Who is Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Nakita Kolov, the Russian nightmare.

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Go to PRCUA2021.com for more information. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Welcome to If Not For God.

Today's show, I would kind of categorize as who's afraid of the big bad wolf. Right. Right. And we were actually just talking about this for Wednesday in the Word. We're looking at Acts chapter 16 verses 1 through 12. And we'll start off in verse one. Paul came to Derby and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Paul wanted to take him along the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in the area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey.

So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in the numbers. But here's the verse. Verse six. Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, come over to Macedonia and help us. After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. And I know there's some people out there who say, Well, this was back in the first century, and God doesn't speak to us today. And well, I've got a word for that.

It's baloney. You know, I 100% believe that God speaks to us today, and God has spoken to me over the years. And as a matter of fact, Robbie, you had a dream about a whale. Had a dream about a whale this morning, actually, which is just really unusual for me. You know, and I think about when his sheep hear his voice.

Obviously, there must be some voice to hear or otherwise, you know, why would Jesus tell us that in John 10? But I was, you know, maybe 3 30 somewhere in there this morning. All of a sudden I have this dream. My youngest daughter, Mariah, is swimming in the ocean at the beach. And I'm not a dream person.

You know this? I'm just not. I'm not amongst the dreamers. But anyway, so I had this dream, and all of a sudden they see this whale jump out of the water. It's not a huge whale. It's a gray whale, but it's frolicking.

And I thought, Man, how cool is that? I get to see a whale. My daughter's starting to come up like onto this, you know, where she's coming up out of the water, and this whale attacks her or I think it attacks her. All I know is it knocks her off her feet. She fills in the water.

It looks like it opens up to her mouth. And all of a sudden I'm immediately terrified that my daughter is being attacked by this whale. However, I'm kind of so freaked out that I haven't moved at this point. And so I finally get up whatever gumption. I start running towards the whale and the water and my daughter. And all of a sudden the water just goes draining, like somebody pulled the plug on the ocean, like the water just went kablam. And Mariah started to stand up, and then I woke up terrified, literally terrified. I, you know, it was just, it's hard to explain. You think you're one of your children's going to die, and it seemed very real to me because it was that kind of dream that was very, very real. So, you know, I normally get up about that time.

It's about quarter to four. So I just get up and I start praying, like, God, give me some interpretation of this. Is this some kind of, why did I see this?

What's going on with this? And so, you know, through the season, I always ask for my word for the year for upcoming 2021. And he had told me that the word literally was to contend or to engage.

And so he kind of just said, Robbie, why don't you take a look at your word, you know, for the year. And so I go to my little Bible searcher and type in the word contend, and it takes me to Isaiah 49, 25. Right now, I've just had this dream. I'm terrified. And I'm asking God for some interpretation.

And I think you got it pulled up there, do you? And so it says, but thus saith the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken captive and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered, for I will contend with him that contendeth with you. There's my word contend, right?

And I will save thy children. I mean, the water dried out of the ocean while I was trying to get there, and all of a sudden I started to see that, wow, I thought this, my word engage or contend had to do with me engaging or contending. But I think now what God's really trying to show me is that, Robbie, I'm going to show you how I contend so that you can see how you should contend. And if you engage, the first person to engage is God, because I mean, it was clear to me that it was just clear. It took what I knew in my head that he was going to save my children. And between the dream and this, it went from my head to my heart. But then I went back and asked him, what about the dream? He said, Robbie, the dream was just an attack to take away your peace. But I allowed that essentially so that you could get the real message that I got you. He's in control.

He's in control. Yeah. And you know what? When you were saying that, Robbie, it's funny because you had actually talked about Isaiah forty nine. But what came to me was Psalm ninety one.

And this is something that we've talked a lot about this year. And it starts out, it says he who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God in him I will trust. Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler or the of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with his feathers and under his wings you shall take refuge.

His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night. Now, did you used to be afraid of the dark?

