Yeah. Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey, this is If Not For God with Mike Zwick, and I've got my friend Robbie Dilmore right here in the Truth Network studio.
And I'm excited. I feel like God is really moving in this country. And Robbie, we've been talking for a long time about revival. And we were kind of wondering what it took. But I just got off the phone with my friend Rick Pearson.
You know, Rick from Prophecy USA. And I said, Rick, I said, I was just reminded of what you said a while ago. And what Rick said was he said that he thought what it would take to bring revival to this country or bring unity amongst Christians would be persecution. And last week we saw it with Charlie Kirk getting shot. What do you think, man?
Oh, there's no doubt. And Um you know it's m A lot of events that I've heard recently, and a lot of people talk about church attendance. over the weekend. I was in a meeting with Nikita Koloff. A lot of people know him from doing the man-up show here on the Truth Network.
And he attended event. He had an event. over the weekend. He said usually That attent, that event would have twenty and thirty people. The church was shocked because they had over 100 people show up for the event.
Many of which He said, not only had they never been to that church, it looked like they hadn't been to the church. But You know, stuff like this. It rattles people. And it makes them aware that God exists, and you know, it's not unlike 9-11 or other events that. You know, they shake, and that's a word, a b a good Bible word, God Shakes us up sometimes.
Well, that is a good Bible word. But, you know, one of the things that I was also reminded of, Robbie. Is what you said. You said after 9-11 happened, you said the churches were packed. for about three weeks.
And then it it fell sort of right back to where it was. I hope that, that doesn't happen this time. What do you think it would take for the fire to remain going? Or what do you think it would take for the Lord to really stoke the fire in people's hearts right now?
Well, I'm going to answer that one like Ezekiel did to the dry bones. You know, Lord. You know. Um Yeah, I I You know, I'm often amazed at the hand of God in certain situations, and I love it. And I know that.
To some extent. The answer is love. Right? If if Again, if those people who are called by his name will humble themselves and pray and seek his face, well, you do that in love, right? You're seeking him because you love him.
And, you know, then he'll turn and heal our land, obviously. You know, all those things are part of the repentance process, which. Um That's a gigantic issue I think that you wanted to talk about today. It is, and you know, one of the things that I was looking at was John 15, verse 1, and it says, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
That's interesting, you know, and it says, if you're not bearing any fruit, he's going to take you away. He says, but if you're bearing fruit, then you're going to really bear a lot more fruit. And I'm reminded of the 10 talents. And I know you're familiar with that. The late Jesse Helms, Senator Jesse Helms, do you remember him?
Of course. He said that was his favorite parable out of the parables. But there were two guys, you know, there were one guy who was doing pretty well, and the Lord commended him. And he says, Okay, here you go. Another guy was not.
Doing well at all, but he didn't really do anything bad in his mind. He said, I just hid the talent so that when you came back, Lord, I knew that it wouldn't get stolen or anything like that. And the Lord said, You should have used your talents in a way that would have. Really was going to bear some fruit. And the third guy, he went out, he did something with his talents.
Do you remember how many times? It was multiplied, Robbie? Ten. 10 times, you know, and I say, Well, what can I do to multiply 10 times? And I was kind of reminded of what Charlie Kirk did when he was out at these campuses.
He didn't start off as a rock star. You know, I saw him for the first time. I think he was 18 years old, and he was on Fox News or whatever. And he had a few of his friends, but he just started to systematically do the same work day in and day out. And there have been people who have, since he passed away, they said, well, Charlie Kirk was a racist or Charlie Kirk was hateful or this or that, the other.
He was anything but that. I mean, he would actually engage people in dialogue and he would encourage people, not just people who agreed with him, but he would encourage people who disagreed with him to ask him questions, debate him, give their case.
