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Welcome to If Not For God with Mike Zwick. And today's show, like, are you thirsty? Are you? Are you thirsty? I guess so.
Yeah, I didn't really see it that way. And you know, it's one of the things is, is are you thirsty for the word? And we were talking about this a little bit before, but you know, one of the things that I was thinking about this week, Robbie, was the authority of scripture. And what I'm seeing more and more, especially lately, is people who are saying, well, you know, I know the Bible says this, but... And so they may, you know, they may say, well, I believe the Bible, but it's, it's, it may be something else that's getting in there.
Or they're saying, well, I don't completely believe. And we, one of the things we were talking about is, well, hell, we don't believe that hell is a literal place. And, and, you know, you just die and it's the grave and it's separation from God, stuff like that. Well, that's, that's not what the Bible says. And as a matter of fact, in the book of Revelation, it's Revelation 22 and verse 18, it says, for I testify to everyone who hears the word of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. That are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book. And then I like what he says after that, surely I come, I am coming quickly.
We can see that, that today. But when I, when I see that, one of the things that I was thinking about as far as the authority of scripture, and this is the word of God, we have to believe it. If somebody's going to say, well, I don't believe in that hell is a real place or it's permanent, or it's not a place of torment. And what they say is they say things like, well, it's separation from God.
And I would say, well, I agree with that. You are separated from God. But if you, if you go into scripture and you look, Jesus gave a specific example of this. He talks about Lazarus and a rich man. And Lazarus was a poor man. And he, he would stand, sit begging at the gates.
And I, you know, he was, he was miserable, but he passed away. The dog licking his wounds. That's the one that just leaves a mental image. The dog.
Yeah, that's right. The dogs were licking his wounds and it said they both, he died and he was brought up to heaven and Abraham was comforting him. And the rich man died.
You know, it's funny, Robbie, he doesn't even say the rich man's name. That's just a side note, but he doesn't, he's not even important, you know, not even important enough to say his name, but the rich man is brought down to hell. And it says where he was in, when he was in hell, he was in torment. If you're in torment, that's not just being in the grave or not just being separated. That means you're in torment. Matter of fact, he was in such torment. He asked Abraham to take a, take some cool water and just put a tip of it on his tongue.
So he would, he would relieve, he would be relieved of some of this torment. In addition to that, he says, Hey, Abraham, go, go send somebody and, and tell my relatives about this place so that they don't come here. So it is a literal place and it is, it is permanent. And it's not something that you can just get out of once you're there. And that's just one of the things, but I think that we have to be very careful because there are a lot of teachers that are out there.
And we talked about this before. There's a lot of good teachers on the truth network. There's a lot of good Christian teachers on YouTube and on the internet, but there's a lot of people out there who I believe are leading people astray. And so we have to take the word of God literally, and we have to believe the Bible.
I like what our friend pastor Marty says up in Boone. He says, if it's in this book, he says, I believe it. He says, if it's not in the word of God, he's like, I don't know about that. But one of the things that you were talking about, Robbie, was you said, you know, not only just having the authority of scripture, but you say, what is it believing the word, but falling in love with God and enjoying, you know, in talking about heaven?
It's a real cool thing. The more you read it, right, it transforms your mind, but it also builds your faith. And the more you read it, the more you tend to want to become thirsty and the more you begin to understand. So it's fascinating to me, one of the main themes of, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, in Genesis, is that the place to find a bride in Genesis is where? At the well.
It's almost always at the well, right? That's, you might remember when Abraham's servant went to find a bride for Isaac, and where do you find her? Right, Rebecca. So that, you know, there's a deal. She watered the camels and the whole bit.
Well, it isn't much longer that. Guess what? When Jacob goes to, you know, find a bride for himself, when Esau's on his tail, same kind of deal. Where does he find Rachel? Finds her at a well. Well, you ever think about where Moses found his wife? At a well.
Okay. And you may have heard it said that the Bible makes you thirsty. So when Jesus, right, he visited the woman at the well.
