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 If Not For God with Mike Zwick, and I've got my good friend Fred Hagee back in the studio.
And Fred, I want you to show them your book that you've got. I have read this book at least once, maybe two or three times, and it's Give Them Jesus, the only soul winner's handbook that you will ever need. And Fred, it's funny. This morning, I actually woke up, and when I woke up this morning, I thought about something. I said, Lord, what will you have me to do today?
And he brought a book up to my mind, and it was Frank Betker, How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling. And he gave me your name, popped into my head. And I said, Okay, Lord, I don't understand what all this means. I said, But I'm going to start listening to the book and I'm going to call Fred Hage and see if he is available to come to the radio station this morning. And I think at first you weren't really sure, but I might have talked you into it.
Is that right, Fred? You always try to talk me into it, Mike.
Well, what inspired you to write this book, friend? Uh, what inspired me to write this book? Uh, the fact that 95% of the body of Christ have never led one person to Jesus. Mm-hmm. Not one.
So God's people are unprepared. We live in an era of declining church memberships and roles and churches struggling and closing and all that kind of stuff. And I wrote this book to the body of Christ to try to help them get prepared to share their faith. This book is a handbook. It will walk you through step by step how to develop your own personal witnessing skill set that you tailor to fit your personality type.
We're all different. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and it will walk you through that process, Mike, and get you prepared, get you comfortable, get you out of your comfort zone.
Well, it's good to get out of your comfort zone, Fred. I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt who one time said she said that every day you should do one thing that scares you. And I tell you what, it's like that's how we grow in our lives. We don't grow by sitting and just doing the same thing, not trying to improve ourselves. But one of the things that you told me about a while ago was enthusiasm.
And we talked about that. And you said there was actually a study by the Barner Group where they said people would be willing to listen. Go, you tell us. Yeah. I think we as God's people have the misconception that nobody wants to hear our message, that everybody's prejudiced against us, and that nobody wants to hear or listen.
And the barn group did a survey and they said, would you be willing to listen to a presentation of the gospel from somebody who is passionate about their faith. And when I read that, I thought I was expecting 15%, 18%, maybe 20%. 70% of the people who were polled said, I would be willing to listen to a presentation of the gospel from somebody who is passionate.
So when we're not talking to people out there, we're really missing out on something. And the Bible talks about this. We have to be enthusiastic about whatever we do. One of my favorite verses that I think about, not only with my job, but also with sharing the gospel, Fred, is Colossians 3:23. It says, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.
2 Corinthians 9, 7, it says, each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver or enthusiastic giver. Philippians 1.18, it says, what then? only that in every way, whether in presence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that, I will rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice.
You know, it's funny, Fred, I always invite people over to hear me preach and when I'm doing an event or something like that. And I noticed I had sent some text messages out and I wasn't getting a huge response. There were maybe one or two, but it was the night before I was going to be preaching this past Sunday over in Durham. And I started calling people, and I was excited about it, and I was enthusiastic about it. And I noticed that the enthusiasm that I had for the gospel presentation that I was going to make on Sunday morning transferred over to them.
And I had more people who actually came over to hear the message because they could feel the excitement in my voice.
Now, when you're going out and you're sharing the gospel, you know, I guess there's several ways that you could do it. But if you go out there and go, hey, my name's Fred. I feel like I'm probably bothering you. You probably don't want to hear any of this, but do you want a Bible? What kind of a response do you think you would get to that, Fred?
Negative. Negative. They hear enough of that at home. You know, like you say, they're looking for somebody who is passionate about their faith. They're living in defeat, a lot of them.
They're depressed. Things aren't going well. Everybody's got a battle that they're fighting. And that lost and dying world, Mike, is looking for a peace and a hope and a joy and a comfort that passes all understanding. And they're not going to find it anywhere except in the Word of God.
And it's up to us as God's people. If we don't do it, who's going to do it for us? No, that's right. That's right, right.
So, you know, there used to be an old expression, if it's going to be, it's up to me. And now I understand that we pray without ceasing, and it's all the Lord's doing. The Lord has given us all of this. But at the same time, Fred, God, if God wanted to, God could share the gospel himself. He could use the angels to do it.
He could use any other method that he chose to, but he has chosen to use imperfect, imperfect instruments, just like Michael Zwick and Fred Hagee, to share that message. And some people, I think it scares them, but for me, I feel blessed that I have the privilege. Amen. Amen. Mike, it's up to us as God's people.
If we don't do it, nobody's going to do it for us. And the problem is so many people Aren't prepared. They refuse to get prepared. They go to church on Sunday morning. They walk out.
You know, they feel like they've paid their obligation. Everything's done till next Sunday, whatever. And they're never prepared. I was never prepared for 42 years. Yeah, I didn't feel like it was my responsibility.
