to leave this kid alone for a little bit. We're going to go into the other room with the positive boy who with a room full of manure.
And he's in the room and he's slinging the crap everywhere. And they said, what are you doing? There's a room full of crap. And he said, with all of this manure in the room, he said, there's got to be a pony in here somewhere. There's got to be a pony in here somewhere.
And so, you know, every single day, Robbie, I look, and when we went through this sales school, they used to teach us: no matter what your circumstance is. Try to find what's good, great, and wonderful about this situation.
So, the other day, I got a seatbelt ticket. You know, it was a state trooper who pulled me up. He said, You didn't have your seatbelt on. And I said, I'm right. You're right.
I was wrong. I should have had it on. And I started thinking about it and I started to get upset and I was frustrated. Oh, this is 180 bucks. I got to pray, gotta pray, gotta play.
And all of a sudden, I said, What's good, great, and wonderful about this situation? And I said, The truth is, is I said, The fact that I got caught for a seatbelt ticket, this could be a good thing. Why is that? Because if I didn't wear my seatbelt now, maybe I'd make a habit of not wearing my seatbelt. And eventually, I could get into a car accident and it could not turn out so well for me.
And I said, I'd rather pay the $180 now. And have the lesson to where I can start putting my seatbelt on versus not wearing my seatbelt, not getting caught, and later on it could have been really bad. And I'm going to give you a few Bible verses about being grateful, and I guess you could say about having a positive attitude. Ephesians 5:20 says, Always give thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Samuel 12, 24, but be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart.
Consider what great things he has done for you. That tells me, when I'm thinking about all the great things God has done for me, Robbie, it's harder for me to complain. Matthew 13, 16, but blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear. Hey, I'm blessed because I hear the voice of the Lord. I'm blessed because God is showing me what is good in my life.
1 Thessalonians 5:18, give thanks. In how many circumstances? All circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. And Robbie, you've had some tough situations. You were telling me last time about a time where you were actually hit by a, was it a Jeep?
Yeah. And it could have been really easy to get negative about that situation, but something beautiful actually happened. Oh, lots, lots. You know, God did came to my rescue in a bunch of different ways. We talked about that before, but.
Um You know, one of the most amazing things that you didn't hear was that they took me after I got my Jesus hug, and after I got a chance to make the person that hit me laugh over the idea of asking him, you know, if he had any insurance, I probably told you about that.
Well, tell us that story again. I love that story.
So after he hit me, You know, I was laying on the ground with a very extreme compound fracture of my left leg. And of course, they were really concerned that I wouldn't go into shock because they couldn't get an ambulance up there for about an hour. And the weather was such they couldn't get a helicopter in there. And it was just pretty brismal scene, whatever. And this man was Just Like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, standing over me, literally freaking out.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and all these people, you could see him. And so, God just gave me this. Little thing to say that I thought was funny. And so I just looked up at it and I said, Hey, dude, how's your insurance? Which you can relate to since you're in insurance.
That's right. And Immediately, everybody calmed down, especially him. He could see that, oh, this guy must be okay if he's. And I was. I was, because God had.
Come to my rescue in so many different ways. The biggest way he came to my rescue, though, in that particular situation, was when I got to the hospital. They had an emergency room, a little hospital in Murphy, North Carolina. I asked my wife which room I'm on, which floor I'm on in this, in this. Hospital?
And she said, floor. She said, there's only three rooms. And she's like, whatever. And so this emergency guy, you know, is talking to the nurse and he starts to unwrap my leg from this cast thing that they had blown onto it. And she said, I think before you take that off, you probably want to look at this.
X-ray. As a matter of fact, there was a surgeon came in here yesterday that was in uh served in Vietnam and dealt with trauma all the time and he said if we had any real traumas to give him a call that he'd be happy to come in and help should I call him. And what the How unusual that is, I could spend almost an hour to say that hospitals don't let that happen, but it did that day. That man called him, that Navy surgeon came in. He literally saved my leg in a lot of different ways.
It was fascinating because in this little bitty hospital without many resources, this Navy surgeon from Vietnam comes in and saves my leg. And when I get to Baptist Hospital a few hours later, because I just had chemotherapy, I just finished my chemotherapy on cancer. And so they immediately took me by ambulance to Baptist Hospital. And there they had a whole bunch of orthopedic surgeons prepared to do whatever needed to be done to my leg. And when they got me in there and they looked at it and what he'd done, they go, We have tools he didn't have.
I couldn't have done this. That man saved your leg. And so, when you really think about what happened, God provided Like that surgeon, who knows how long in advance of my life, I suppose, that he knew that at that moment that man would be there. And, you know. I was in my 40s at that particular time.
I ran a 5K when I was in my 50s without one of the bones in my leg as a result of. You know what that surgeon did and what God did to heal me from all that. Praise the Lord. You know, when I think about gratitude, Robbie. The opposite of gratitude to me is worry.
Because when you're worried, what you're saying is, God, I don't trust you.