You're not missing this, I'm sure. But the bride of Christ, I mean, there's so much in Genesis that points this picture. Like, when God made Eve, what did he grab out of Adam? A rib.
Why? Because he knew. I mean, he knew that Jesus' side would be pierced, not unlike Adam's.
And out of that place flowed Jesus' blood, which is what makes you the bride, right? And so, as you begin to connect these dots in the Bible, you know, and read them for yourselves, not what Robbie tells you or what Mike tells you, but just begin to read. And the more you read, the more you become thirsty.
I've seen it with my own kids. I've seen it in many disciples that they just continue to get more thirsty. And so, it's not a surprise that, you know, blessed are those who longer thirst for righteousness. Well, where are you going to find what's right? How are you going to find what's right, Mike?
I mean, where else? Because when you talk about authority, what's the only thing, if you've been watching any media lately, is that right? Well, I doubt it. Is anything on social media that's even closer?
Well, I don't know. I mean, there's no authority there because I don't have one. But here's something that God has protected for centuries to make sure those Torah scrolls, you know, got to the point where they could be translated where no doubt, you know, as John wrote those letters and Paul and all those things, he's protected that and made it available for more people than ever. And there's never been in a time in history where you can do more Bible study. Because at our fingertips, we can look at seven translations. I can tell you what the Hebrew is. I can look up it in Greek. I can go to the Septuagint and begin to understand what that is and all sorts of things.
You know, you'd have to go to a library that was unbelievable to begin to understand these things. And it was one of the things that really made me thirsty. Of course, a lot of people know I came to Christ through the Bible. You know, I was just reading through it. And then all of a sudden, when I got to Job, and he started talking about his Leviathan and this behemoth, I clearly did not know what these were.
So I was a complete heathen car salesman that I was. I went down to the Bible bookstore there in Raleigh. And I walked up to the guy and I was like, do you have any books like that explain some of this stuff? He goes, Oh, well, you need a commentary.
And so, you know, here's his heat. And I bought a Matthew Henry commentary. But man, Matthew Henry became my best friend, because at least he, you could look at a passage and begin to see what, you know, somebody really could help you to interpret that. And I found over the years, there's places I disagree with Matthew Henry.
And I imagine there's a lot of places that Matthew Henry would disagree with me. But that's one of the beautiful things is, if you're reading it, you can see what it says. The more you read, in my view, the more you study, the more you become a Proverbs 31 woman. A lot of people think that Proverbs 31 is for a woman, and there's no doubt that it's true. But when we really think of our position, we're the bride of Christ. And so we better be getting up early. We'd better be providing for the, all that stuff is applicable for all of the bride of Christ. That's right. Yeah. I mean, as a matter of fact, we're speaking about this, I'm looking at Hebrews 4, verse 12, it says, for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. You know, I'm reminded of a story, Robbie. It was many, many years ago when I started to sell insurance and I was selling cancer insurance, and we went on one of these trips. I think we went to Chicago or something like that.
But we went there and I had a roommate. I think the guy's name was Matt or whatever, but we were sitting, I was asking him all these questions and he was explaining to me all these things that I had to do to sell insurance and this and that. He was really, really, really helpful.
And so about three or four months later, my boss, Vance Davenport, said, Mike, you're not selling a whole lot of insurance and we want to know what's going on or whatever. And so he actually spent the day with me. He watched what I was doing.
He talked to me, and I told him, I said, well, yeah, you do this and you do that. And he goes, Mike, where did you hear all this stuff from? I was like, well, remember when we went on that first trip, I was like, there was this guy named Matt and Matt was telling me all this stuff about how to sell insurance.
And Vance was like, OK, you know, Matt's not really selling any insurance. And he said something to me, I never forgot it. He said, Mike, he said, be careful who you listen to. And if you're listening to this today, there's a lot of voices that are out there that say they're preaching the Bible or they know the word of God or this.
