This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.
Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is your host, Mike Zwick. If not for God, what a treat to be sitting here with the host, the legend himself, Michael Zwick. Michael, thank you for having me to come alongside today, Stu Epperson here.
Normally it's the golden voice of The Christian Car Guy, Robbie Dilmore. But there's a lot going on in the culture, there's a lot going on in God's Word, and he hasn't changed, he's still on his throne. Amid all the chaos and the talk of the virus and the talk of politics and corruption and war, etc., etc., but welcome to the show. God bless you, my friend. Yeah, thanks for being on with me today, Stu. I certainly appreciate it, I always do. You know, it was interesting, we talked about dreams and stuff like that, but I had actually had a dream probably about a week ago, and in the dream where I had, I think there was a practical application because I had a dream.
Andrea Ocasio-Cortez. And in the dream I was telling her about Jesus, and I remember after waking up I was thinking about it and I said, wow, this is interesting. She was actually listening to what I had to say. And I was asking God for the purpose or the interpretation of the dream, and what I felt in my spirit was he was saying that the people who you would never think would want to hear about Jesus are the exact people that you need to tell Jesus. Tell them about Jesus. And I was thinking about it and I said, you know what, a lot of times it's the people that I never thought would respond to the gospel, who are the people who really would respond to the gospel.
Have you seen that? Amen. That's exactly, that's the difficult, that's where the take up your cross gets real right there. That's where Jesus says, they say, or you have said, to love your neighbors and hate your enemies. In Matthew 5. But I have said, but I say to you, that you should love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you and take advantage of you.
And so that is a, that dream is just a confirmation of what God's word says. It's easy to love people that you get along with. That's when you gravitate toward those people. But what about those that don't? What about those that really, literally want to destroy you? What about those that want to abuse you? What about those that are just so corrupt and so evil?
And you look at it and you watch the videos, the YouTube and this and that, and you're like, how? This person, someone needs to throw some cuffs on this person. Teach them a lesson. But those are the people God wants us to love and to pray for. And who's reaching them with the gospel?
So I think you're spot on, brother. And Jesus Christ exemplified this hanging on the cross on that tree of death after all the beating and the abuse. The torture, these mock trials, kangaroo trials. He hangs there as the first words out of his mouth were not words of judgment and attack and vindication. They were words of forgiveness. Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do.
Yeah, they know not what they do. And you know, one of the things that I was thinking about is I saw something online this morning and it said there's a new restaurant. It's called Karma.
And it said there's no menu. You get what you deserve. You know, that's sort of the opposite of what we have in Christianity. A matter of fact, I was looking in Psalms 103 and it says, Bless bless the Lord, oh, my soul and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh, my soul and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the Eagles.
He made known his way to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, not karma, but merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will he keep his anger forever.
And here it is. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust as for man.
His days are like grass as a flower of the field. So he flourishes for the wind passes over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children. To such as keep his covenant and to those who remember his commandments to do them. The Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord you his angels who excel in strength, who do his word, heeding the voice of his word. Bless the Lord all you his hosts, you ministers of his who do his pleasure. Bless the Lord all his works and all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord oh my soul. And when I read that, you know, that's not what we believe in as karma. That, you know, hey, we do something to other people and, you know, that's what we're gonna get back or whatever. But, you know, if you look at Isaiah 53 and you look at Jesus paying the price on the cross, I mean, did we do anything to deserve that, Stu? Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yes, we have. You think about the most anger and hate you've had toward another person. That multiplied by a thousand is the wrath of God aimed at you. And everything you think that this person should get for their sin, their evil, how wrong they've wronged you, you and I are guilty of the same thing.
So you read that. He's not rewarded us according to our iniquities. So do not ask God to give you what you deserve.
Let me tell you, the most dangerous place you could ever be and the most absolute worst fate you could ever suffer is if you ask God to give you what you deserve. That's what I've been praying for our country, for mercy. Lord, don't give us justice. I can't take it. I deserve it.
You know, I can't take it, though. Give us mercy. Because what you think your enemy should get is exactly what you should get, because he's a holy God. And so he had mercy on you. So that's why Jesus said, Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you. That's why Jesus said, Forgive us our trespasses, in Luke 11 and the Lord's Prayer.
Forgive us our trespasses, even as we forgive those who trespass against us. And all those parables, you know, the guy, the ruthless master not forgiving his servant, right? But then finally when he forgave his servant, the servant went out and didn't forgive the guy that owed him just a little bit. He owed this guy millions. The guy forgave him. Another servant owed him like a couple bucks, and he threw him in the slammer.