So to me, that was the most loving thing that he could do is to say, Here, I want to listen to what you have to say. And he would literally go into the devil's stomping ground, which was a lot of these liberal campuses, and he would go in and he would engage with people. And he didn't do that because he hated people. He did that because he loved people and he believed in nonviolence. And so, what people have said is that since he's passed away, Because of the way that people have responded to this, because of the way that Christians have responded to his assassination, and the way that Christians have responded to his death, there have been atheists who have said online, I'm an atheist, but I want to give my life to Christ.
Well, you know, where is the logic behind that? The logic is this: that when people look at you, If they see Jesus, they want Jesus. If people look at the world, and a lot of times not just the world, but they look at the maybe some of the hardcore Democrats, not all of them, but there have been a lot of teachers in the last week as well, Robbie, who have been fired for their jobs because they were celebrating the fact that a peaceful, nonviolent man stood up for what he believed in. And even on the other side, even the Democrats, even the liberals had to say, that's not right. And we're not going to put up with that.
And these people lost their jobs for that, for celebrating the fact that a peaceful Christian and nonviolent Christian was assassinated for what he believed in. And he just spoke. He used his words. He did not use violence. Yeah, it's an amazing thing that we live in these times, right?
And for me, When you look in Revelation chapter 6, you're going to see that. There are some who are under the altar. Yeah. That they're the ones who you know, clearly spilled their blood for the word of their testimony and for the word of God. And when you think about in my lifetime, I was alive.
Very much so when JFK was assassinated. I was very much alive when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. I was alive when Martin Luther King was assassinated. And all those people. Clearly in their own way appeared to be people of faith.
And Martin Luther King, you might say, I could understand where people would come from, that he was sharing the word of God, and I've seen his letters, and in so many ways he did.
However, Civil rights. Was his You know, his main thing, and a lot of things that, you know, and I don't want to get into that debate as much as to say, in my lifetime that I know of. I don't know of a single person I would classify as they were they were assassinated simply. For the word of their testimony and for the word of God. Because I never saw, I mean, you've watched the debates.
More than that, you know. For us here at the Truth Network, we have a relationship with Charlie Kirk because he was one of the main personalities on the Salem Network, which you may know that the Truth Network came out of Salem in the way that the owner and founder of Of Salem was Stu Epperson Sr. And of course, we worked for Stu Epperson Jr. And so Stu himself. actually interviewed Beautiful podcast.
It's going to be interesting to see when we release this again. He interviewed Charlie Kirk on September 10th, 2020. The day he was shot was on September 10th. Stu's interview was at about 1220. And of course, Charlie was murdered, assassinated right then.
At about 2 o'clock.
Well, he was shot, and this is what they're saying. He was shot at 12:23. That was no, it was their time. This was Utah.
So there are two or whatever. Oh, I hadn't even thought about that because, yeah, well, Stu's time, I looked at the time when he took the picture while he was doing the interview. Right. Was right at 12:20.
So, right at that interesting, you know, five years later, and it was at almost exactly the same minute. And again, Stu being Stu, when you hear the beginning of the interview, you can hear they're talking about basketball and those kind of things.
So, Stu and Charlie knew each other well, and um. You know, so it's a little closer to home, I guess, for some. It is. Um, but for me, when you look at that, and and Jesus said in the Olivet discourse and in uh Matthew 24. That when you see the green shoots start to come out of the tree, that you know, pay attention because things are happening and there's signs of things that would be to come.
Um And so we saw you know, from my standpoint, in 2020, uh Habakkuk chapter 1 come to life, where Habakkuk prophesied that God said, I'm going to do something. That when you See it, you're not going to believe it. In other words, if I were to tell you I was going to do this, you wouldn't believe it.
Well COVID, if you think about it, if somebody had told you in December Yeah. 2019, that two months from now The entire world would be shut down. They'd be scared to death, wearing masks, and people wouldn't come out of their house because it was ordered by the government. You wouldn't have believed that. I wouldn't have believed it, but it was absolutely true.
And so we could see that things were changing. Things were really being shaken up.