And there's a lot of stuff out there. But I want to caution you today. Be careful who you listen to.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that is my prayer every time I get on the air that people would, you know, eat the meat, spit out the bones, whatever it is I'm saying. But more importantly, what my real prayer is, my hope is people go to the Bible and look for themselves and begin the journey themselves and work through their own way to interpret that passage.
But then keep going. There are, I don't know, maybe a thousand different passages that I would interpret completely different today than I would have 10 years ago, based on the fact that I now know things that help interpret that thing that I couldn't interpret before. Right. And so it's OK that, you know, somebody comes in all freaked out because you're interpreting this passage, whatever. It's OK, because God will teach you if that is your heart to learn the Bible. But you can clearly see for yourself that it says don't commit adultery or you can clearly see for yourself, you know, Jesus talked about hell constantly.
Right. Because, you know, when you think about being tormented, what scares me more about somebody going to hell, really, than it being hot? Then I'm sure it's hot. But can you imagine a place where... It's hot as hell.
Yeah. Where nobody, no one cares anything for you. There is no love.
Right? Can you imagine a place where there is no joy? Because in your presence is a fullness of joy.
So when you say, whoops, now you're separated from the presence of Christ. How much joy you got? Now I'm not talking about laughter. Oh, they're laughing. They're mocking the heck out of you, believe me. They're going to be laughing at your buck teeth or whatever you got.
I could appreciate that. But anyway, you know, there's going to be laughter down there, don't get me wrong. But there's not going to be any joy. Can you imagine? It's like a mocking spirit, laughter, a mocking laughter.
It is. Satan makes a cheap imitation of everything. And so you got all sorts of stuff down there, but you don't have real joy. You don't have real faith. Right?
What are you going to believe in? It'd be like working for... There's no hope.
In my opinion, it'd be like working for CNN. Yeah. Well, you know... That's opinion now.
Go to your own Bibles on that one. Well, you know, one of the things, and that's good. One of the things that I think of is a story that I've heard is like, you know, let's say, Robbie, that you have a rich uncle and your rich uncle leaves you $100 million. And what you're doing is you got to go to the bank and you have to sign the check and they're going to deposit it in your account somehow, some way. And on the way to the bank, 300 feet from the bank, your car breaks down.
What do you do? You get out of the car and start kicking the car and you look up at the sky and shake your fist at, God, God, why did you do this to me? No, you just got $100 million. You know, you buy a new car with you.
You're not going to have to worry about it. And so what I see some people do is they get the word of God, which is awesome. And instead of being joyful about the good news and about all the way that God, all the ways that God can work in their life, well, what do they look at? They look at the one or two things that they may not understand and they just focus on that. And they constantly, they're constantly focused on all the problems that they say, well, how can this be?
Or why is there suffering in the world? This and that. And it's like the old expression, you're missing, what is it? You're missing the forest for the trees.
Yeah. I, you know, for those older of us, there was a movie once made called Fiddler on the Roof about Jewish family in Russia, you know, prior to the Russian revolution. And of course you might remember some of the songs if you've, if you've listened to it and, you know, one of them is tradition, you know, and they teach a lot of stuff, but there's a song in there, which is, you know, sung in the movie by this unbelievable singer. It's called if I were a rich man, you know, he talks about, you know, how he wouldn't have to work so hard. And he talks about, he wouldn't have to do this and he wouldn't have to do that. And his wife would have servants she could yell at and all this stuff. But when he gets right down to the end of the song, there's this beautiful, and the man's clearly looking for God. I mean, he's got a prayer shawl, he's wearing the thing on his head. I mean, the man is clearly looking for God, but he says at the very end of the song, that I would spend seven hours a day studying the Torah, which is the Bible, and speaking with the learned men. And that would be the love this wine, and that would be the sweetest of all.
