Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.
This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not For God, Stories of Hopelessness that Turn to Hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. If not for God today with Mike Zwick. It's been a while, Mike, since we've had a chance.
I'm really glad to be back together. The summer's over and, you know, here we are, believe it or not, in October. Right. We're six weeks away from the election, maybe five, you know, how many days that exactly is.
November 3rd, yeah, about close to five, about around five weeks. Yeah. And Mike, you've got a really, If Not For God kind of topic this week. And God put Ecclesiastes of all things on your heart. Ecclesiastes 7-9, and it says, Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. And one of the things that I thought about, Robbie, this week, I actually heard a sermon and the guy was talking about being angry, but the pastor was also talking about, there's, he said, there's a fine line, he said, between being a good listener, listening to people who disagree with you, being respectful, trying to be a peacemaker, but then also on the other hand, standing up for what you believe in and not letting people walk all over you. Right. And I would think that anybody that at least, and I didn't watch the presidential breaks, honestly, but I have seen enough soundbites to know. You know, there's a lot of comments about this, like, is this just out and out rudeness?
Is this just horrible behavior? Or is this people that are being passionate about what they believe in and standing up for what they believe in, on, you know, what they consider to be, you know, D-Day? Yeah. And you've certainly had an array of opinions this week on this. And, you know, people said, well, they, the president, the president and the former vice president were interrupting each other. And a lot of people said that Chris Wallace was taking the side of Biden and it was this, that, the other.
And, you know, maybe a lot of that is true. But I had a friend of mine say yesterday, he said, Mike, he said, can you imagine if somebody was in Russia watching this debate or if somebody was in China watching this debate? He said it was pretty embarrassing. I mean, it was just, you know, where, you know, one person has two minutes, the other person has two minutes.
Just let the other guy talk. You know, but, but it was tough. I mean, you know, because, you know, a lot of people feel like the president made a lot of good points. But they, you know, they also feel like maybe sometimes he shoots himself in the foot by maybe not being respectful. And maybe some people thought that Biden made some good points.
I'm sure there's somebody out there who thought that thinks that. But the but, yeah, I mean, you know, we've kind of come to a time in society, I believe, where things are no longer cordial. You know, I saw a survey recently and it said that in 2000, 50 percent of people thought who won the election was really important.
This year it's 83 percent. And so you can kind of see whichever way it goes where people are just getting really angry. You've seen, you know, you've seen a lot of stuff in the streets with the Breonna Taylor after the verdict came out. People were, you know, rioting after that. There have been fires in California and Oregon. And I hear a lot of people saying that a lot of the fires are being set by people. And a lot of people are angry because they feel like their local government is not stopping a lot of the violence and they're just kind of letting it go. But, you know, unfortunately, and this is what we were talking about before, Robbie, in life, a lot of times there's no easy answers. There's another part in scripture where it says, be angry, but sin not.
Do not let the sun go down on your anger. And so at some point, I think you said you had actually you were on an airplane one time, right? Yeah, that's a great story. And, you know, as you were talking about the presidential debate and somebody was over in China and they were watching that or if they were in Russia, I couldn't help but think that, you know, if those same people were watching the Dilmore family on vacation, they would be totally like, that looks horrible. These people are fighting constantly. Right. But the truth is, is that when we get real with each other, then that's the only way that really there ends up being real peace in the Dilmore family is when people have the courage to say that really bothers me the way you're whistling or whatever it is that's going on. And when you put people in a close proximity on a vacation, that's a great time to find out what really is going on.
And that would be embarrassing from somebody on the outside. But the good news is people are getting real. And so the truth is that there's a lot of things that have been upsetting a lot of people that have not come out.
And so as these things are coming out, if they're truly bothering people, then if it's coming out into the light, that's a place where God can work on it if we want to get that out. So yeah, what happened to me, and it would sound like a horrible example, but it turned out to be really kind of critical to my family's heart that my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, killed himself. It was horrible. It was a very violent way he did it. And which I would point out that neither Biden nor Trump hit the other guy.
You can say it was embarrassing. They were socially distanced, although it might've been different. So there wasn't any violence. And so there's a big difference between people protesting and people burning.
There's a big difference between people getting really angry over what's going on and people that are looting. There's all sorts of lines there. But in this case, we were getting off this plane. And as we were getting off the plane, at this point in time, my children were really small. I didn't have all my children, just Robbie and Tess. And Robbie was about two. And I had a hold of Tess and she was about six months. And as we're standing in the aisle trying to get off the plane, my wife says, this guy behind me keeps hitting me in the backside with his briefcase.
She didn't use that word, but that's what she said. And I was like, oh, oh, oh. And I was obviously the hair on the back of my neck went up a little bit. But as we came to the front of the plane and we saw a place in first class, we could stand aside.