Well, this seems to be one of the first signs of Revelation chapter 5. Not that. I think this is the the the fifth seal be an opening by any means. whatsoever. But what I'm saying is a sign of that kind of thing because this man was Uh like Stephen.
He was martyred for The word of his faith and for the word of God. Yeah, and Stephen was not the likeliest of heroes. What they did was they were looking, the apostles, they said, we don't need to be in here cleaning up, doing the kitchen work, this, that, the other.
So they assigned some Christians to do that work that they didn't want to do. And Stephen was one of those Christians, but I've heard the expression, and I'm sure you have too: is that every dog has his day. Every dog has his day. You know that from, you know, I know that from the insurance business. You know that from the car business.
You know that from the bat from the time when you were playing basketball. Robbie, your son Robbie, when he hit that three-point shot against who was it? Christ Church. Christ Church with the Plumlee Brothers and won the game. Was that overtime or something?
Exactly. And, you know. You know, every dog has his day, and Stephen. Stephen had his chant time where he was about to shine and he didn't even know it. But all he did was he stood up for what he believed in.
He said, This is the truth. I have to stand for the truth no matter what. Jesus put it this way. This is Jesus's words, not mine's, not Robbie's. He said, Anybody who believes in me, The works that I do, greater works will he do.
And at one point, what Jesus said: anybody who believes in me, he said, if they believe in me, he said, then they're going to stand up for me. when it's time to stand up. And the exact words that he said was something like this. He said, anybody who is ashamed of me in front of other men, I will be ashamed of them in front of my father who is in heaven. Anybody who is not ashamed of me, I will not be ashamed of them in front of my father who was in heaven.
And see, Robbie, sometimes it's easy to sit here behind a screen. It's easy to go on the radio or whatever. But what Charlie did was he actually went into the, he was in the devil's playground. He was in the lion's den, so to speak. And so what happened to him, he actually said this.
He said, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the left came after me and tried to do something violent to me. He said, because that's what they do. He said, what we try to do is we try to win the argument. We try to win people to Christ through persuasion. But a lot of other people and other religions, like Islam, what they do is they'll try to win you by persuasion.
But if they can't win you through persuasion, there's going to be other ways that are not so noble as well. And so I was reminded in the book of James, it says in James chapter 2. Verse 14, it says, What does it profit, my brethren? Though a man say he hath faith and have not works, can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace.
Be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding, ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yet a man say, Thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God, and here it is.
Thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith Without works is dead. And that's James chapter 2, starting in verse 14. And here's the thing: you know, the Bible says, and what is it, Ephesians 2:8 through 9, it says that we're saved.
We're saved by, it's through God's grace, not by our own works, but it's through faith. And so it's a gift. It's not that anybody can boast, but it says in the very next verse that we were created in him for good works. And so it's not that we're saved by our good works, but if we're really saved, there's going to be a change in our lives. There's going to be something different about us.
And so a lot of people have said is that if nothing changes in your life after you get saved, were you really saved in the first place? Yeah, which gets back to the opportunity we have ahead of us, right? As We uh are are in this world. It's such a time as this. And we're anxious to be part of whatever it is that God is doing.
And so we watch the scenes. taking part of what's what's going on. To me, as we walk down the hall and the way down here, is repentance necessary in God's economy? Is it an absolute requirement? And I love that word, repentance.
It has sort of a connotation for some, I think, that that You know, it sounds like it's a painful process, but actually it's anything but that. And it's interesting, from my perspective, Jesus taught on it best when he taught on the prodigal son. That That prodigal son, you know, certainly All over his dad's ideas. essentially was writing him off his dead to take his inheritance and then go spend that on women and drink, etcetera, etcetera. Mignet.
Right. He goes, gets broke, ends up feeding the pigs. And as he's feeding the pigs, he's looking at this food, and all of a sudden it hits him that. Wow. My dad's servants eat a whole lot better than this, you know?
