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 hope y'all are doing well today.
I've got a question for you today. Do you have a sense of urgency? Do you have a sense of urgency for getting the gospel of Jesus Christ out there? I remember there's a lot that I forget. You know, I've heard people say this.
They say I've forgotten more than I know. And I'm sure that I'm in that category as well. But there's one thing that I'll never forget. When I first became a Christian, the first Bible verse or the first passage that I ever memorized was Revelation 3, and it was verse 15 through 16. He says, I know your works.
He said that you are neither hot nor cold. He says, I would rather you be one or the other. He says, but because you are lukewarm, he said, I will spew you out of my mouth. In other words, Jesus is saying, I would rather you be ice cold than to be lukewarm. If we're going to be Christians who are going to win this world for Jesus Christ, we've got to be on fire.
We've got to get on fire for Jesus Christ. And I love what John Wesley said. He said, I set myself on fire. And he said that people come and they watch me burn. Let me ask you this.
Are you on fire for Jesus Christ? I'm looking at this right now. If you've got your Bibles, and I hope you do, I've got Ezekiel chapter 3, starting in verse 17. It says, Son of man, he says, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel.
So hear the word that I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked person, you will surely die, and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life. That wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. He says, But if you do, but if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wicked ways or their evil ways, they will die for their sin. But you will have saved yourself.
In other words, I don't know if you guys hear this or not. Us as Christians in 2026, if we know the Lord, if we know the goodness of God, and we know that Jesus saves, we know that Jesus is the only way to get to heaven. But if we don't want to share that with somebody else because we think it's socially awkward, or we think that people aren't going to hear what we have to say. Then the Lord is saying right there in Ezekiel 3, he says he's going to hold us accountable.
Well, that's the Old Testament. What about Revelation 3:15 through 16, where he says, I know your works that you're neither hot nor cold. If you're on fire for Jesus Christ, you cannot keep this thing to yourself. You can't just say, hey, I'm just going to keep it to myself and I don't care what anybody else says because I'm saved and I'm going to heaven. You know, the Bible says.
That great is he who shares the good news of Jesus Christ. How blessed are the feet of those who share the gospel. I don't know about you, but I want to be blessed. You see, a lot of times when we want to go out and share the gospel and we want to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ, you know the thing that's going to hurt us more than anything else? Is others, is the fear of man.
You know, I heard somebody say one time, they said that you can either fear God. Or you can fear man. They said, but you can't do both. Because if you're fearing God, you've lost the fear of man, but if you fear man, you no longer fear God, in other words. You know that Jesus is the only way to get to heaven.
I know that Jesus is the only way to get to heaven. But if I don't want to do something about it, if I don't want to reach the people in my neighborhood, in my city, in my state, in my country, whatever it is. If I don't want to reach them because I feel like it's socially awkward or I don't like the way that people are going to think about me or whatever, you know, there's so many people that I know today who know, who realize that they can literally take their camera out, take their phone out. And share a quick message of Jesus Christ where immediately people all over the world could hear this message. Do you realize that there was a time where if I wanted to tell you that God was good, that I actually had to walk up to you and tell you?
And by the way, I still believe that that is the best way to reach the world for Jesus Christ. But see, nowadays, I've got a phone, I've got a camera. All I have to do is I can get in front of my phone and I can share the goodness of God. I can make a post on TikTok or Twitter or what do they call it? X Now or Facebook or Instagram and YouTube immediately.
People all over the world are going to hear that same message. That thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands or millions of people could hear the good news about Jesus Christ. Do you know the number one reason why people don't do it that I've heard?
Now, this is anecdotal. This is just from my own experience. But the number one reason why people don't want to share the good news of Jesus Christ with other people is because they say, I don't like the way that I look. I don't like the way that I look. in front of a camera.
