You Will Find Refuge

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

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PRCUALife, protecting life through all its stages. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Well, If Not For God with Mike Zwick today, and we have a very special guest with us today. We have Pastor Steve Goode.

He is from Northside Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. And Pastor Steve and I, we met at a Love Life Walk where we go over in Greensboro and we pray for mothers who are about to have abortions. And so I got to talk to Steve.

He invited me over to his church to speak. And Steve and I were talking, and Robbie Dilmore, who's also here, we had just interviewed Dr. Michael Youssef. And it was interesting because I was looking at another book by Dr. Michael Youssef.

It was called The Third Jihad. I guess it was kind of a warning, not only for America, but also worldwide. But Steve, what did you think of the book?

Oh, wow. What I think that Michael was trying to do in his book, though, was get us just to open our eyes. And here's what we have right now. We have many ill-informed Christians. I mean, they think they understand their Bible. They think they understand their doctrine and who they are. And so they're making naive comments. Many times you'll hear naive comments going, oh, you know what? We have a lot in common with Islam. Oh, we have a whole, we have so many things in common. Well, we don't.

We don't. And I think what Michael really made clear is that this isn't new. This isn't a new issue or anything else. But he goes and I love the way that he actually goes to history. And he explains to us that from the from the beginning of our America, the both the Christian perspective, the Christian religion and Islam have been at odds with one another. They have they've been in complete odds with one another, going all the way back to us giving tribute to Islamic nations just for peace. You know, in other words, appeasement, the policy of appeasement that goes all the way back to John Adams, of all people.

So this this is nothing new. So I think Michael really makes it clear. And it takes us to where we are now.

And he shows us we're in. You don't understand when we talk about the fact that the religion of Islam is not about living in in peace, living at peace living at peace side by side with us. And I know this even living at the shadow of Islamic school, that that's not how I'm viewed by by their the their imam. That's not how he looks at me, even though he knows I'm a pastor. But that there is a subservience that they want us to have. They want us to be to kind of bow and cater to them.

And they don't understand the God that we serve is not the God of Islam, the God of Islam. And so I believe the Christians right now are really confused in the church to say this, because it just shows something. And I just did a sermon this past week or a message.

You can listen to it if you want to get some extra sleep this week. But in it, I made the point of saying, hey, guys, look, you better be ready. You better understand what your Bible says, because if you don't, you will be confused.

Nothing. Michael really goes into this. It brings me to Second Timothy three, 15 and 16, where it says, I think it clearly teaches us that that all scripture is is given to us by God. And if I could paraphrase it, all scripture is given by God and is profitable for us to use in all different kinds of ways. But it is the God-breathed inspired word of God. And so the Bible that we have here is inspired by God. And it is our truth. It is our truth. And it is where we drive everything that we know. If we don't understand that, we're not reading it every day and we're not ready to give an answer to that, give that answer. We will be so confused and we'll begin to make comments that try to place us alongside in a cooperative relationship with a religion that is totally against us.

Yeah. And one of the things that, uh, that I heard the other day was that, um, was actually Philippians three, verse 10. But, um, people say that, Lord, I just want to know you, Lord, I just want to know you. And when you look at Philippians three, 10, it says that I may know him and we go, amen. And the power of his resurrection, amen. And the fellowship of his sufferings may not want to say amen to that, uh, being conformed to his death.

If by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. And I think for so long in America, we go to church and they talk about how God wants to bless us. And I believe he does and, and how he wants to prosper us and how, if you follow Jesus, it's going to make your life better, but really throughout the world, if you look at a lot of the churches that are growing and going back to the third, I mean, one of the churches that's growing the most, probably maybe the most in the world is the church in Iran. Well, there is heavy, heavy persecution in Iran.

One of the churches that is growing is the church in, uh, in China, heavy persecution in China. Um, and so for so long, just because we haven't seen that in America, I think in many ways we may not be prepared, but if you look at many parts of the Bible, including, you know, if you look at Hebrews chapter 11, you go there Hebrews 11, 17, it says by faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said, and Isaac, your seed shall be called, concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. And in other parts of Hebrews 11, it says people were sawn in two.

They were torn in pieces. People were burned alive for, for Christianity's sake. And, and so we've been taught about one side, the love of God, which is awesome. And I love the love of God and stuff like that. But Jesus also said, if they did this to me, he said, how much more are they going to do to you?