I said, come in here. He's obviously in a big hurry to let him go by. So as he goes by, you know, rather than just let it go, he has to say, you need to take care of your brats. Yeah. Which, you know, I'll be honest, I'm one of those people that will quickly flare. I mean, and I flared. And you looked at him and you said, I'll pray for you. No, I did not say, you know, I was at that jetway. Tammy tells the story like you dropped Tess. Well, I know I put her down.
I didn't just drop her, but she got to the ground because I had to go follow this guy up to jetway. At what point I flipped him around and he was not a big guy compared to me. If you know me, I'm six, five and, you know, 240 pounds.
This guy was about five, two and maybe 110. And before he knew it, you know, he was, you know, quickly accosted and pushed. And before I knew it, within 20 seconds of that, there were sky marshals, which are very, very adept at what they do. So they put me in some kind of headlock, Mike, that I had no idea.
You know, all I knew, I was like, one second I was wailing on this dude. And the next minute I was in some kind of headlock and they had us over on, you know, in the airport, you know, in the seats right there at the gate. And they're like, are you? And they call me down eventually. You need to calm down, Mr. Dilmore.
You can picture the scene. And they let us go on. I didn't go to jail or anything.
But what that did for my wife's heart, right, was this became like the Dilmore, like, it was like, I know that I'm important enough that my husband will fight for me and that he is passionate about what he feels about us. And he's just saying, I let somebody walk over us. It was a bad thing. And of course, everybody loves to laugh at me about it.
However, there's still something underneath it. Like, God gave us that ability to be in anger and use that to protect people. And honestly, I believe it's part of your masculinity and a God-given deal. And so there's a lot of people that when they look at that and they're looking for leadership, we don't want somebody that's going to back down from a, you know, a fight necessarily when you've got the things going on in this country that are going on right now.
Right, right. And as a matter of fact, I was, when I was away for the week, I looked up, I opened up the Bible and I said, Lord, speak to me. And it was Joel chapter three, starting in verse nine, it says, proclaim ye this among the Gentiles, prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up, beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say that I am strong, assemble yourselves and come all ye heathen and gather yourselves together round about thither cause thy mighty ones to come down. Oh Lord, let the heathen be wakened and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. And so it even, Solomon even said this, he says, there is a time for war and there was a time for peace. Um, you know, and, and Jesus said himself, he said it, it was in Matthew chapter five, he said, blessed are the peacemakers. And so I think that we, there is a line where we do try to be a peacemaker and we don't just, we, we know people who lose their cool over, over nothing. A lot of those people end up in prison, um, and they end up, end up there for the rest of their lives. And so we all know that it's not, it's not good to go to that extreme.
Um, but on the other hand, we, you know, there does come a time where we do need to stand up. And, and one of the things that, that I had, that I have seen, I actually had a dream while I was on vacation. And in my dream, I was in a class and there was a guy, I believe it was a Muslim guy, another of another religion. I'm not sure which one, but I think he was Muslim. And he was teaching whatever he was teaching. And I was in the class and he found some Christian papers and they were mine. I knew they were mine. And he goes, whose are these?
And I didn't say anything. And then I woke up and it was one of the worst feelings I've ever had in my life, because there, there does come a time to stand up for Jesus. And there does come a time when even Jesus said, those who, those who will be saved won't even love their lives to the death.
To the death. You know, he says, whoever, whoever is ashamed of me, he says, I will be ashamed of them in front of my father in heaven, who is, whoever is not ashamed of me, I won't be ashamed of them in front of my father. So one of the things I think people think of violence or anger or stuff like that. One of the ways not to shrink back is to stand up for Jesus. And I'm sure we've all had times, and I'm sure you've had a time in your life, Robbie, where it may not have been very popular, but you've had to say, yes, you were a Christian. Well, you know, it's a fascinating thing how God is training us. There's no doubt in being sons of the kingdom because it's coming.
You know, we don't know when, but the good news is that it is coming. And I love that dream because I think I've had similar ones where I had a feeling of what that felt like when the moment came not to rise up and the moments come. So, you know, when I was a general manager at the Chrysler store here in Winston, I had a Bible study every week and we'd put this message on hold saying, with the help of God, we're going to become this. And so I was a very open Christian. I didn't own the dealership. I was the president of the corporation, but the dealership was owned by two other people here in Winston-Salem. And I had no idea this really had offended them, that we had put this message on hold and that we were having a Bible study every week in their dealership.
I really had no idea. Well, one day, you know, they told me that I needed to fire an employee that I didn't really want to fire. And unfortunately, that employee had a heart attack. That weekend before I fired him, it's like they told me Friday night, I want you to fire this person on Monday.