If I were a rich man, well, you know, what he just described takes no money. You can study the Torah, the Bible, whatever, you know, you can study that seven hours a day if you want to. You can get up two or three hours earlier, or you can go to bed six or seven hours late, whatever, whatever you want. You can make whatever time. And believe me, if you begin to enjoy the word and enjoy other people with like-minded, you know, then how sweet is it? Think about it, Mike. When we come together in here to record this show, is there anything much sweeter than being able to being able to share Jesus with one another in hopes of making fruit? And, you know, when you really think about it, isn't that available for every single disciple?
What the man from Fiddler on the Roof said, that would be the sweetest of all. That's good. You know, one of the stories that I had recently heard as well was I heard that Satan was having a yard sale one day for his demons, and the demons were all looking through this stuff, and they saw one of the things that he was selling was pride, and one of them was lust, and one of them was adultery, and one of them was greed, money, and all these different things. And the demons saw all these things, and they saw that they were all pretty reasonably priced. He said, and then there was one little thing that the demons saw, and they saw it was really, really expensive, and it was kind of old and worn out and stuff like that, and they looked at the price tag, and they said, this is really high. And the devil says, it's expensive because I use it all the time. He says, and it works. Effective. Effectively, he says, and the Christians, the Christians, he says, they don't even know this one is for me.
You know what it was? Discouragement. Discouragement. So one of the things that I've seen that may keep people from reading God's word is discouragement. If they're down all the time and just stay depressed, I'm not saying we all go through seasons or whatever, but staying depressed or whatever, that it can kind of keep you out of this word, but it's funny because even if you're depressed, especially if you're depressed, reading the word of God can give you joy, and it can kind of get you away from the discouragement. So number one, I would say is try to keep yourself out of being discouraged.
And then number two, if you are discouraged, if you are depressed, spend more time in the word of God. Yeah. When I think about this idea of being discouraged is you're lacking hope, right? You're not seeing what's in the future. And a lot of people, and I spend time thinking about hell, and we've talked about that in the beginning of the show, but one of the great places for encouragement is to study heaven.
Yes. Right? Think about how cool that is going to be and what is the hope of our salvation. And I was blessed out of my socks last week. My daughter texted me, my one that's in college in Sanford, and she said, daddy, tell me again, all the passages and stuff that's in scripture about why there's going to be pets in heaven. And, you know, just to get a neat text like that from your daughter, it's like, she's thinking about heaven.
I'm like, what's going to be there? And John Eldredge wrote a wonderful book. I couldn't recommend it enough called All Things New. And, you know, Jesus in the book of Revelation says he's going to make all things new. And we know he's going to give back what the locusts have eaten. You know, all these things that were stolen, killed, destroyed, rusted, you know, he's going to make all things new. And then when you think about what's the passage in Isaiah where it says that the lion is going to lay down with the lamb and that the little child is going to stick their hand in the asp nest and be fine. You know, there you got two interesting things. Number one, we got children in heaven, right?
Have you thought about that? And then clearly we got asps, we got lions, we, you know, we got lambs, you know, it's telling you that there's animals. Jesus is coming back on the horse, right?
Yeah. Now, now do you think, right? You're, you're a father or a mother possibly, or you want to be a father and a mother at some point in time. You got this beloved child. You got a, you got a King David for a kid that just been worshiping you all his life, right? You got this kid and he says, and in his heart, you know, he's been missing his dog major since he was, you know, six years old now.
And you're going to make all things new. Do you don't think you're going to give that child back his beloved dog? I mean, no, that's not in scripture. It doesn't say, you know, therefore I will give you back your dog. It doesn't say that.
Okay. This is some Robbie opinion, but there clearly are animals. You can't argue about that. And how could there be animals in heaven? If it's all pearly, you know, that doesn't make a lot of sense. So he says, he's going to make a new heaven and a new earth. Right.
Right. And so you don't think we're going to hang out and well, and if Jesus is coming back on a horse, right. That means there's horses in heaven. You know, there's, you know, it has to be there for, uh, for, for that to happen.