He took his whole thing. So this all amplifies the depth of the mercy and the grace of God, which we all desperately need. Yeah. And, you know, maybe that dream with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or whoever it is, it's, you know, I think about people in my lifetime who I may really not have liked. And maybe I gave somebody a chance.
And I realized that once I got to know somebody, there was a lot more to them than I just thought on the surface. Maybe, you know, hey, if you're a Democrat and somebody else is a Republican or you're a Republican and somebody else is a Democrat, I think you saw there was a picture where there was a Trump supporter and a Biden supporter. Do you remember that? I love that. They were shaking hands right across the street, each holding their own banner. And there was a cordiality. There was a peaceful exchange there as opposed to, you know, a sucker punch or something like that.
That was really cool. Yeah. And one of the things that I think of is, you know, over my whole life, you know, whenever I'm quick to get angry at somebody else or whenever I think about something that somebody has done to me, I tend to think, you know, go back to Psalm 103 or in the Lord's Prayer where it's, forgive us our trespasses. It's like, man, I've done a whole lot that I need to be forgiven of as well.
But is it always easy to forgive, Stu? Or do you think sometimes it's tough? Well, if it weren't tough, it wouldn't be. We wouldn't need the cross.
The reason he died on the cross. All that's tough. It's ugly. It's dirty. It's grimy.
It's intense. And the cross came. Christ came to seek and save lost, messed up, unforgiving people. David struggled with this in Psalm 73. The whole point of Psalm 73. He's struggling because here he is serving God. Here he is serving the true God, loving God, and all this bad stuff's happening to him. Yet these intensely wealthy people are defiant of God, they're boastful, and he's like, he opens a psalm by saying, you know, I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Why does someone as corrupt and debauched as Hugh Hefner live to his 90s, when the Swedish Christian family loses one of their daughters at 10 years old? Because we have a human, we have this karma, which is totally pagan thinking.
We've let this kind of thinking influence, even creep in to our Christian paradigm and worldview. And David had this struggle. He says, what's going on with these people, God? Why are these people prospering?
You know, their bodies are fat, they're successful, they're increasing in their riches. He says, have I kept my heart pure for nothing and washed my hands in innocence? He says, all day long I'm plagued and I'm chasing for nothing. But then it says this, he says, if I said I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. When I thought to understand this, it was troublesome in my eyes.
He's just completely troubled. He sees how successful evil people are, and how righteous, good, saintly people are dying and struggling and being plagued. He says, until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I understood their end. That's Psalm 73 verse 17. Their desolation came in a moment.
They were utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakes, oh Lord, when you awake, you will despise their form. See? So he's recognizing this is what's going to come of those people. It's a short-lived, temporary thing. They're enjoying it now.
The wealth, the cars, the women, the whatever. But one day they will give an account, and they will be thrown into the lake of fire where there's eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth. And that should break our heart. And that's why we've got to step back and say, God, what is your heart for these lost people?
And then go back even further. This is where it gets real. What is your heart for me? Why, when I was without strength, when I was wicked, when I was an enemy of yours, why did you save me, a wretch like me, when you should have just thrown me into hell? And that's the beauty of grace.
Nothing you can do can earn it. And nothing you have done can escape or can keep you from it. It's all about God's grace. And so David, when he realizes this, he says, Thus my heart was embittered, and I was pierced into my feelings.
I was a brute and did not understand. I was a beast before you. He's saying, how could I be such a beast to not see the end, to be so caught up in the moment of being jealous and envious of these successful, wealthy, pagan God-haters amid my crisis? And here I am doing right. So he closes by saying, Nevertheless, God, I am continually with you. You have held me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel. Afterward, you will receive me in glory. Now I want to save the rest of this after this break, because this is really good. We've got to take a break. This is Stu Epperson filling in for your regular sidekick, Robbie Dilmore, and our special host, man of God, Michael Zwick. And the name of this show is what?
If not for God, we'll be right back after this. As an organization, the PRCUA provides member benefits such as educational scholarships, sports tournaments, and numerous Polish-American cultural programs and much more. Consider joining the PRCUA this week. Ask now for the PRCUA 2020 Christmas Special. Now until January 31st, 2021, you can save 5% when you purchase $5,000 or greater PRCUA Life, single pay whole life. Applicants will receive a free gift and a chance to win one of three grand prizes, case amounts of $25,000 or more. Receive two raffle tickets per application. Go to PRCUA.org.
That's PRCUA.org. So Michael has a dream, and God in that dream really confronts him and rebukes him, and he's kind of using that to kind of give us all a good little whipping that we all deserve on how we can be so unforgiving and so unrelenting and so angry at people. And there are some evil people out there doing some evil things. And we should not ever dismiss the righteous indignation. We should cringe. We should walk out of a movie if they're defiantly blasphemous and it hits our conscience like that.