And so just because we haven't seen it yet, I do believe that we need to be prepared for this as, as pastors, as teachers, whether we're on the radio or in our small groups or whatever it is, we don't need to ignore this because I do believe that the writing is on the wall where things could get tough for us here in America. And, and, and we were just talking and it was showing Robbie as well, pastor Chad Harvey over at Cross Assembly in Raleigh, um, for 20 years, they had always done this, uh, Royal Camp Kids or something like that. And so recently they, I mean, they had helped foster kids out. They had helped all these kids in the community and all of a sudden they get a, uh, they get an email from Wake County and they say, we're no longer going to do business with you because you don't support, you don't support a woman's right to choose what she wants to do with her own body. So in other words, you don't support the right for a woman to kill her own baby, or you don't support the marriage equality as they call it. So, you know, the words for, for 2000 years, we believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And I like what pastor Chad said. He said in 2008, uh, when Barack Obama was running for president, he believed that marriage was between a man and a woman, but now, because they don't believe that they're no longer going to be supported by Wake County. So the writing is on the wall. Um, and you said, well, is that persecution?

Well, that's not persecution, but that's the beginning of it. Well, we were, um, in fact, we, we spoke about something, uh, earlier we're texting about one particular issue. And what this goes back to, I think it was, um, 2019 when the movie, uh, released, remember the land? Yeah.

Unplanned released. And, and we watched as, as you had major networks, Christian networks, refusing, refusing to give it, uh, advertisement time. And it was all based around, uh, gut following the culture and not the Bible. Right. They said, because it was too political.

So it's now political to save a child's life who hasn't been born. Yes. Um, and you know, and, you know, and, and so, and it was disappointing, but at the same time, it also says in the, in the last days, there's going to be a great falling away.

Uh, something else too. And, uh, I, we, we have to stop teaching our, our people that are listening to our discipleship that, Hey, you're not, you know, the Christian life is so easy, right? It's so full of, you know, don't worry about the obstacles you'll have.

It's, it's, it's just an easy life. Um, and I go to Peter's words, uh, Peter spoke of this, even, uh, if, if anyone knew suffering was Peter, who even at the end of his, uh, serving Christ, his whole life and committing his life to Christ, he ends up being crucified and even feeling unworthy to be crucified in the way of a savior or to be crucified upside down. That's right. Um, and we see where he wrote this in first Peter chapter four, first 12, do not think it's strange concerning the fiery trials, which is to try you as though some strange things happening to you, but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ suffering, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. And if I'm not mistaken, he just didn't talk about the blessing we're going to receive, but he's, he's saying here, you know what, sometimes we need to see the blessings in our suffering. We need to understand he's, he's taken us down these roads, but, but to suffer for Christ's sake, we see example after example of how those in the Bible are suffering for Christ's sake. So this isn't something I don't think we should be naive enough to believe that we won't receive, or we're not going to be a part of suffering here. If we're, if we serve God and we, we have, uh, we take the approach to say, uh, John 14, Hey, you know, where Jesus says, I am the way I'm the truth.

No, no, man's coming to the phone. If we're going to say that it means that there are those that are going to misrepresent us to say that we're, that we're being bigots, we're being narrow-minded all of these things, but they're going to misrepresent us because that we have an exclusive truth that begins with the person who created us. That's right. And I heard a story, um, about silver, how they, uh, how they refined silver. And I'm not sure if you know about this, but what they do is they take the silver and they put it in the fire and they, what they do is they burn out all of the impurities. So there was a lady who was watching this guy do this one day and he said, if I burn it for just a little too long, it'll ruin the whole silver. So she said, well, how do you know when the silver is ready? He said, I know the silver is ready. When I look at the silver and I see my own image in the silver and in the same way, I guess it's in our own lives that how do we know when we've been refined is when God can look at us and he sees his own son in us. Yes.

Yeah. And it's, I believe that we've, we take that for granted. We take that piece of our, our Christian walk for granted, but that, that refinement process hurts that actually this is not going to be an easy process in that, that we'll have that suffering.

I mean, if the fact that we are able to go through suffering in a way that actually brings glory to God is kind of the remarkable thing. And that's part of being a believer. First Thessalonians chapter four is probably one of the most common scriptures used at funerals of those who are believers, genuine believers. If they're there, if you've, if you haven't heard it at a funeral, it's been, it's very rare. But they always speak to the fact that we we are going to go through suffering.

