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Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. If Not For God with Mike Zwick.
We have a very, very special show today. We have my friends Tiger and Elena Hebert. Tiger is a prolific writer.
He's written many books, and I'll let him tell you about some of those in a little bit, but a really good guy. They actually go out and do the work of an evangelist, him and his wife. Elena actually goes to people in Walmart, complete strangers, and just asks people if they need prayer. I've been to a baseball game with Tiger, and he has actually gone up to people who he didn't even know and just asked them if they needed prayer, and then they both share the gospel with those people.
So I know we talk a lot about on this show about sharing the gospel and telling the world about Jesus, but these folks do it on a daily, daily basis. And so to start off the show, I wanted to look up a psalm, and it's Psalm 139. It says, Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all of my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, Oh Lord, you know it all together. You have hedged me behind and before and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high.
I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say surely the darkness shall fall on me, even the night shall be light about me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day.
The darkness and the light are both alike to you. For you formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with you. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God! Depart for me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men, for they speak against you wickedly.
Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate you? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting." And Elena, we were talking just last night about knowing God, and we believe that that you could actually have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Is that right, Elena?
Yes, absolutely. I think that every day I check the news and I see more and more stuff about food shortages and new strands, not even COVID, new viruses that are coming out, and they're talking about it being 70% more deadly than COVID-19. And just, you know, I really think that what God wants to share, because I don't want to share what I want to talk about, I want to share what's on God's heart and what he wants people to know, and that we don't need to be afraid of this, because if we really know who God is, if we really truly understand the nature of God, that we will understand who we are in Christ better through that. That we need to understand that he is our protector.
And, you know, Tiger and I have talked about this for a long time. There's a difference between agreeing with the Word of God and believing the Word of God. When you agree with the Word of God, you hear these words and you say, yes, that's true.
I accept that as truth. When you believe something, that is real to you. That became into you a truth, a real understanding. And a lot of times it comes through experience, but sometimes it's by reading the Word of God and getting it into you that you've truly come to believe that word. And that's when you start seeing healing. And that's when you start seeing the miracles that Jesus talked about us doing and even greater than we'll do than he did.
So it's about the difference there. I mean, I think that a lot of times in my own life, I have agreed with the Word of God. In my mind, I've said that this is true, but it hasn't transformed to the point where I'm truly believing it in my heart. And when I was talking to you the other night, God was reminding me that there's some things that I've been double-minded about. And that's where you are believing God, you're standing on the Word, you're agreeing with the Word of God, but you're also dealing with the fear, you're dealing with doubt and unbelief.
And that's what a lot of Christians especially are dealing with now with this whole virus and food shortages. They're just wavering back and forth between fear and faith, and fear and faith. And one is going to win. They can't coincide together.
One is going to win. And it's kind of a torment being double-minded. I mean, the Word of God talks about a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways.
It's not just that one thing you're struggling with, it filters into your whole life. And so James 1-8 talks about that. And so I had to actually, the Lord brought it to my attention that I was double-minded in a few things, and I needed to take that to the Lord and just confess the truth of who He is. Because He was letting me know that when I come to really understand who He is, that's when I can understand who I am. And that's when it becomes true, and when you stand on God, you know, or who He is. And so I think I've heard a lot of people say, oh, you know, all these things about God, and there's a whole bunch of things in Scripture that talk about who He is. But He actually will make it personal to you when you ask Him, Lord, I want to know You, and, you know, please reveal to yourself who You are, who do you want to be to me that you haven't been before, or who are, you know, just the ways of God, and is there something you want to chime in? Oh, okay. Sorry, we're kind of doing this together, and I don't want to, you know, not let him talk.
You're good, you're good. No, yeah, I mean, it's true, you know, I was actually looking up something, I think it was last night or this morning, but Tiger and I, we were talking about this last night, about, you know, is God still the same yesterday, today, and forever? It says in Malachi chapter 3, verse 6, it says, For I am the Lord, I change not.
Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. And so when I thought about this, I said, well, let me think of some examples, and I actually popped into my mind today, it was Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson actually rewrote the Bible, and what he did was he actually took all of the miracles that were in the Bible, and he omitted them. He took all of the parts where Jesus said that he was divine, he took them out, where Jesus walked on water, everything else he said, but what he did was he tried to keep the moral teachings that were in the Bible.
And so I said, man, that's terrible, and we know that's wrong, but it's interesting, I guess in one sense, at least Thomas Jefferson was consistent, because, you know, it says in Revelation 3, 15 through 16, he says, I know your works that you're neither hot nor cold, he says, but because you are lukewarm, he says, I will spew you or vomit you out of my mouth. And so Thomas Jefferson, what he said was, okay, 1800 years ago, when he was alive, none of the miracles happened. Jesus was not divine, and he said none of the miracles happened today. But there are some Christians out there who say, yes, all this stuff happened. Jesus walked on water, he healed the sick, he healed the blind, he rose from the grave, he did all of that stuff, but today, for some reason, he doesn't do any of that stuff. And I think, Tiger, what we were talking about last night was that that doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense.
No, it really doesn't. And there's a couple different ways that you can look at this through Scripture. The first is to anybody who comes to me and says that that's first-century stuff, I would just ask them, where did you learn that in Scripture? Because it doesn't discuss that in Scripture. As you mentioned in Malachi, it says that the Lord does not change. And here's the thing, we also have to understand, there's been multiple covenants that are spoken about through Scripture, but if you look at, I believe it's Hebrews 7-22, it tells us this makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The New Testament talks all about the new covenant that we have entered into because of the blood of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice, and it is a better covenant. It is superior to even the great covenant that God established with Abraham, and that was an amazing covenant. So if he was establishing a better covenant for us, when did that covenant end? When did God's blood covenant end for those of us who are in Jesus Christ?
The answer is it hasn't. It's an eternal covenant established with God, because any covenant established by the spilling of blood is a permanent, it's an eternal covenant. And he didn't give us a better covenant to give us less of the kingdom of God, to give us less of himself. Scripture, Jesus himself told us that we would go on to do what he has done and greater works. He didn't say greater works for a century. He said you will go on to do greater works. Jesus even laments in Scripture, and he says, you will come to me saying, Lord, Lord, we have done all of these things in your names, we have healed, we have cast out demons, all these many things.
And he said, I will say, depart from me, for I never knew you. Well, Jesus wouldn't say that we would come and say these things to him if they weren't something that we would be empowered to do. And those are even people who aren't in love with Jesus. Those are people who don't have that intimate relationship with him. They might have that head knowledge that Elena was talking about. But are they going in the secret place? Are they building that intimate relationship? Are they fellowshipping with him?
They might have, they might have an understanding of who Jesus is, and they might love the idea of Jesus, but are they communing with Jesus? And the truth is, when you stand, like I was talking about being double minded, where you're on that fence, because a lot of people say, well, I'm on the fence about this, and I'm on the fence about that. Well, there is no fence with God. You're either all in or you're not. And I was telling you about that joke where the guy was on the fence, and he was saying, I just don't know, Lord, I don't know, I have one foot on your side and one foot on the natural side. And Satan said, Oh, well, the fence is mine. So it's either you're all in or you're not. And that's where that Scripture talks about where you said, I'd rather you be hot or cold, but lukewarm, I spit you out of my mouth. And so a lot of the people in the body of Christ, I've been seeing this, and God would rather you stand cold, completely cold, than to stand on the fence or be on the fence, half him, half the world. And so we need to make a choice with what side we're going to be on, because the fence just isn't going to work.
It can't work anymore. There's no power in that. You will not see the things of God. You will not stand in the power of what the Word says that we should do.
Believers lay hands on the stick and they shall recover and you shall raise the dead. You won't see that if you're on the fence. You have to be all in or you have to be all out. It's just it's either it's one or the other.