Actually, it was when I came to Christ, my wife would tell you, Robbie Dilmore, maybe six foot five and 200 pounds. But he's biggest chicken you ever met in your life, because when it gets dark, you know, he's asking me to go check out this noise. They're literally frozen in bed as a child, as a young child. I wet the bed continually because I was too afraid to get out of bed because I just was terrified of the dark. So if you're picturing the biggest chicken you ever saw in your life, you're starting to see me there in 1995, this particular dream was. I mean, not dream, this particular situation happened. So my wife had to go to Pennsylvania to visit some friends, and I was left in this house that was a real creepy old house. And the night she left was a Sunday night, and I'll never forget, it was really creepy.

It was raining, thunder clapping. I'm laying in bed terrified. I'd been a Christian like four years. And so I didn't even know how to pray exactly. I just knew that what this must be sin because it sure feels like fear. And so I said, I don't know how I'm supposed to do this, God, but, you know, I'm supposed to give you this fear. So here you go.

I want you to have it. I don't know what's the next step in me giving you this fear. And Jesus says to me very plainly to me, I was hearing this. He said, Robbie, what's the worst thing that could happen? And I was like, have you seen Psycho?

I mean, some guy with an eye. You know, I'm picturing death and destruction and all this stuff. And God says to me, my mind is still blown by his, the way he said this to me was with such compassion, it's unbelievable. He just says, well, Robbie, what would be so bad about that? Okay. And I went, well, it sounds pretty bad. And he goes, no, no, let's think about it.

Okay. What would be so bad about that? And all of a sudden it hit me, wow, you're threatening me with heaven. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

What's up with that? And that became an absolutely, another one of those moments where this went from my head like I'm supposed to not be afraid. It went to my heart and began to heal me of this fear that had paralyzed me all my life. The critical part of the equation was that that was about maybe nine or ten months before I was diagnosed with a type of lymphoma that was supposed to kill me within two months. And immediately, as soon as they told me that diagnosis, the same thing hit me with, okay, you're going to lose, you know, you're not, your kids are young and all that, but what would be so bad about going to heaven? And I went, oh, well, you know, God, whatever we're up to here, I know that, you know, you're in control of this. And it really isn't a life and death thing for me anymore. It's to live as Christ and to die as gain. And we were talking about this a little bit before, reading the book by J.D. Greer.

What are you going to do with your life? And he said right around, I think he was a junior in college or right around this time, he had a vision came to his mind and he said there was a little baby that was on the railroad tracks. And he saw, he saw the train coming. The train was coming and the baby was sitting there and nobody was doing anything. And so what had happened was he said he instinctively knew he went to go pick up the baby and he got the baby off the tracks and the baby was fine. And he was trying to figure out the meaning or the interpretation of this.

And what he figured out was this. He says, you don't need to have a calling. You don't need to be called to go share the good news with people to tell people about Jesus. It's something that he's called us all to do. I mean, we look at people like, you know, whether it's pastors or or, you know, I mean, somebody like Stu Epperson. Oh, that guy, of course, he would be able to preach the gospel or Robbie Dylan, but or even your local pastor. But we we all have a part.

We all have a part. And when you're where you're talking about this, it's like I see that with the whale dream that God cares about you individually. Yeah. You know, I used to see a time in my life where God was just this thing that was way far out there.

And he I knew that I knew that I was supposed to fear him and I knew there was heaven and hell. But but I didn't know that you could have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You can. Yeah. Right. That's the personal part, you know?

And and it's so it's such a beautiful thing that he is showing us through his love how to love other people. So, yeah, you want to get Stu since we got him right here? Yeah. We're talking about vision. Stu, you actually had a dream when he was in high school and you said you were you were reading the Bible. You were listening.

But then you had a dream that kind of changed things. Well, I was in a Christian camp and it was the summer before my senior year and I was under deep conviction of the Holy Spirit. I was under the preaching of the word of God.