We're going to have those things in our life, but we can comfort one another with those words. So that's just a piece of kind of a piece of our journey. Yeah. And, and since the beginning of Christianity, 2000 years ago, there have been approximately 70 million Christians who have been killed in the last century, the 20th century, 45 million Christians were killed. It was interesting out of, out of the 45 million Christians who were killed, 31 million were killed by atheists.

9 million were killed by Muslims. Yes. And so it's interesting. You see these, you see the, I don't see them as much, but you would see these bumper stickers that say coexist coexist. And I think that means to coexist for everyone, excluding the evangelical Christians.

Yes. Well, and that, that's the, that's the confusing part of this, for many Christians, something that Michael spoke of in his book was, and I may mispronounce it correctly. You can correct me, but I think it's called a dawa dawa. But the idea behind the dawa, which is that we will be, it's, it's not going to be a frontal assault that we will be persecuted from because under, under the religion of Islam, there is, there is no other way.

There is no other way. There is no good other, there's no other God, anything in the religion, but under, under dawa, it's, they're going to come in through the back door and little by little, they're going to remove, or they're going to put this stigma on all of the things that apply to Christians. They're going to cause they're going to stir this, this vitriol, this hatred toward Christians and tried trying to make us paint us as exclusive while doing it very, very methodically. And we see they, they use politics, they use political positions. They'll, they will use everything possible to begin to, to re redefine what Christianity is.

Yeah. And in first Peter three 14, but, and if he suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. And so when I see that, I think about the story I heard of, there was this couple who bought a parrot and the whole time after they bought the parrot, the parrot kept screaming. It was cursing and it was the carrot. The parrot just would not behave at all.

It was just awful, awful, awful. So finally one day the, the wife, uh, took the care, took the parrot and put it in the freezer and the parrot still was yapping away, yapping away. All of a sudden the parrot got completely quiet and completely still.

And, uh, so the lady was like, what is going on here? She took the parrot. The parrot got out, took the parrot, sat it down. The parrot was completely quiet. And the lady said to the parrot, she said, parrot, what is, uh, what, what is going on? Why, why did you just get quiet all of a sudden? And the parrot said, I've got one question for you. What did the chicken do? So, so in the same way, one of the, I want to encourage Christians right now to, to, to think about this because yeah, there may be tough times coming, but that parrot is eventually going to shut up.

I mean, that parrot is not going to last forever. We know the end of what happens to the devil, especially if you look into Isaiah 14 says that people are going to look on him and it says, are you going to be the one who, uh, who, who led the whole world astray. In addition to that, the people who are listening, who may be persecuting Christians, and the people who may be making fun of Christians or may, may plan on killing her, whatever it is, I want to warn you and admonish you as well, that there is going to come a day of reckoning.

Yeah. And, uh, the one thing I can, I want to lead Christians toward too, also is this, a lot of what we're talking about right now has to do with you opening your Bible. I just put a sign, um, I just put a new message on our, our sign at the church and it basically said, Hey, when's the last time you opened up your Bible, right? You know, when's the last time you've opened up your Bible, be one of those Christians that begin to be more and more ready to give an answer to what you believe.

That doesn't mean that you like, have just little sporadic times in your life, but become one of those consistent followers of Christ. And to do that means you gotta be in your word every single day. Uh, you have to, I mean, literally, and let me give you a practical application. A lot of times, you know, we may say to do something and don't tell you how. Start simple. You may be listening and go and thinking, you know, where'd I even start?

Why don't you start with proverbs, start reading a proverb. You know, I always kid about proverb a day, keep sin away. I don't know.

Maybe it does. Yeah. Uh, but it may give you some wisdom you don't have.

Yeah. I had a, I had a friend of mine who was actually killed by a drunk driver, a car wreck, and probably six months before she died, she actually gave me a Bible and the Bible said on the front of it, it said that sin will keep you away from this book. This book will actually keep you away from sin. But Robbie, I wanted to give you a chance. You had just gotten back from the NRB.

Was there anything that you heard there that might relate? One is that I think one of the traps is to think that it's us versus them, right? Because I've got as much sin in my life as, as, as, as many, but if, but Jesus brought me out of that and I couldn't agree more that the secret is in the word, but the motivation to get into the word is like, you're falling in love with your, you know, that girlfriend over the dinner table. Like, man, here's your opportunity to come to know God every single chance you get.