I was trained the way to do evangelism is to let somebody else do it. Yeah. That's how I was trained to do evangelism. Yeah. I mean, because the truth is, is you could be the most enthusiastic person in the world, but if you don't know what to say when you go out there, and if you don't know what you're doing, you could be enthusiastic, and people may listen to you for a minute, but if you don't know what you're talking about, eventually they're going to say, I'm sorry, you're going to have to go back and prepare a little bit more.
How do you prepare for it?
Well Prayer's always the primary role. I mean, you know, we've got to get prayed up as God's people. We've got to get ready. We've got to get prayed up. And we've got.
Uh Mike, when we get prepared. God's going to provide us the opportunities. The engagement process is always the hardest, Mike, because it's cold and we've got to make the approach. You got to speak into the Mike. We've got to make the approach.
If we they're not going to engage us, we've got to engage them.
So My goal is to have my testament, Mike, the Word of God, into my witness. Ease hands. In a minute and a half. Yeah. That's my goal.
Yeah. And Uh At that point in time, My primary role is done. At that point in time, I surrender them to the power of the Holy Spirit and I get them reading out of my Testaments and I keep it pre-marked on where I want them to read. And as they read, the power of God starts to move. Yeah.
Yeah. Paul said, Romans 1.12, I believe it is. That I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. To all who believe.
Now, Mike, the power's in the word of God. The day I realized that the power is in the word of God and not in me is the day I started seeing people drawn to Christ.
Well, you know, Fred, and I don't know if you're like this or not, but when I was doing nothing at all, nobody was criticizing me. People, I'm serious. People left me alone for the most part. When I started to stay, you're laughing, but you know, I'm telling the truth. Am I not?
Absolutely. When I started to step out in the Lord, when I said I want to get on the radio, I want to preach the gospel, when I want to go out in the streets, all of a sudden, all the boo-birds and all the naysayers came out and said that I was doing it the wrong way. And what I realized, Fred, is that when I was doing nothing at all, I didn't threaten anybody. But I wondered, it's like when I started to do the things of the Lord, I wonder if it started to bother them and they thought to themselves, I. Need to be doing that too, and maybe they felt threatened by that.
I don't know, but here's what I do know: one of my favorite quotes is by a guy named Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt. This is what he said: He said, It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. He says that the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat, and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort. Without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who, at the best, Fred, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. And you shared the gospel for how many years now?
Gone out in the streets? About 24. About 24 years. Have you had some tough times doing that? Mm-mm.
Yes. Of course, there's always a few tough moments, but what amazes me day after day and week after week is how receptive people are to my message. I have far more Spirits of reception, then I do aversion. And that lost and dying world is looking for peace and hope and a joy and a comfort that passes all understanding that they don't have, don't know how to get, and they don't know where to look. Yeah, and so they're looking for something, anyways.
You know, and here's the problem: if we don't share that message of Jesus Christ, if we don't share that good news, there's going to be somebody else with the wrong message who's going to say, Hey, I've got the answers. I've got the Book of Mormon. Hey, hey, I'm a Jehovah's Witness. Hey, I've been studying the Quran and I've got something for you. Fred, I don't know if you know this or not.
We've got the truth. And I love what Stu Epperson says. He said, if you had the cure for cancer and you knew that you could save lives all over the world, he said, but you didn't tell anybody about it and you wanted to keep it to yourself, he said, how selfish would you have to be? But Fred, you and I have something that's much more important than the cure for cancer. We do.
And Mike, the sure way to fail is to do nothing. That's the sure way to fail. Mike, I have some critics too out there. And I hear people say, well, I don't think you should use a structured approach to sharing your faith. I very strongly disagree with that.
The people they say that you rob the Holy Spirit. element when you start to structure this process. But people who tell me that I'm wrong and use it a structured approach, you know what their approach is? Nothing. To do nothing.
Yeah. And you don't witness many decisions for Jesus that way. When you start to witness some decisions that way, let me know. Because I don't know how it's going to happen. The sure way for evil to prevail is for good people and men of God to do nothing.
I believe that. That's a sure way. Yeah, I believe that was Edmund Burke, if I'm not mistaken. But another one, another quote I love is by Michael Jordan. He says, I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games 26 times. He says, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. He says, I've failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed. You know what? Jesus told a story.
There were four parables of four different sets of people, four seeds. I'm sorry. And there was the Rocky seed. There was the seed on Sandy soil. And then there was another one.
There was finally that good soil. Fred, not everybody that you talk about. To or I talk to is going to say yes to Jesus. And it hurts me. I mean, it really bothers me because I know that someday, and in many ways, many times it's sooner than others.