Now, I understand that there's difficult times in my life, there's difficult times in your life, and so on and so forth. And it's a lot harder to kind of believe this when you're in the middle of it. But I'm going to give you the words of Jesus. This is what he said. And I've got Matthew 6, 25.
I'm using the New King James Version. He says, this is Jesus. He says, Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink. Not about your body. What you will put on is not life more than food and the body more than clothing.
Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not so much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient. For sufficient for the day is the trouble of its own. And you know, I actually heard a story about a guy who was a missionary in another country, and I forget the name of the country, but there were cannibals in his country.
And he was tipped off the night before that the cannibals were coming for him because he was a Christian, and they were going to burn his house down, and they were going to kill him and his family.
So that night, the guy hides up in a tree, okay? And he the next day, I think he's still up there and he's watching these cannibals. They're looking for him, but they go down and they burn his house down. And they burn everything that he has, okay? And then they go away, and he's okay.
But this is what he said years later. He said, during that night of my life, he said, I felt closer to God. than I've ever felt in my entire life. And he said, if I had to go back to those same circumstances and be caught up in that tree that night to feel the closeness of God, He said, I would do it all over again. And Robbie, I've been there myself.
I remember a couple of years ago, you and I have talked about this: about how I went through a severe financial hardship just a few years ago. And, you know, long story short. When I went through this, I didn't know how I was going to make it through each month. But every single month, and it was supernaturally, this was nothing I could do in the natural, God would literally come through each month and give me just enough and give me barely enough to what I needed. And so I would pay the bills or whatever, and I learned during that time.
that I had to trust in God completely. Because you see, you know, the Bible says in the Old Testament, Robbie, he says, don't give me too much. Because if I get too much, then I'll say, well, who is God? I don't need him. He says, but don't give me too little so that I may have to steal and profane the name of my God, but just give me my daily bread.
And when I had to completely rely on God, it was like it just, it took the worry away. And I knew that God was going to provide for me. And I'm sure that you've been in those circumstances as well. Oh yeah. I'll never forget when we lost a dealership.
Um Yeah. Uh that was the year my son graduated from high school. And he wanted to go play basketball in college and the one college that had been recruiting him was um University of Nev of Arizona in in I mean yeah, northern Arizona. It was in Flagstaff. And uh So we get up there and they didn't offer him a scholarship.
They just wanted, you know, his dream was always to play Division I basketball and he was going to have that opportunity if he could go to this university. The only challenge was that the tuition at that point in time was $20,000 a semester and we didn't have $10. I mean, nothing. We'd lost a dealership. We'd lost our house.
We'd lost our cars. We had nothing and no credit to go with it.
So I just, you know, we're up there and they're explaining this to us, and we go to see their purser's office and all that, and they're supposed to do this, and no help. Except they said, maybe you can get one of your parents to co-sign or something. We'll figure something out. And so. I'm like, well, okay, well, let's leave Robbie here since he's got to start classes here next week.
And then we'll just go back and we'll figure it out. I thought my wife was going to lose. You want to drive all the way back to, which is like 3,000 miles. You want to drive all the way back to. to Winston-Salem?
Leave Robbie here and we don't have The money nor any way to get the money. And I said, I don't know what it is, Tammy. I just feel like God's got it covered. I'm telling you, it's okay. Oh, man.
That was a 3,000-mile trip that. Tammy might have mentioned it to me once or a time that this was not the best plan in the world. And if I didn't live this, I wouldn't believe it. Have you heard this before, the story? Go ahead.
So We get back. to Winston. And The phone was ringing just like that. We get back to Winston, and as we pull in the driveway, of course, the mailbox is right there. And in that mailbox, is a check.
Believe it or not.
Now, at this point in time, if you realize Robbie owed the IRS at least $600,000 or $700,000, I owed. Chrysler, over a million dollars. I owed the Small Business Administration like $600,000.
So a couple million dollars that I was owed some pretty serious people that, by the way, you can't declare bankruptcy with the federal government. And so I was in like a world of I have no idea where I'm going to get any money. And if I had it, it would be gone almost immediately. And here was a check, if you think about this. From the state of North Carolina for $20,000 because my office manager, who had embezzled obviously the money, had repaid the state of North Carolina all this money.
She'd written them a check for whatever $180,000 or something to help her reduce her sentence in prison. And so they had withheld my tax return, all this stuff all these years.
So they were returning me, they were returning me the money. And I couldn't believe that they didn't give it to any of the people that had liens on me or whatever, but they didn't. And there it was. And I'm like, Tammy, look at this. You're not going to believe it with your own eyes.
Like, here it is. It's $20,000. And so Robbie got to. You know, attend the university that year. Interestingly, he transferred back to UNCG where he played basketball.
But nonetheless, it was like, oh my goodness, how cool is that? And if I ever saw God, you know, it's what. To provide something like that, man, there's no doubt that he can provide. That is absolutely amazing. And, you know, sometimes I've learned just to trust God.