I mean, you know, and, and I actually just recently heard somebody say this last night. They said that for the non-Christian, this is as close to heaven as they'll ever get. And for the Christian, this is as close to hell as we'll ever get. But one of the things that I, one of the wonderful things that I think about heaven is just, gosh, the, the absence of all the bad stuff that's on this, no more thing about no more worry, no more death, no more, you know, having to wonder, you know, not having to trust people, you know, because somebody's got it in for you or something like that. It's just, just peace. You know, people always talk about, they want peace. There will be peace in heaven.
Yeah. And there is, by the way, peace in heaven. And, and we are seated with God in the heavenly places. And so, you know, one of my favorite exercises is I go into prayer is in Solomon's throne. You know, he had this thing almost like a Disneyland ride that picked him up and took him and put him on the throne.
So I said, well, that'd be really cool. So one of the ways that I go visit heaven myself in prayer is I have what I call Eagle one, Eagle one, and Eagle one, you know, I jump on his back literally and, and, and hug his neck and that, and go up there and hang out with God, the seven spirits of God that are at the throne, right? The big, huge thing that's pictured in the, and I anoint Jesus and I spend time in God's lap. And that's, it's part of what I do in prayer, which, you know, I want to speak to that. I found out at a Bible study that I do lately that people were misled about, you know, that I pray four hours a day. Well, when I'm trying to get connected to God, where I feel like I'm actually connected with him, that might take a half an hour before I begin to get connected.
And then I can only maintain that for maybe 10 or 15 seconds. You know, it takes me almost the full first hour to get to the point where I'm actually praying. Okay. And then I get a chance to spend actual time with Jesus and begin to listen to what I think he has to say to me.
Sure. But then what I do is say, Jesus, what are we going to go discover? I mean, where are we going in the Bible? And so one of the key things that I think people get discouraged reading the Bible is they don't realize how much God's involved and the Holy Spirit very specifically is there to teach you what this means. And so one of the best pieces of advice I ever got in my life was from Norman Vincent Peale who said, if you're going to get up and read the Bible, it's critical that you do that in prayer. So a great deal of the time that I spent actually engaged in prayer, like I'm really feel like I'm connected to God, is when I'm actually reading and studying the Bible.
So you say, well, you spent that four hours. Well, that was some time in actual prayer and that kind of stuff. But there's a whole lot of time that it's me and God working through things that he brings to me that all of a sudden I have questions. And then he takes me on adventures where I learned about Solomon's throne or learn about what Enoch's names mean.
The man that walked with God and he was taken away. If you look at his name, the definition of it in Hebrew would be according to most Christian commentators devoted. Because when you devote something like they would devote these cattle to dedicating the temple, that was that word again. So how is the word devoted and the word dedicated connected? Right? Which is a question, by the way, that I just like, that's the kind of thing I go, Jesus, how do these, how does this fit together?
Sure. That you're going to be trained up. And so he said, well, let's go look somewhere else. So we went over, we looked at the Midrash, which is a Jewish tradition on who Enoch was and what the deal was. And they're very clear that his name means educator.
They don't go with the idea of being dedicated. They say that he was very much an educator. And then what God showed me was, oh, wait a minute. If you spend that much time in the Bible devoted to the word of God, what's going to happen? You're going to be a teacher. You can't help but talk about this stuff.
Right? I mean, you're so fired up about what you just learned. You're going to share it with somebody. And so you will be an educator. So Enoch that walked with God, he showed him some amazing stuff, whatever. And because he knew this stuff, man, he shared it.
Yeah. I mean, in Revelation 22, it says, then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the land. And Robbie and I, we want you to go to heaven with us. And if you want to go to heaven, what you do is you have to trust in Christ. You have to give your life to Christ.
And if you've never done that, would you just pray with us right now? Dear Lord, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I have sinned against God and I have not done your will, Lord. I repent, which means I turn from my sins. I turn to you and I give my life to you in Jesus' name, if not for God. Yeah, if not for God. This is the Truth Network.