Well, Saturday, that person has a heart attack. Did you fire them on Friday? No, they'd wanted me to fire him on Monday. They told me Friday, fire him on Monday. Well, the good news is you never had to fire him. So Saturday he has a heart attack. So Monday I called them, you know, because the owners didn't work on Saturday, just us peons. But anyway, so I called the one owner I was closer to and said, you know, gee, this is a difficult situation, but Tim Sharp had a heart attack. Excuse me, I didn't mean to mention his name.
He had a heart attack over the weekend. And, you know, I can't fire a guy when he's in the hospital. And they said, well, we'll get back to you. And so it wasn't about 20 minutes later, they called me and said, well, we want to have a meeting. So they come over to my office there at the dealership, both of the owners. And they sit down and they said, well, you don't have to fire him, but we have a few conditions for you.
I said, okay, what's that? And they said, well, number one, you can't have any more Bible studies in the dealership. You can never mention God in any sales meeting.
You can't, you got to take the message off hold. You know, where it says with the help of God, we don't want God's name mentioned by you in the dealership ever again. And so, you know, there I was.
Your dream come true, Mike. There you are. And it was an interesting thing that, you know, I listened. I actually must have been in on Ecclesiastes because I was not slow to anger nor, you know, and I got together all my friends and said, let's pray about this and let's see what God says. And what God said clearly to us was you don't own this facility and they do, and you work for them. And this is what you're required to do. And so do it.
You can have a Bible study anywhere you want to have it, and you can proclaim your faith anywhere you have to. But what they said, you don't do it, then you don't do it. I mean, it's just how it works. And it seemed completely. So we did. We moved our Bible study off actually to the, right over there behind First Assembly, they had the Piedmont whatever over there.
We moved the Bible study. I didn't stop offending them and eventually they did fire me. So they got you anyway. However, you know, to my knowledge, I don't think I ever mentioned God again in other sales meeting.
I completely complied with what they did. However, we didn't stop sharing the love of God. And the beautiful thing is, as I mentioned before, years later, you know, I had reports people would come back that worked at that dealership and they would say, tell Robbie that I came to Christ or tell Robbie that I, and these things would come back to me that clearly there was fruit that went on years later because of those things where we are obedient both to the owners. And so you're going to get, you know, if you stand up and start to proclaim it, you're going to find yourself in those situations.
But it's really cool. God will be with you when things start to unravel and really help you navigate through where do you stand up and where do you not stand up. And I don't regret not standing up for doing the Bible study and that. I would have regretted terribly had I not stood up and said, no, I'm not going to fire this guy in the hospital has had a heart attack, which is really what they wanted me to do. They wanted you to fire. Yeah. The, well, one of the, one of the stories, and this is what I always think about is when I was a relatively new Christian and my friends from college were atheists or agnostics or whatever, and we all kind of got together one day and we were sitting around talking, whatever, and this one guy was saying something about, uh, uh, Christians and, oh, you know, it's, I can't believe people believe that stuff, you know, giving 10% of your money to the, to God or whatever.
I, I, I've got some stuff that you could do, give 10% of your money to maybe invested in something or this or that. But, um, and I remember they were talking all of a sudden it got quiet and I said, well, I'm a Christian and they just about died laughing. And it was interesting because I remember how it felt and it was, it was, and I've had this feeling before. It's like, cause I stood up and they laughed and I remember when it was done, I was like, that's it. That's all you got.
That's it. You know, I thought it was going to be a lot worse than this. Um, and it kind of reminds me of a lot of days when I get up and I go out and sell insurance and I, I, I, you know, we have leads, but I knock on people's doors and the, you know, when I first get there, sometimes you're, you get a little nervous. I mean, you're in and it's like, you knock on the door, you talk to somebody and then something happened.
You're like, that was it. I mean, it's, is that what I was so worried about? I mean, but, uh, you know, Jesus in, in, in chapter in, uh, Matthew chapter six, um, I think it was it in verse 25, we'll go there. Matthew six 25, he says, therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body. What you will wear is not life more than food and the body more than clothes. Look at the birds of the air.
They do not sow or reap or gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they, you know, even some of the stuff that we've talked about on the radio, we've had, we've had, uh, we've had some people on Dana, we've had Dana on and we've had, you know, I've had a friend of mine named our friend of yours, Wayne, and, and we've, we've talked about some different stuff. And, and one of the things that I think that we have to be careful of is that it's good to be prepared. It's good to plan. And we all try to do that, but not to be in a state of fear, not to be in a state of fear. It, it says, I think my wife was telling me, she said, it says so many times in the Bible, do not fear, fear not. And so one of the conversations you were, you and I were having Robbie before was you said, it's good to hear these things. I'm glad I heard them, but you said, after you listen to them, are you now in a state of fear after you listen to them, or are you full of hope?