And I think that, you know, when I was talking about worrying, sometimes it's just amazing when we just trust God. When we trust him and we walk in faith, he does the rest. And I'm sure I've told this story before, but back in Raleigh, when I was living in Raleigh, one of the things that happened to me was I was sitting there in my apartment. I was just, I was standing actually, and I felt the Lord tell me, you need to go buy a Bible. And I'm sitting there thinking, I've got a Bible.
The Lord said, you need to go buy a Bible. And so I said back to God. I said, okay, I'll do that. And I felt God say, no, I need you to do it now. And I didn't question it.
I just went. I just went. I drove. I went to a Walmart. And um When I went to the Walmart Um the I went in there and I Walked in, and there was a guy with a hat that said, I love Jesus.
And I said, I got a good feeling about this.
So I went back to where the books were, where they had the Bibles and all that stuff. And I walked back right to where they were, and I walked up and down the aisle, up and down the aisle. I could not find a Bible.
So about five, ten feet away was the clerk over there. And I asked him, I said, where are the Bibles? I went and he looked at me and he goes, The Bibles are exactly where you were just walking up and down. I go back over there and the Bible is right there. I pick up the Bible and I come over to the clerk to go ahead and buy the Bible and I say, Thank you so much for telling me where they were.
And the guy goes, Yeah, no problem.
Well, there's a lady who's standing at that counter and she looks at me and she said, Where did you get that Bible? I need to buy a Bible. God knew that was the exact place where I needed to be at that exact time. And I left the store, and as I was walking out, I felt the Lord tell me, You need to tell that guy with the hat that you love his hat. And I didn't say that, I said, I like your hat.
And he looks at me and he goes, I love my hat. Yeah. Of course, naturally. And you know, I love that.
So much about that story because it's just raw obedience, right? You feel the Lord put it on your heart. And so you started this whole thing saying that you got stopped for not wearing your seatbelt. And I couldn't help but recall that if there was anybody that got told specifically by God to put on a seatbelt, I had to bring it up. You know, usually you're very obedient about things.
And so I was, I, I, I was thinking, man, he was just giving you a reminder. Like, didn't I tell you once about this, Mike? That's right. That's right. And it was so funny because I put it on.
You know, I usually wear it. But I just, I guess, you know, you're speeding around, you're in and out of stuff, doing insurance stuff. And I guess I just forgot at this time. And, but I'm grateful to God that I got that seatbelt ticket because it could have saved me from something in the future. Oh, it will.
And you see, sometimes we just trust God, Robbie. And I don't know if I told you this, but probably about 15 years ago, I went to a church called Christmas. Cross assembly with Pastor Chad Harvey. He comes to the station. And when I was walking in there, I was so sick, but I felt God was telling me to walk in there.
And I just felt like I didn't have any energy. And I walked in and they were singing, and I felt the Lord tell me, sing as loud as you can. Praise me with all that you've got. And I started to do that. And guess what happened?
I got healed. I said, I'm fine. I'm all better.
So, you know what happened is I started to walk out of the church because faith works great. But the opposite of faith, doubt, that works too.
So I started to walk out of the church and I said to myself, I can't just get better like that. I can't just get healed like that.
Well, guess what happened? I got sick all over again. We have to have faith. And I think part of this whole thing about being positive or being grateful or whatever it is, when we're filled with faith. I don't for me it just changes things.
Oh, yeah. I mean and, you know, it There's lots of ways you build that, but we talked about, you know, the honey from the rock and the need for exercise, right? Not extra fries, but exercise. Yeah, yeah. Extra size, you know.
So, you know, I was talking about we got deep knee bends. I didn't get into my stretches. Uh-oh.
Okay. And so, but see, when God told you to go buy the Bible, that was a stretch. Yeah. Right? Like, I'm going to stretch my faith.
That's right. When he asked me to get on the radio, like when I was terrified, or maybe he's asked you to teach a Sunday school class, those are stretches, which are also very important so you don't wax fat like Israel did. And you get this. And then you got aerobic exercises, right? Because the Holy Spirit is, I don't know, you may know this, is like the breath.
And so, you know, is. Like you talked about, we praise, we breathe, you know, we have opportunities to. To experience God, because I love what you said about that cannibal guy in the tree, right? Fortunately, he wasn't looking like the cannibals to serve his fellow man. But he was up there to serve God.
I'm telling you, can you even imagine? The sweet harmony he had and that sense. But you know, when I was I was the had a brain abscess. And they told me, mister Dilmore, You may only have a few hours left. You may need to, you know.
Get with your family and make arrangements, whatever, that conversation. When you have that at some point in time, it's a wake-up call. But again, just like your friend in the tree. Mm-hmm. That time with God I had a Bible at the time, I used a red pen in it.
And all my notes in that In that particular Bible in Red Pen came from that experience. And it's some of the most precious experiences with God that I ever had because it was in that life or death place that I clearly, you know, he healed me and he would have healed me the way if I'd gone home. But the beautiful thing was, is like, man, I love that. And I love the thought of more experiences like that before we're done. In Hebrews 11, it says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good report.
And it says, for by it, the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. And then it goes on to say in verse 6, but without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. If not for God.
Yeah, if not for God. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty's wick. Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell.
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