Can you imagine getting up and standing before God one day and God saying, I gave you these resources, I gave you social media, I gave you the followers, I gave you all the tools that you needed to be able to reach the world for Jesus Christ. And you tell him, Well, God, I'm sorry, I didn't like the way I looked in front of people, so I didn't want to share with people the goodness of God. You know, I think we have a lot of things in our society today. We talk about the grace of God, we talk about the love of God, we talk about the goodness of God, and by the way, we should. God is good.
Amen. I mean, God is really good. You woke up this morning. That's God. You got something to eat today.
That was God taking care of your needs. And we should praise Him and we should thank Him for all that He's done for us. But I do believe that there's one thing that we've lost in our society, and that's the fear of God. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Another translation says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding, and I've got this right here: it's Matthew chapter 25.
And in verse 31, this is what Jesus said. He said, Now, when the Son of Man comes in all of his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit. On his glorious throne, all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my father.
Take your inheritance, the kingdom of God. Take your inheritance, the kingdom of God. Uh, because I prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. He said, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. And we go, oh my gosh.
That is unbelievable. That is amazing. That is absolutely amazing that we're going to be rewarded for the things that we did. When we helped that homeless person out who didn't have any money, when we gave them something to eat, Jesus is saying in Matthew 25, he's saying, We didn't do it to that homeless person. He said, we did that unto Jesus.
When we help that person at church who needed help moving. We didn't do that for the person at church. We did that unto Jesus. And I wish we could stop right there, but Jesus said there's going to be a second group of people. They're not the sheep, they're the goats.
And what happened to the goats is this: they did not give to that poor person. They did not give to that person who wanted to reach people for missions all across the world. They did not do the little things that they thought nobody noticed. And Jesus is going to say to them, Depart from me. I never knew you, you who work in equity.
It's pretty serious right there. Jesus talks about again and again, the Old Testament and the New, what you have done for the least of these, my brethren. He said, You didn't do it to them, he said, you did it unto me. You did it unto Jesus. And so I want to have a sense of urgency about helping people.
I wake up in the morning. And what gives me a sense of urgency when I get up in the morning is to help other people. And I'm sure you guys have heard this story before. I don't know if you have or not, but it was a story about the. about the Salvation Army and William Booth.
And they wanted to send a telegram. This was a long time ago. They wanted to send a telegram out to all their people. And they said, we got it down to a paragraph. And they said, I'm sorry, you can't afford that.
They said, we'll get it down to a few sentences. You can't afford that. They got it down to a sentence. You couldn't afford that. Just a few words.
They said, all you've got money for is one word. Do you know what that word was? It was others. See, as long as we're fixed and focused and we keep our minds on ourselves, we're going to be depressed. We're going to have tough times.
And yes, there is a time to look internally. There is a time to say, Lord, what do you want me to do? Lord, I need to work on myself, but. The happiest people out there. are the people who will go out and help other people.
And you see, the problem is, and one of the reasons why we don't want to share the gospel, we don't want to help people, is because we're afraid about the way that we're going to look. Jesus put it like this: There's two great commandments Jesus said. Number one, number one, he said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind and all your soul. Number one, he said, but number two, love your neighbor as you love yourself. And you see, we could do all of the good deeds in the world, we could do everything for the poor, we could give our bodies to be burned by the fire.
But if we don't have love, if we don't love God, if we're not saved, if we're not bought with the blood of Jesus Christ, then when we die, we're going to split hell wide open. But If we love the Lord with all our heart and all our soul, all our soul and all our mind. then number two should take care of itself. Then we're going to want to help the least of these. Then we're going to want to share the gospel.
Then we're going to want to pray for the sick, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely, you have received, freely give. Jesus, the whole New Testament, Jesus and his apostles and the disciples, they're healing the sick, sharing the gospel, casting out demons. It's again and again and again and again. It's like I've heard people say, well, I left the Christian life because I got bored.
And I'm going to tell you something. The Christian life may be a whole lot of things. One thing that the Christian life is not is the Christian life is not boring if you're doing it right. Yes, the Bible says that you're going to face persecution. You know, I have a story about a dog that I heard, and this guy took his dog to the lake one day.