I was challenged. The biggest way the Lord convicted me was the one of the pastors got up at this camp and said, Satan's goal is not necessarily to attack you. He knows he can't change. He can't make you an unbeliever if you're a believer.

Can't take away your salvation. His goal is to make you a hypocrite. His goal is to kind of neutralize you, to make you kind of blah, like just a social kind of get along Christian.

That's what I was for the first part of my high school. I was that good guy. But I wasn't that godly guy.

That scares me to death when my kids bring home a guy and my daughter say, Hey, this is a good guy. I'm like, well, I want a godly guy. Does he love Jesus? Well, I mean, he's religious.

I don't care. Hogwash, get him out of here. He's got to love Christ.

He's got to be a soul winner. That's a normal Christian, by the way, a normal Christian. So I was under conviction, and the Lord was just working on me hard. I was playing basketball. It was summertime, and I had a dream right in the middle of all these sermons and messages. I was being mentored, and I had awesome counselors, and I had this dream in the middle of the night. One of my good buddies on the basketball team, in this dream, I'm in heaven. I'm in, I'm good, standing before God's throne.

God is about to throw him into hell. This young man looked at me across this little space with tears flooding down his eyes saying, Stu, why didn't you tell me? Stu, we were buddies. We carpooled to practice. We talked about girls, and we talked about books and sports, and we goofed around, and we went bowling.

We did everything in basketball, basketball, basketball. But you never told me about all this, about what was the most important thing in your life. As he's saying this, he's being thrown into the lake of fire. It was graphic. It was frightening, devastating. I woke up sweating in the middle of the night in my cabin. I remember exactly where I was, which bunk I was in this cabin up at the wildest Christian camp in Brevard, North Carolina. God broke me. I said, God, I'm going to go back my senior year, and I'm going to tell people about Jesus.

Everyone has senior-itis, right? We're going to party. This is my last time with these people. God convicted me. This is the last time I'll ever be able to tell these people about Jesus. I may never see people that I went to high school with again. Some people may die and go to hell before I ever see them again after school.

I don't know how in the world I'm going to reach these folks. That dream really drove in me and cemented what God was telling me. That is, go reach your teammates and go reach your classmates for Jesus. You've got one more senior year. Make it count for Christ. It was really a life-changing summer at this Christian camp.

I got back to Mount Tabor High School in 1987, and I got on my knees. I said, God, I don't know how I'm going to take Jesus to my high school. They're going to think I'm a lunatic. They're going to think I've lost my marbles.

What do I do? I pray you, God, will show me. I'm weak. You're strong. I'm ignorant. You're the wonderful counselor.

Show me how to do it. If you've called me to, I pray you'll show me. I walk in the first day of school. I bump into Coach Fred Willett. He said, Stooby-Doo!

He was a believer and went to my church. I said, Coach, we've got to reach our campus for Christ. He said, Stooby-Doo, we've got to start FCA. I said, what in the world is FCA?

I thought, what is that? Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He had been talking to those guys, and God had been stirring in him. He said, it has to be started by a student. I said, well, let's do it. I said, let's have a meeting and boom, boom, boom. Well, the administration tried to shut us down. They said, separation of church and state, we can't have God as a public school. We can't have Christ.

I called my dad, Big Stu. He knew all these Christian attorneys. One of them sent us, like a Jay Sekulow kind of guy, a 40-page document called the Establishment Clause that demonstrated that if a student initiated, the Supreme Court passed this, if a student initiates a Christian club, a Bible club, an FCA, a Young Life on the campus, then they can have it.

So I took it down the hall to the administration and I handed this 40-page document and they said, well, I guess you're having FCA. They had nothing for us. We were all gracious and we were trusting God. We were all praying. We were fast and praying. We were asking God to give us a breakthrough. They're not going to let us have this Christian club.

We had the first club meeting on a Friday. 200-plus kids showed up. Everyone was excited. Half the basketball team came to Christ. The Lord just used that as an open door and really used that conviction of the Holy Spirit and that dream as a way to push me over the top. It was just amazing to see.