But here's the deal. The more you study, the more you realize that Jesus is the word and the word is Jesus. And so as we get an opportunity to ingest that in any way, shape or form, God's got a lot of stuff that's going to happen. But the beautiful part of the word mercy, if you really study it in Hebrew is that it is the fount of living water. In other words, this water is alive. And as you begin to read it and ingest it, see, Jesus is the word and the word is Jesus. And Oh, by the way, Jesus is a living water and the living water is Jesus. And so as you take this living water into yourself, however you go about doing that in your life, then it flows out of you so that when whatever persecution comes, you'll be like with the woman at the well, you'll be, you'll be pouring out water, right?

That will bring life to that poor person that is so deceived in Islam or so deceived in atheism or so deceived wherever they are. I couldn't agree with the pastor more as you begin to ingest this stuff, man, it comes, it is full of life and it comes to life inside of you. And I love to watch you guys. I always love to do your show, Mike, because I can watch the spark inside of you catch on fire.

I can see the spark catching on fire inside of Steve, um, pastor Steve, like, man, that stuff gets in you. And then it comes to life and it'll come to life, you know, at the point in time, Jesus calls your name. And so I think it's an absolutely beautiful, beautiful opportunity that we have in this day that got for such a time as this, right?

For such a time as this. And, uh, you know, when you said that Robbie, I was kind of reminded of, uh, what I heard somebody say one time, they said, you know, they said, if I go for a while without eating, if I go several hours or a day or day, whatever they say, I'm not going to eat because I feel like I have to eat, I'm going to eat because I'm hungry. And if you're filled with the Holy spirit, you're not going to read the word of God because you feel like you have to read the word of God. You're going to read the word of God because you're hungry for the word of God. Uh, yeah, there's, um, this, if I could share a story with you, this is from, uh, uh, a man named Roy Harris. And, and, and by the way, I think this goes to, by the way, be sure that, uh, you're reading it every day, reading the word every day and ingesting it because at some point in time, this, this will come into play.

You're not guaranteed tomorrow. Yeah. Uh, in fact, growing up, I used to had to read the book of James every time I talked back to my mother. So by the time I was 14, Charles Stanley had nothing on me and James.

Okay. I knew, I knew the book pretty well, but in it, it talks about how, you know, your life's a vapor. Well, Roy, uh, we used to go take care of him. My wife and I used to go to his house, uh, every day, just about. And, uh, he was an Alzheimer's patient and he lived in his home with his wife and we just had to go help him do basic needs things. We go to his house.

Roy could not remember anything. He never would know us when we got there. He was already really drifting and he was, he was really, his mind was far away, but do you know that every time I walked into his house now, here's the, here's where you can learn about Roy. I would go, Hey, Roy, Roy, would you, would you tell me about Psalm 91? And he would look at me in this clarity would come about his face. There's just this clarity, this clearness. Yeah.

And he would start going. He who dwells in the secret place at the most high. Yes. We'll rest in the shadow of the almighty.

Yeah. And he would finish it to the end. It never left him.

And you know why? Because it was a part of his life every single day. It was a passion.

He had to be fed by the word of God every day. And that right there for Christians right now, the biggest protection you can have in your life in, in the sustenance that you get from the word of God is where you're going to be able to make it day by day and to thrive. Even when you suffer, even when you suffer and a pastor, Steve, you wrote a book, Steve good, it's G O O D E and the name of the book is marriage triage.

You could pick it up on Amazon. Is that right? If your marriage is really in trouble, then you, you want to, you want to take a look at that book, or you want to pick it up.

And it's, it just gives really a real practical application of, of what that, what that really works like and what it looks like and what it entails. And then pastor Steve, I'm, I'm so glad that you were able to come here today. We hope to have you back again soon, but finish up. We'll, we'll look at Psalm 91. Whoever dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God and whom I trust. Surely he will save you from the Fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence, he will cover you with his feathers and under his wings, you will find refuge.

His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by a day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, 10,000 at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you say, the Lord is my refuge, which you were talking about Robbie, and you make the most high your dwelling, no harm will overtake you. No disaster will come near your tent for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

They will lift up, lift you up in your hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the cobra. You will trample the great lion and the serpent because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him. I will protect him for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me and I will answer him and I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life, I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. Robbie, thanks for helping us out. And Pastor Steve Goode from Northside Baptist Church over in Greensboro, check it out and check out his book, Marriage Triage. It was a really good book.

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