That the Bible says in James 4:14, it says, Don't you know that your life is like a vapor, Fred? It says, Yes, or a mist. You're here for a moment and then you're gone. You know, we had a guy from our church, a guy named Sean. His younger brother was 23 years old, 23 years old.
He got in a car wreck, he hit a telephone pole. The telephone pole came straight down on his car, fell down, crushed him, and then the car caught on fire and he died. I tell you what, Fred, we're promised a lot of things in this life, but one thing that we're not promised is tomorrow. And Fred, does the Bible say that next week is the day of salvation? Today is the day of salvation, Mike.
2 Corinthians 6.2, I believe it is. Today is the day of salvation.
Now is the appointed time. Mike, my dad got killed on April the 12th, 1971. It was the Sunday after Easter. It was his 53rd birthday. Mom had me bring him home for lunch just in time to surprise him for a little.
Birthday lunch. While we were eating, he said, We didn't get our job finished this morning. Can we finish that right after lunch? And I said, Yes. At 1:45 that afternoon, Mike, my dad was dead on the scene of an accident that he and I were involved in.
Now, my dad was a born-again believer. But, Mike, at that point in time, it's heaven or hell, one or the other. That's right. All the second chances are over. Right, right, right.
What was your decision concerning my son Jesus Christ? That's going to be your next question. That's it. And I tell you what, Fred, there are some crazy, crazy doctrines out there. There's, you know, I remember Charles Stanley used to say, I heard him say one day, he said, oh, people say, well, I'll get a chance on the other side.
He said, there is nothing in the Bible that states that. He said, there's nothing that even hints at that. He said, if you're going to, but the Bible does say, like you said, that today is the day of salvation. The Bible does say that in Romans 3:23, it says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And for us to get to heaven on our own, we would have to be absolutely perfect with no mistakes.
And Fred, there was only one man on this earth who was perfect. That's correct. Mike, I'm going to ask you a question. Oh. Going back to one of the first questions you asked there a minute ago.
About being prepared. Have you ever met an athlete, maybe somebody training for the Olympics? Who said, you know, I'm going to cut my training short. You know, rather than training eight hours a day, I'm going to cut my training back to maybe seven. And I'm going to train and I'm going to have a goal of winning a bronze medal.
Have you ever met that person?
Well, I hope I never do, but I do know, but I do know people that are like that.
Now, they're not going to say that, but by not preparing, go ahead, go ahead. What were you going to say? Mike. Uh sometimes I feel like that's how we as God's people are. You know, we go to church and we do this, we do that, we pray, we read the word of God, but we never get prepared to carry that message.
I heard Ann Graham Lot say recently: one of my favorite radio personalities on your show here. Said that she had a lost individual that lived about two or three down the blocks down the road from here. She said, I knew he was spiritually lost. She said, I just couldn't get the courage. I just couldn't get the motivation to go down there and share the gospel with him.
And she said, it wasn't until I attended a missions conference in Zurich, Switzerland, I believe it was, that I got the vision and the motivation to go down there and share the gospel with him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We've got to get prepared.
Well, and I think part of it, a lot of what stops many of us from doing this is fear. Fear and and and one of the things that I thought of is I've known people Fred and I said this the other day when I was preaching I said I've known people who had all of the qualifications all of the skills to succeed in ministry They had everything on the outside that that seemed that they had what it took and they ended up failing Because they didn't have the heart or the desire or the want to do it and I've also seen other people and I'm sure you've seen this too who when you first look at them or you first meet them you go oh man they don't have what it takes but I've seen some people surprise me the other way as well yeah I have too Mike uh It's all about being prepared and understanding the powers in the Word of God, getting the Word of God into their hands, getting them reading, getting the Word of God coming out of their lips, into their ears, and hopefully settling down into their heart. Yeah, one of the stories that I always think about when I, because we all face fear. And when I go out there with you, when I'm starting to, the hardest part is when I first walk up to my first person because there's all this stuff going on in my head. They're not going to want to listen to me.
It's going to be, well, whatever. But action cures fear. I had a guy named Kevin Johnson, and he did a little thing with me. He said, I want you to, he said, he, I want to ask you a question. He said, does your action determine your attitude or does your attitude determine your action?
And I said, well, your attitude is going to determine your action. And he said, no. He said, your action determines your attitude. In other words, I can have the greatest attitude about going to the gym, but if I never actually go there and start working out, I'm never going to lose any weight. I can have the greatest attitude about losing weight, but if I choose to eat donuts every day, I'm not going to lose weight, Fred.
And so the most important thing that we can do is, as Nike used to say, was. To just do it. There was another story I heard about. It was a young man who was a gymnast, and this young man was so excited. He was going to be really good.