You know what's crazy? When I stood up for Jesus in that high school, I had no intention of doing until God just got a hold of my heart and convicted me and broke me and broke my heart for the lost. When I stood up for Christ, you know how many Christians came out of the closet at that school? There were kids I had no idea that loved Jesus that started showing up at FCA, that started leading other kids to Christ, that started wanting to get together and pray before school. We connected all kinds of guys to be prayer partners and were getting in the Word.

On Friday nights, everyone would go party. We'd go to my dad's house in this big safari room. We'd get our Bibles out. We'd have Bible study. Then we'd go share Christ.

So it was neat to see how God used all of that to really challenge me. For 25, 30 years since high school, I've been challenging young people to get off the fence and to be a normal Christian. A normal Christian?

What's that? That's someone who's on fire for God! That's someone who tells people about Jesus. Well, I'm not Billy Graham.

Well, you don't have to be. You are commanded, like you just said a second ago, you're commanded to share the gospel, to go and make disciples of all nations. So who are you discipling?

Who's discipling you? Who's in your life challenging you to bring people to Christ? Who are you going to bring to Christ in 2021? I just challenged our salespeople to find 21 new accounts. We have sales goals, right?

Everyone does. I said, hey, I want you to find 21 new partners, ministry partners, businesses that will partner with the Truth Network this year in 2021. Find 21 new partners. And I'm sitting here thinking, well, why doesn't every Christian, why don't we challenge every Christian to go find 21 souls to lead to Christ and disciple in 2021? We better not talk about that, though, because that's going to get radical. Well, I tell you one thing, you know, it's in Scripture, Romans 8, 31, it says, if God be for us, then who could be against us? And when I hear you saying that, Stu, it was like God had told you, you know, hey, you, I need to use you, I want to use you to help pull people out of the flame.

Well, when the school came to you and said, oh, no, no, no, no, you can't do that. Well, guess what? God had an answer for that. He had an answer.

He had an answer for that. That's right. I mean, I was actually listening this morning to a song, All We Are is Dust in the Wind, and it was an old song by Kansas. I don't know if you guys remember that. That's that Christian group out there. No, but it was an old song by Kansas. But when I read it, when I was listening to it, I'm thinking about it, I said, look, that's what these, that's what, that's how the world sees things.

That's right. Man, there's no purpose in life. We're all just dust in the wind. Nothing, when we die, that's just it. Nothing's going to happen. And we say, I've said this to myself, people aren't going to want to hear about Jesus. They're not going to want to hear about the gospel. Guess what?

They do. I was, another part, page seven in the book by J.D. Greer, What Are You Doing With Your Life? This generation is a restless one.

You have been the beneficiaries of greater technological advance and wealth acquisition than any other generation in history, but still, you know something's not right. Quarterback Tom Brady may have summed it up best. After winning his third Super Bowl, he was asked by Steve Croft in an interview, this whole upward trajectory, what have you learned about yourself? Brady answered, what do I have three, why do I have three Super Bowl rings? And still there's something greater out there for me. I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, hey man, this is what it is. I reached my goal, my dream, my life, me. I think, God, it's got to, got to be more than this.

And what else is there for me? Croft asked, what's the answer? Brady smiled for a moment. Then the smile faded.

I wish I knew, he said, I wish I knew. Another of our generation's greater, greatest philosophical minds, comedian Jim Carrey, said the same thing. I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything that they ever dreamed of, so that they can see that it's not the answer. And so many of these things, even as Christians, so many of these things that we go after, money, fame, sex, whatever it is. I mean, we said, well, that's the world. We don't, we don't deal with that stuff.

Baloney. So many of the things that we're going after, look, these are people who've made it. They've gotten it. And they're saying it's not the answer.

It doesn't give me happiness. But there is somebody who can give you happiness. And his name is Jesus. Amen.

And, you know, JD quotes C.T. Studd, the great missionary, the great prayer warrior, who said this famous quote, "'Only one life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last.'" And we are dust in the wind. James 4 says our life is but a vapor.