And it says he came to himself or he came to his senses. And he turned. Away from his lifestyle there and turn back towards home. And see, I recently did an interview with a rabbi out of Jerusalem and my podcast called Robbie and the Rabbi. And he said that the best picture of repentance in the Bible and this is from their standpoint in the Old Testament.
is in actually The book of Uh 1 Samuel chapter 7, and it's talking about Samuel himself. And the way that it says this. Is that Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life, and he went from year to year to the circuit of Bethlehem, Gilgal, and Mizpah, and he judged Israel in all those places. And his return. Mm-hmm.
His return was to Rama, for there was his house, And there he judged Israel, for he built an altar unto the Lord. When that word return right there is the word for repentance. And where is he returning? Home. Hmm.
He and Arguably, more songs are written about going home than there are about Love. Because all of us have a sense that we want to go home. And so to turn towards home is exactly what that boy did. And instead of it being a painful process, He was essentially dying of starvation. And the next thing he knew, he was eating steak.
Right? He wasn't anymore looking at pig pods, you know, the food that he was feeding the pigs. He wasn't looking at those pods anymore. He was thinking, man. You know, do I want some Worcestershire sauce on this steak?
In other words, he was going to eat the fatted calf. It was unbelievable. What happened from where he was to where he was going to turn?
Now the opportunity that we all have Right? Is to frame repentance in a way that people see. that they're eating pig pods. Hmm. And they could turn and eat steak.
In other words, you read all those books you want to read, okay? Here is the steak. The most amazing thing you will ever eat as long as you live is the Word of God. That's right. Am I right?
You've experienced it. And when you have, you never want to spit it out, right? It's like, oh my gosh. It's like returning home. It's like coming, right?
And it will come to life. And what an opportunity we have in light of the circumstances. Yeah. Look what Charlie stood for. Yeah.
He stood for stake. Yeah, he stood. He just stood for steak, man. He did. And, you know, we can't go around afraid of what the enemy is going to do.
Now, we're not stupid. He had security. He did a few other things. And they said he probably should have been covered by a shield or something where nobody could have shot him like the president has and stuff like that.
Well, the president didn't have it, you know. Or he didn't have that when he was in uh he needed to have drones and there's a lot of uh you know you know you can't Out. In other words, I don't believe for a second it wasn't Charlie's time. Mm-hmm. In other words, God doesn't go, oops, I didn't mean for that to happen.
So it didn't take God by surprise. No, it didn't take God. It didn't take God by surprise. But it's interesting, while we're on this issue of repentance, let me give you some Bible verses right here. It says in in Matthew chapter 6.
Verse 14. He says, and this is what Jesus said right after he finishes his The the Lord's Prayer. He says, For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. I want to be forgiven.
Do you want to be forgiven? He's saying, if you refuse, if you sit there and say, I am not going to forgive somebody else for what they've done against me, Jesus says you're not going to be forgiven. He says, if you do forgive, Then you will be forgiven. And here it is. Here's another one I like: judge not that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured unto you again. And why do ye behold the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the moat out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then you shall see clearly to remove the moat out of thy brother's eye.
So, in other words, you know, while we're sitting here pointing fingers at everybody else, I'm sure you've heard every time you point a finger at somebody else, Robbie, there's three fingers pointing back at yourself. And there's times where we need to point out injustices. You and I, just like Charlie, we have spoken out against the sin of abortion. It is horrendous how millions and millions and millions of unborn children have been murdered in the womb. I talked to our friend Rick Pearson about this and he said, I wonder if one of those would have been the one to have the cure for cancer.
I wonder if one of those would have been the next Billy Graham, would have been the next Royal Roberts, whoever it would have been. You know, so we speak out against those injustices, but at the same time, when we're looking at what everybody else is doing, we're making sure. That the way that we're living our lives is the correct way as well. And well, why do we do that? You know, I have a very heavy responsibility.