Right. And, and really important to me personally is what's my unity with Christ right this minute as a result of what's going on. And the cool thing is it really caused me to go study fear a lot more. And the, you know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, right? So there is a fear that is really called upon by God that, you know, he really wants you to, the word is Yara in Hebrew, and it's critical to go, okay, I've got these two bosses, should I be afraid of them? Or should I be afraid of God? You know, and by the same token, I'm hearing these prophecies, but I'm also hearing, you know, the media talk about all the unrest, and I'm hearing all these things. But where is God in that? Okay, where is God in that? And this may be a little bit of a different perspective, but I guess because of the way my family is, you know, they'll tell you when they're mad at you.
Yeah. And they'll tell you when you did something that hurt their feelings. And that's uncomfortable, and it causes conflict. And sometimes very open conflict between brothers and sisters.
However, it's real, right? Nobody is, nobody's feelings are not clearly addressed, and everybody has a chance to really know where I stand. Because you know how it just doesn't feel good to be around somebody that you've offended, but they don't want to tell you because they don't want to hurt your feelings. Well, hurt my feelings, please, because I don't want you to be offended. You know, and let's be real. I mean, you know, how do you really feel? Well, if you believe what I just said, you can look at all this unrest maybe in a different light. Like, wow, maybe it's really important that these people that have felt offended for a long time really share how they feel.
I'm not saying go out and burn or, you know, do anything violent. And I certainly don't want my kids to kill each other. But I really do want them to share how they feel. And I do really want them to give us a chance to have a conversation, get it out in the open, and let's really talk about it. And so there's a healthy aspect to what's going on if we seize the day, in my opinion.
If we go, okay, you're upset, and I don't know why. You know, I'm one of the blessed people, I guess, that get to teach special needs, right? And I have this student, his name is Logan, and he's a gift from God. I mean, if you were to meet Logan and look in his eyes, you would see God. I mean, he's the happiest person I ever met in my life, goes out and gets people's trash.
He delights me, and every time I get a chance to talk to him. And at the end of every lesson, Logan always tells a joke. That's his deal, you know, that his parents have given him, and he's written it out. And he'll always laugh because it's funny. But if you ask him, Logan, what did that joke mean?
He really doesn't have any idea what it means, but he knows he's supposed to laugh. But the thing of it is, he's just not aware of certain things in his life because God gave him the gift of not being able to see that, right? And so he has special needs. Well, I don't know if you've ever looked at this, but there's some studies that have been done about illnesses in the Bible and people that were probably, you know, some way. And there's a lot of people that suspect, based on a lot of data on Samson, that he was autistic. Because he ate funny food, right? He got the food out of the lion. Not everybody goes reaching into a lion to get food, you know. So, you know, based on his relationships, think about how many people did Samson really get along with real well?
I mean, he had to tell his parents to go get a wife. I mean, he struggled with interpersonal relationships, which is autism, I mean, to some level. But autistic people have the ability to be really strong in certain circumstances because they got, you know, different access to their hormones than other people do. And I've dealt with that a time or two, dealing with autistic people I may have told you the time with Ryan, where he literally threw me down like a ragdoll.
So the good news is, I'm special needs. I can assure you, there's a lot of things that I have no idea what's going on. And just like Logan, you could explain it to me and I'm like, oh, it's funny, but I don't know. Yeah, you don't get it. Yeah.
So how many things like that are there out there where I'm offending other people, but I had no clue. How beautiful is it when they finally, you know, will stand up, tell me, here's where your friend and me, Robbie, this is what we need to work on. This is where we really could improve our relationship. And if we're doing that culturally, it may seem really ugly. But as to Sean Condrey said in First Night, there's a piece that only comes on the other side of war.
Yeah, yeah, that's good. One of the things that I was looking at was Ecclesiastes 3, and it says to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up which is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to live, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to rend and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. And so when I look at that, there really is a time for everything, thing. But it also says in Scripture that today is the day of salvation, and there is a time to get saved. There is a time to give your life to Jesus.
I was watching an interview with Charles Stanley, and his son Andy Stanley was interviewing him. He said, what did you always tell me was the most important thing in my life? His dad, Charles Stanley, said the most important thing in your life is your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If you've never given your life to Jesus before, would you like to do it today? Just pray with us. Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I've made mistakes.
I know that I'm not perfect, Lord. I turn over my life to you. I repent of my sins, and I turn over to you, Lord. I give you my whole life, and I follow you the rest of my life. In Jesus' name, and yeah, if not for God. If not for God.