It's going to be gone. And so how am I investing in eternity? How am I pouring my life into others, discipling others, building up kingdom words in my home? You're like, well, I don't have any kids. Well, why don't you start fathering a bunch of kids that aren't your biological kids? Timothy wasn't Paul's biological kid, but yet he called him his son in the faith. 1 Corinthians 4.17, Philippians 2.23.

He mentored, he fathered, he loved him, he built into him, and we have the opportunity with people all around us. Well, who am I going to do that? Well, there's kids. Just find a kid.

Take a kid to get a milkshake. That's what my dad's whole ministry, you know, mentoring. We're letting these kids go right into hell, and we can be there rescuing them, loving them, being a champion for them, believing in them, encouraging them. That kid that you walk by every day that's doing nothing, wasting his time playing on his phone, that could be the next Billy Graham.

That could be the next D.L. Moody. How are you taking an interest in him? And then you're thinking, well, I don't understand.

Well, let's ask this question. Who took an interest in you when you were just a stoniness kid, when you were just a young man in college looking for a girl, and you had no desire for God, and this girl said, I'm only going to go out with you if I can tell you about Christ and take you to church, and then you got saved, and now you're doing a radio show called If Not For God, and your name's Michael Zwick. Someone took an interest in the Christian car guy. Someone just shared Christ with him. The Christian car guy and I knew a guy named Ted. Ted probably discipled and built up 300 men, no exaggeration, who are discipling people today, and Ted was sitting there drinking his Coors Light with a cigar in his comfortable chair watching Jimmy Swaggart on the TV, and he got radically saved. He's in heaven now, but guess what's going on on earth? Me, Robbie, Michael, so many people that are advancing the gospel because Ted met with us once a week, twice a week.

When there was a meeting, he would show up. He pulled Robbie aside. Robbie, how can I pray for you? Stu, hey, how are you growing?

How are you loving your wife? How can I build into you? When I had kids, this is something that really worked for me, and little did I know that he was a Paul, I was a Timothy, and now I'm doing that with younger people. Well, and I was going to say something as well, and I'll ask you this, Robbie, because I remember when I was in high school, it seemed like there were these kids who were Christians, and it's like, man, I don't want to be like them. I don't want to hang out with them. They can't drink. They can't have sex. I mean, they live a boring life, but Robbie, is Christianity, is it a boring life?

I don't think so now. Well, I get to see that every week on Kingdom Pursuits, right? These people that have answered God's call to minister in some way, write a book, or do a movie, or be at a kid's camp. How many counselors lead thousands? I mean, how many kids go to a Christian camp and doesn't actually see that?

But the interesting thing, I can't help but laugh about your Kansas song, because I've done two shows on the Christian car guy on what I call butt dust one and butt dust two, because there's a song where it said, you are butt dust, and the little girl sitting in the front row goes, Mommy, what's butt dust? And the truth is, we are a dama, which God took the soil out of the ground, and he breathed life, and next thing you know. But the question is, how do we be good soil that God can plant seeds in that can take root? How can we help to furrow the hallowed ground, right? I mean, you know, how can we help see the heart of what is in some and pray and say, you know, because it's the same thing that I saw in Isaiah 49, is that he is going to do it.

He did it for Stu in high school with the FCA, but he allowed him the complete honor of taking part in it because he got Stu's heart. And if you get Stu's heart, knowing Stu as I do, or you get Mike Zwick's heart, well, you know, these people that are living wholeheartedly, you know, that's good soil. It's good soil, and the Christian life can be an exciting life. I mean, I never knew what excitement was and happiness was until, until I met Jesus. And, uh, if you're listening today and you don't know Jesus, or you're kind of on the fence, say yes to Jesus. Follow Jesus.

If you want some happiness, you want some excitement. I'm not saying there's not going to be tough times, but follow Jesus, if not for God. Yeah, if not for God. If not for God.