You have a very heavy responsibility by speaking on the radio, Robbie.
So does Stu, and so does anybody else who is out there speaking and really teaching. Because we can say we're not preaching, we can say we're not teaching, but the fact that we're on here and we're giving our opinion, we're looking at the word of God and trying to share that as best we can, we're going to be judged for that. Here it is, James chapter 3, verse 1. My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
So, what I hear, when I hear that, Robbie, one of the things that I hear about is that, hey, when I'm on this radio and when I'm teaching and when I'm trying to share the truth of God's word, I need to make sure that what I'm sharing is biblical. And here it is. I mean, here it is as well. You look at the New Testament, all throughout the New Testament. You go to 1 Corinthians, what is it?
1 Corinthians chapter 9. And You know what I'm talking about. The Apostle Paul is talking about when we're running our race as Christians. He said that we need to watch our own bodies. We need to make sure that we're living the right way.
And here it is right here. He says, know ye not that they which run and erase run all. But one receiveth the prize.
So run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for mastery. Is temperate in all things. In other words, Robbie, you're watching your weight. You're watching what you put in your mouth.
You're watching what you drink. You're watching how you treat other people. And every man that striveth for mastery is temperate in all things, like I said. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I, not as one that beateth the air, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
So, in other words, I'm trying to live my life the right way, and I'm trying not to fall into sin and live the way that the world is. Because if I'm preaching to others, I'm going to be held at a higher standard. And he says, I don't want to be cast away to hell myself. And you could go on and on and on. Hebrews chapter 10 is a good one, Robbie.
Hebrews 10, verse 24, and it says, And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.
So, you and I, Robbie, when we're on this show, not only are we talking to other people, I believe we're also preaching to ourselves. You know, would you agree? Oh, there's no doubt in my mind. There's no doubt in my mind that, um You know, we're a church. And we're a church here at the Truth Network.
Um and and I'm a pastor, so I I'm not saying it's It's just when two or more are gathered in his name, he's present with you, and the opportunity for unity in that is absolutely spectacular. but the opportunity that you talked about a minute ago to bear fruit. often require pruning. It does. It does.
And so, you know, a lot of people are going to come to you with situations where they're either being pruned or they're look, you know, God has dismantled their life in order to get their attention because he organized life in such a way that you can't do it without him. And because apart from him, you can do nothing, right? That's right. As these people are start To flounder and find the meaningless that essentially Solomon found in Ecclesiastes, then there you are. And you got a smile on your face.
And you look like you're eating steak. And you look like, you know, and and there is your opportunity again to point out what might be going on in their life. That's right. the opportunity they may be having to reach out. and come home.
Right. And I just love that idea. Just come on. Come home, come home. Ye who Are weary?
Come home.
Softly and tenderly. Jesus is calling. Calling, O sinners, Come home. And maybe you're listening right now. Maybe you've never surrendered your life to Jesus Christ.
You know, you've seen Charlie Kirk, you've seen atheists online who are surrendering their lives to Jesus, you've seen people going back to church, but what about you? What I want you to do right now, if you're listening to me right now from wherever you are, whether it's online, whether it's on the radio, or whatever. Just say, Jesus, I repent of my sins. I'm sorry, Lord, for I've sinned against you. I turn away from my sins and I completely surrender my life to you.
And if you do that right now, just if you've genuinely prayed that prayer and you want Jesus to save you. Go find a local Bible-based church. If you're in the Siler City area, you're at Kilde, K-I-L-D-E-E. Is that right? Kill D Church.
If you're in the Burlington area, we go to Just Like Jesus Ministries, but whatever you do, surrender your life to Jesus. Yeah, it's so easy. It's right if you Right, confess with your mouth. That's a big part of it. And believe in your heart that Jesus has.
The Father raised him from the dead. Romans chapter 10, verse 9, you will. It's not optional. You will be saved. How cool is that?
If not forgot. If not forgot. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty wick. Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell.
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