We should have done with those kind of things. But there is a sense to which we are called to forgive even the people that seem to be the most unforgivable. And that was the essence of what God hit you with, I guess.
Right, Mike? Yeah, and not only that, but in addition to that, to be able to share the gospel with them. Because there are some people who we may think on the circle they would never want to hear about Jesus because dot dot dot, you fill in the blank. But, you know, that we're really called to share it with everybody. And I know you always say, who did you tell?
Are you going to tell one person today about Jesus? And life is short. I mean, kind of what you were talking about with Psalm 73, but I was looking at James chapter 4 and verse 13, it says, Come now, who you say today or tomorrow we will go to such as such as such a city and spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, for what is your life?
It is even as a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that. But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. So, when you look at Psalm 73 and when you look at James 4, you know, the pleasure of sin, it's fleeting.
I mean, it's here for a moment and then it's gone. It's like, is it really worth it? Is it really worth blowing that person out, you know, and just letting the heat, the anger out on this person and not giving pause? Is it really worth devastating that little person, yelling at your little guy there who messed up? He keeps messing up.
Is it really worth that? Is God's grace not bigger and greater than our sin? Was God not gracious on us when we kept screwing up and falling into a ditch and digging our hole deeper? This is the kind of God we serve who pursues us and pursued us. And thank God for people that pursued you that didn't give up on you. They didn't say, this guy is just a party-hearty nut.
I'm done with him. But they kept after you. They kept giving you Jesus. And you're here today, and I'm here today because of those same people that didn't give up, that went maybe somewhere with us that everyone else would have said, he's lost. This is a case that no one wants to touch.
They don't want to hear about it. No. So the James passage is strong. 1 John, where John talks about, you know, you say you love your neighbor. You say you love God, but you hate your neighbor. Well, how can you love God who you don't? How can you say you love God who you don't see, but you hate your neighbor who you do see?
He says this is the inverse. This is the opposite of what God says. You show your love for God by loving your neighbor and loving your enemy. This is the only belief system in all the world, in the history of the world, where God actually comes down to us and actually dies for those that hate him. He actually is murdered, willingly gives himself a life, his whole life, to be crucified by his haters, to save them. The biggest persecutor of the early church became the greatest perpetuator of the gospel, the apostle Paul. He was murdering Christians, and all of a sudden, he's the missionary. And we're here today because he took the gospel to the Gentiles.
That's right. So God did something miraculous when Stephen lay there bleeding from being bludgeoned to death by stones, and Saul stood there holding the cloaks of all of his killers. He heard the final words of Stephen. Lord, do not hold this to their account, which is the same as what Jesus said. Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do. Paul heard those words, and they stuck, and if you see what happened to him when God got a hold of him, he said, why were you persecuting me on the Damascus road? He killed Stephen.
He didn't kill Jesus, but he was killing the body of Christ, Stephen, part of the body. So this is the way of the cross, forgiving the unforgivable, because God forgave me. And that's pretty powerful.
That's very powerful. And here it is, Matthew 6, 14 through 15. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. That's a pretty big statement right there.
A very big statement. And this is impossible, by the way. Everything in the Christian life is impossible. And this is where it starts with going to God.
The God of all possibilities, right? Going to him, and asking him for the power, and asking him for what we do not have. And when he put the Holy Spirit in us, he gave us that power, so we go to him and we depend on him. You start praying for that person by name that you hate right now, that you don't want to speak to, that you're not looking forward to Thanksgiving, because you're going to have to see that person, and you're praying that this will go by real quick, and you're going to sit at another part of the table. You start praying for them by name right now. That's who God wants you to spend Thanksgiving with, and that's who God wants you to push toward Jesus and then lead to Christ.
That's who...what do you think the Christians felt when Saul came back to Jerusalem after he got radically saved on the Damascus road? You know what they did? They slammed the door in his face.
It's like, you killed my mom! You had my whole family thrown in prison. We're bankrupt now.
We have nothing. We're begging for food because of you, and you're coming back here saying you're one of them? Get the heck off my property.
Grandma, get the shotgun. Who is this Saul guy? This is the rabbi guy.
He's the reason for our trouble, right? One guy believed in him. One guy went to Neverland. One guy did what none of those folks did. His name was Barnabas, whose name means son of encouragement. That wasn't even his real name.