And he took the dog to the lake and he said, All right, I want you to go fetch this stick that I throw out in the middle of the water because his dog could swim. And he said, All right, the dog, instead of swimming, To that stick, the dog ran right across the water, and the dog ran all the way back. When the dog was done running across the water and running back. He came to us. He said, This is incredible.
He said, But nobody saw this. He said, I'm going to tell my neighbor. I want my neighbor to see what's going on with this dog. And so he brought his neighbor over the next day to the same lake. And when he brought his neighbor over, this is what happened.
He brought the neighbor over. He showed him what the dog did. And he said, did you see what my dog just did? And the neighbor, all the neighbor had to say was this. He said, yeah, your dog can't swim.
Yeah. You know, I tell you one thing. It seems like you could do everything that you can for the Lord. It seems like you can help people, you can pray for people, you can do all the right stuff. And there are still going to be people out there who don't like what you're doing.
There's still going to be people out there. who have a problem with everything that you're saying, doing, and want to do. But you see, at the end of the day. It's not about those people. At the end of the day, it's between you and God.
And see, as long as I'm looking for the approval of the world, then I'm always going to be disappointed. Just like that guy who took his dog and the dog was walking on water, but all his neighbor had to say was, your dog can't swim. Come on, people. I mean, at the end of the day, it's just you and Jesus. And I understand what I just said, and I believe that, but I also believe this.
The Bible says in Hebrews 10, chapter 25 through 26, he says, do not forsake the gathering of yourselves as some have done. He said especially As you see the day approaching. And then in the end of Hebrews, it talks about this. It says that we have to stay, we have to endure until the end. 1 Corinthians chapter 9 talks about it, talks about the Apostle Paul when he gave up everything.
He says, I make sure that I keep my own body under subjection. He says, so that after I have preached to everybody else, I myself may not be cast away. You know what the Bible says in Matthew chapter 6 and Matthew chapter 7? Jesus said this. He says, If you forgive other people.
He said, when they sin against you, he said, your heavenly father. Will forgive you as well. He said, But if you don't forgive other people when they sin against you, he says, Your heavenly father will not forgive you of your sins. I don't know about you guys, but I want to be forgiven. You know, and there have been people who have died and come back or whatever, and when they've come back.
They've said that they saw hell and they saw people who were in hell, Christians who were in hell because of their unforgiveness and they refused to forgive somebody who had done them wrong. I don't know about you. I'm not going to stay angry at anybody. I'm not going to be mad at anybody. Because I know that I've got a greater mission.
I've got a greater purpose for the kingdom of God. And do you? Do you? Are we generous Christians? You know, there's a lady that we have a meeting with every Wednesday night in Prospect Hill named Christy, and she said, she said, the gospel has to be funded.
Yeah, we want to preach. Yeah, we want to go. Yeah, we want to do all this stuff. But there's, you know, your church needs money. These people, this radio show that I'm doing, it costs money.
You know, to be able to go on that mission trip, it costs money. The building, everything that that everything has a cost. And so people may want to do everything else, but they don't want to share. They think that everything that they make is their own. Everything that you make is God's.
He just gives you some of it to loan, he loans it to you. But it's all his. And as long as we see our possessions as our own and something that we've got, oh, I don't want to give away my stuff. It's not yours, it's all God's. You know, I heard a story about a guy who went to an airport one day, and he said that when he went to the airport, he sat down, he got a bag of donuts, and there were no open tables.
So there was a guy with an open table, and this guy put his doughnuts down, put his bags down, and all of a sudden he realized his bag of donuts was right in front of him. He said the first time he took the bag of donuts and he took a donut and he picked it up and he ate the donut and then he put it down. He said, the guy right across from him. Got his bag of donuts. And he took one of his donuts out of his own bag.
He was like, I can't believe this guy just did this. He took one of my donuts.
So he took another one of his donuts. And the guy right across from him took another donut. He said, I can't believe what this guy is doing. He's taking my donuts. He said the third time this happened, there was only one donut left.