He did all the practice. He did everything that he could do. And he said, on the day of the meet, he went up to his coach and he said, coach, he said, I'm sorry. I'm not going to be able to do this. He said, I don't have what it takes.
I'm going to have to bow out. Do you know what that coach said to him, Fred? He said, throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow. When you're doing ministry, when you're afraid to make that sales call, whatever you're doing every day for the Lord, because when you work, you're working for the Lord, Fred. That's what the Bible says.
But whatever you do, there's going to come some fear in. The biggest step that I can take is that action step. Open your mouth. Open your mouth. Mike, when I went to enrolled in Pigmuck Bible College back in the day, Personal witnessing and evangelism, I was so scared.
I knew I was going to have to get out of my comfort zone. I didn't want to, I wasn't prepared. I'd been trained to let somebody do it. And early on. We had to share our faith three times before the next class session.
I was scared to death. I was petrified. I was so scared I went to the old Marketplace Mall. And there was a smoker section back in the back The parking was pretty thin back there and there was kudzu growing up back there.
So I went back there with the kudzu and the old smokers knowing full well that I most likely would not find anybody back there that I knew. And I started sharing the gospel. And one day, Mike. I shared the gospel with a young Hindu lady. Yeah.
She was afraid to touch my testament. I prayed for just a few seconds. God said, Tell her that inside here she'll find the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's free and it has the power to change her life. And I turned around and that's what I told her.
And all of a sudden she reached over to my little testament and grabbed the corner of it. And as she walked away, she was in a hurry, she walked away, I said, I want you to start reading on page 458, which is the book of 1 John. About five hours later that afternoon, I stumbled into her. She came up to me, holding the little testament, and I asked her if she was ready to receive Jesus as her Lord and Savior. And she said yes.
And she brought two other young women with her. One of them was special needs, and they wanted to pray to receive Christ too. And that day, I realized that the power is in the Word of God, not me.
So I don't have to be worried. I don't have to be scared. I just have to be obedient and share the message of the cross time after time after time after time. Yeah, there was a that that's good, Fred. There was a guy named uh Bill Weiss, and I don't know if you've heard of him or not.
He wrote the book 23 Minutes in Hell. He had an experience, I think it was back in 1998 or whatever, where the Lord gave him a vision of hell and what it would be like for people who did not know Jesus Christ and repent of their sins and turn to him. And it affected him so much that I mean, it literally scared him to death. And it took a couple of years, I think, before he was even able to share this story. But what he said was that that impacted him so much because he realized that, yes, there is a reality of heaven, and heaven is so much better than anything that we could ever realize, dream of, or think of.
But at the same time, that there is a place called hell as well. And Fred, there's nothing that says you burn up and die, and that's it. There's nothing that says it's temporary. There's nothing in the Bible that says eventually everybody's gonna make it to heaven after they go to purgatory. That's not in there.
But what it says is that the same word for eternal in Matthew 25, where it talks about heaven, is the same word that's used for hell. And Fred, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want my worst enemy to go there. No. Mike, I was speaking at a little church down in Lexington several years ago. And there was an older gentleman who had been to the hospital and he'd had a very serious heart surgery to fix a real serious heart condition that had plagued him for a long time.
While he was in surgery, God took him to hell and gave him a vision, took him to hell and showed it to him. And when I got through speaking, his wife came up and she said, I want you to meet him. And she introduced me and she said, When he got out, He could never get the sound of people wailing and moaning and screaming and all that kind of stuff. But she said the worst part was he could never get rid of that smell of burning flesh. Oh, gosh.
And she said he just never seemed to escape that. And he was a born-again believer. And I'm not sure why God chose to share this vision with him. But it's real. You're right, brother.
No question about it. It is real. But I tell you one other thing as well. By putting our trust and our hope in Jesus Christ, heaven is real too. There was a book or a movie, and I think it was called Heaven is for Real.
And I tell you what, you know, everything that we do, and we're about to run out of time, but everything that we do, I know that when you go out, Fred, and you share the gospel, when I share the gospel, when I pray for people, I know that one day, even though sometimes it is tough and it can be tough, it's also rewarding. It's rewarding here, but the Lord tells us that we're going to be rewarded when we get to heaven. For the work that we did for him. And once again, before we go, I want you to hold up that book. It's called Give Em Jesus: The Only Soul Winner's Handbook You Will Ever Need by Fred Hagey.
H-E-G-E. And if you pick up that book, it'll at least give you a start. It'll show you how to share the gospel. And, Fred, it's really not that hard once you learn it. But I want to thank you for coming on today, Fred.
God bless you, Mike. Thank you, brother. If not for God. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty wick.
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