His real name was Joseph, but his nickname was Barnabas, but he was such a bountiful encourager that they called him by his nickname, which means son of encouragement, Barnabas. And everywhere Barney went, the energy of encouragement. And see, we are so all-prone to look for criticism. We look at someone. What do we look for? We look for blemishes.
We listen closely to what they said. Oh, you said this, and we're sarcastic. We have sarcasm, the lowest form of humor. We knock people. We mock people. We look for ways to compare ourselves, how we're better than them.
This is just human nature. Barnabas, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he saw in Paul what no one else saw. He saw a guy who was a murderer, who was a brutal attacker of Christians. He saw a guy who would be zealous for the gospel. And he was the only guy that believed in Paul, and he took Paul, he took him in, he opened that door for him where everyone else slammed the door in Jerusalem, and he took him to the apostles.
He said, this guy, we need him. And throughout the whole book of Acts, you see Barnabas going and chasing after Paul and pursuing him. Barnabas shows up at Antioch, and there's a massive crusade going on, and all these people are getting saved. And what does he do? He leaves in the middle of that. And he goes to Tarsus, travels all the way to Tarsus, grabs Saul, brings him back, because he realizes this guy's so gifted.
This guy has got something. And again, a lot of folks are still bitter and angry at what Saul had done. Barnabas believed, by God's power, forgave, and God used that to turn the world upside down, to literally change the world. And we're here today because Barnabas believed in a guy named Saul who wrote half the New Testament and took the Gospel to the Gentiles in his three missionary journeys all the way to Rome. And now today we call on Christ because of his faithfulness.
But someone behind him believed in him and encouraged him and forgave him and showed grace where maybe grace wasn't deserved. So who am I going to believe in? Who am I going to show grace to? Who am I going to go out of my way? And let me just make it real easy for everyone out there.
Ready? Write down who your worst enemy is, who you can't stand. Maybe you had a dream about them. Go after them. You start praying for them by name. Go buy them a present. Go buy them a gift. Oh, then they'll feel like they have to give me a gift. Who cares? Oh, well, they didn't give me a gift last year.
Who cares? What is grace? Grace is not, oh, I'll buy your lunch next time. No, grace is thank you for that awesome lunch, Michael. Wow. God bless you.
I receive that. Grace is not paying back. We can't pay a guy back. Good luck on that.
You go try doing that. Grace is receiving something I don't deserve. Grace is giving someone they don't deserve.
Go think about your worst enemy. And this is, by the way, how Psalm 73 ends. David's bitter. He's torn up. He's a wreck. He's an anxious wreck. He's getting plagued, beat up, dogged by all kinds of issues and problems, and just literally hell on earth, while all these wealthy, pagan, anti-God idolatrous people are thriving, making all kinds of money. They're successful. They're healthy.
They're living long. David's mad. But he says, until I went into the presence of God, then it was when I understood their fate, and how they, when he saw their eternity, their short-term life is maybe fine, maybe good, maybe some wealth, some comfort, but their eternity is literal hell and torment forever. And David realized, man, I'm an animal to not see this. When he saw God's view, you have to see God's perspective.
Then he closes this awesome thing. He says, I was a brute. I was a beast before you, Almighty God. He's praying to God. Verse 23.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you. So he goes into the Lord. He leans into the Lord. You have held me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
And then these awesome questions. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Those who are far from you, they'll perish. You destroy everyone who is unfaithful to you, but it is good for me to draw near to God. I have taken my refuge in the Lord God, that I may declare all your works.
That last part is so critical. God gives you that forgiveness so you can forgive others and declare his works. Not so we can just get along. That's why this whole racial reconciliation, you're going to like your brother from a different mother of a different color or ethnicity. So now you like them, and you say, I'm not mad at you anymore because you're white or because you're Asian. I'm not mad at you anymore for that. So you get along.
Well, you're going to find something else that you hate each other for. That's why white people kill white people and black people kill black people, right? Because they don't have Jesus. So God pours grace through you to love everyone and anyone of every race and every enemy so that then he can pour his grace through you to go reach them. So let me summarize the Black Lives Matter issue. If you really think black lives matter, then go lead one to Christ.
If you're not actively leading black lives, white lives, other lives, all lives to Jesus, then you don't think they matter because you're not going after them with the good news of God's grace. He poured it on you and to you so that he could pour it through you. So how are you, like David said, declaring all of his works? And when he does that, everything changes.
Everything changes. And in closing, we've got 1 John 4, 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. That includes the one anothers that are hardest to love, which, by the way, as I'm looking out at all of them, I'm looking right back at me. Right. Because we were hard to love.
I was hard to love, but God poured out his love. Isn't that awesome? If Not for God. If Not for God.