The guy took the last donut in the bag. He took the donut, he broke it in half, gave it to this guy, split it, and he walked away and he smiled. He said, I can't believe what this guy just did. He just took half of my donuts that were in my bag. And all of a sudden, what he realized was he looked down beside of him.
And beside him was his bag of donuts that had been unopened. You see, instead of this other guy getting mad. Because this guy who just sat down took one of his donuts, he said, no. He said, here, I'm going to take one too, but you can have another one. And he said the very last donut that he had, he split it in half with this guy.
You see, a lot of times what the problem is that we have in our own lives. is that we're too focused on ourselves. We're too focused on God. I need to meet my needs. I, I, I, I, I.
We have an eye problem. We don't need to see the I doctor, although we do need to see the I doctor. Stop thinking about yourself all of the time. Start focusing on helping other people.
Well, then what else do you do?
Well, what do you do? You pray. You pray. I don't know if you know this or not, but it says in the book of James that the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. There was a guy named George Mueller who took up an orphanage and wanted to help all these kids, but he never raised a dime.
He never asked for a dime. And so they would literally have no food on their table. And they would pray and they would pray to God, him and the kids, the orphans, and they would thank God for the food that wasn't on their table. All of a sudden, they would hear a knock on the door, and somebody would come through with some food. And I'm here to tell you today.
That God is good, God is able. But we have to trust in him. You see, we like to talk about having faith, but we don't actually want to have faith. We don't want to walk in faith. We like the stories about having faith, but we don't want to walk in it ourselves.
You know, the Lord told me something, taught me something great about faith. In, I think it was in 2003, and people were talking to me about the Lord, and I wasn't a Christian yet. But When I was selling books door to door, they would teach us about having faith. And they said, There's something about having faith, there's something about having that belief system in yourself that you know you can do something. That you believe you can do something.
And I said, Lord, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go out this week and I'm going to walk in faith. And for that week, I'll never forget this. I set a goal of 300 units. I was going to sell 300 units of books.
And I went out and I sold the books, and I was excited, and it was this, that, and the other. And I remember towards the end of the week, it was the last day, and I only had 200 units. And so I had never sold 100 units in a day before. But I remember the day before I left that it was the end of that day. And I said, I'm just going to believe that I'm going to get this 300 units.
And I went out and I had a belief system. That I believed I was going to get it. I believed that I was going to make the sales, and I believe, and I did it. And the Lord did something in that with me. Where he gave me a faith.
That became unshakable.
Now, I wish I could say it. That day I gave my life to Jesus and things were never the same, and it was just wonderful, this and that, and the other. You know, I can't say that, but it was the beginning of something. If you're wondering why is your faith a little bit low, read Hebrews chapter 11. Here it is.
It says that now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him.
For before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith. It is impossible to please God. And I'm going to say this again: without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Well, you say you're having a tough time in your marriage and you don't have the faith to believe that things could go well. I'm here to tell you today that without faith, it is impossible to please God. You've got to have faith. You've got to believe that that marriage is going to come together. You've got to believe that your finances are going to come together.
Hey, your kids are not walking with Jesus. It's easy to believe that your kids are going to do well when they're doing well. But what about when they're not walking with the Lord? Are you still going to have faith? And it says in his word: without faith, it is impossible to please God.
We have to believe things that have not yet happened, believe things that are coming together. Believe things are going to happen that you have not yet seen. That's what faith is. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Let me tell you this.
Let me ask you something. How are you? Going to have faith. How are you going to know what the Lord is speaking to you if you don't have his word? The word of God says in the book of Psalms, Psalms 119:105, it says, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.
And a light onto my path. How can you have that word of God within you? How can you know the word of God within you if you're not? Reading it. You know what?
Well, I don't have time to read the Bible. I just have too much going on. We all have 15 minutes, but here's this, too. Let's say you really don't have time. We can listen to the Bible now online.
You get the Bible app, you can go to YouTube and punch in Matthew chapter 6 or whatever. You're driving around during the day, you can listen. to the word of god. Because faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. You know what's funny?
They did surveys and they've done studies about why people. actually came to Christ. You know, one of the top reasons why people came to Christ was just by reading the Word of God. My mom had a friend of hers who became a Christian later on in life. And she said that she grew up Catholic or whatever.
But she said that all of these people from her work We're just reading, we're sharing the word of God, they were believing the word of God, they were believing God for good things, and she says. you know what i've got to see what this thing is all about And so what she literally did was she was reading the New Testament. And when she read a certain Bible verse, I forget what it was. Let's say Romans 10:9: If you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord. That you will be saved.
It doesn't say you might be saved. It says that you will be saved. Maybe that's what you need today. Maybe you just need to have. The kind of faith.
That will move mountains. You know, I heard about. A young guy who was a quarterback. And he was a quarterback all through high school or whatever. But he was mediocre.
He never really did anything that great until his last game of the last season. He threw for like 400 yards, five touchdowns, had an amazing game. And after the game, they said, Thank God. They said, You've had the greatest game of your lifetime. They said, But what happened?
How come you never did this before? You know what he told him? He said this. He said, My dad. He said, My dad was always blind.
And my dad came to all of my games, but he could never watch me play. He said, earlier this week, My dad died, and he said this game my dad got to see me play for the first time. What is your purpose in life?
Well, I know we talked about that before on the national show that I do with Stu Epperson, Truth Talk Live, and I'm doing it Wednesday and Friday this week. Most weeks, I do it on Fridays. But I said, what is your purpose? You see. We're always looking at how are we going to do this?
How are we going to do this? But I'm here to tell you today: if you've got a big enough why in your life. The how part is easy. How you're going to do it is easy. You just have to figure out why you want to do it, and then you start moving.
Then you start moving in the spirit. You've got to be filled with the spirit. As my friend Greg says, I'm trying to think, Greg Hennett. Does the Hennett min it? He says, you know, there is power when you start to speak in tongues.
There is power when you're filled with the Holy Spirit. There is power in the Word of God. There is power. Remember that song we used to sing? There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb.
There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb. You know, when I think about this and when I think about the goodness of God, I'm reminded that whatever you got, whatever you've got going on right now, whatever you're doing right now. You have to start somewhere. You know, I heard of a student who was going, he was a gymnast. He was practicing, practicing, and he was getting ready for the big day.
And he said, all of a sudden, all of his practice had culminated. He was ready for the big day. And right before he was going to go out there and do his gymnastic routine, He told his coach, he said, Coach, I'm sorry I can't do this. I'm too nervous and I'm too scared, and I just can't do it. You know what the coach told him?
He said, throw your heart. Over the bar. and your body will follow. Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow.
Well, I'm afraid to do a video and share Jesus with people that I don't know. Throw your heart. Over the bar, and your body will follow.
Well, I'm afraid to go talk to my neighbor next door or to go to the grocery store and hand out Bibles or pray for people and share Jesus with people. Throw your heart. over the bar and your body will follow. You see, I'm reminded of a story, another story about Napoleon Bonaparte. And Napoleon had gone this whole time, and he realized one day he was losing a battle.
And so he sent word to the bugler. He said, you need to blow the bugle for retreat. A few minutes later, he never heard anything. The bugler came back a few minutes later and he said, you need to blow the bugle for retreat. The bugler didn't do anything at all.
He said, so the third time he actually went and he went to go send word to the bugler: you need to blow the bugle for retreat. I've thrown you three times, and I'm here right now. And the bugler told him, he said, you've never taught us how to retreat the whole year. Napoleon said, I didn't. He said, no, sir.
He said, Well, then blow the bugle to charge. And they charged and they won that battle. I'm here to tell you today: Jesus taught us a lot of things. Jesus never taught us to retreat. Thank you guys for listening, if not for God.
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