There's no middle ground there. Yeah. And this is not just something that is theoretical. I mean, this is not something that, hey, this sounds good, and yeah, we believe that people get healed, and we believe that for signs and wonders and that demons can still be cast out. I mean, this is stuff that you guys have seen, right? Absolutely.
Absolutely. We have three beautiful children right now, and if it were not for the Word of God and the goodness of God, I don't know that we would have any three of them now, because there have been things that have come against them to try to take their lives at different ages, especially when they were a lot younger, and the Word of God has been the only thing that we've been able to stand on, and I know Elena's had to deal with that for her own health as well, and we have chosen to stand on the Word of God, and we're certainly not perfect people. We're learning all the time, but what we've learned is the things that God said, he hasn't changed his mind about. We have to just stand on it in faith and not waver, because when we waver, we null and void what he said, because faith has to be operating to please God.
You cannot have the things of God if you're not in faith, and when you have fear come in, it's going to vie for the faith. One of the two is going to win, because you can't coexist together, so it's either one or the other, and when we confess, you know, Lord, I've been double-minded, and you go to him and you just say, I'm going to believe your word no matter what it looks like, no matter what this world, what's happening and the crazy stuff that's taking place, I'm going to trust my provider, because in your word it says that you will provide for me. So again, going back to the things of God, who he is, when you really, really know who he is, you can trust that what he says is true. It's just like if I were to tell you who your wife is, but I don't know her well. You do.
You would say, well, no, that's not true about her, because you know her. So when you know God, you will stand for the things that he is. You won't worry about these things that are happening right now, the uncertainties that we're living in right now, because you know he's going to take care of you, you know your Father, and to know him is to really, truly know who you are in Christ. You've got to know him first, and that's what he was letting me know this past week. Knowing who he is and standing on that and being firm in that will allow me to know who I am in Christ at that point. The one can't go before the other. The deeper root is knowing our Father in heaven, knowing who he is and his character.
That's right. Go ahead. Mike, we were talking the other day about this whole process of knowing God for ourselves, and not just, you know, like I teach my children all the time while they're still young, they cannot have a relationship with God based on my relationship with God. They have to build that relationship for themselves. They have to not only read the Word, but they have to take out time to say, God, I am here. I'm here for you. Is there something you want to share with me? Is there some scripture you want me to read?
Building that relationship with him, seeking him. Scripture is all about seeking, and you know, the other night we were actually talking about the Faith chapter, the famous Faith chapter, Hebrews 11, and it talks about faith, and we were actually specifically talking about verse 6, and I'm going to read it real quick, because there's something that I saw after we had talked the other day that I thought was really interesting. So in Hebrews 6, most people know the first part of this chapter, but in 6 it says, and without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. And so basically, if you're reading in 11, it talks about what faith is, it gives a bunch of examples of great people of faith throughout history, and it talks about drawing near to him and pleasing him. But what most people don't do is they don't take the time to go read the chapter before. And if you read in Hebrews 11, it's talking about people shrinking back instead of drawing near.
It shows the other side, the flip side of the coin. And it's that whole, you're either all in or you're out, you're either drawing near to God or you're shrinking back. And it says, and if I could read this real quick, in Hebrews 10, verses 37 and 38, it says, "...yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him."
Wow. So I mean, think about what the Lord's saying. Like, he's saying, you need to pursue me. You need to draw near to me. I'm not going to get that if I'm just reading my Bible study once a week or my devotional and maybe going to church. I have to be intentional in my day-to-day life seeking God.
And that looks different for each person, but it's intentional and it's a lifestyle. You know, you can liken it to a marriage. I can't just spend time with my husband once a week and expect that our relationship's going to be strong if I give him one hour of my time. You know, that's not going to work. We're not going to develop a strong relationship. We're not going to really be going through life together. We're not going to be doing life together.
And so it's the same thing, you know. To build a relationship, you've got to take that time. You've got to know each other and spend time, and it's the same with the Lord.
You know, he wants that intimate relationship with us. The more you spend time with him, the more you know his voice, and the more comfort he is, and the quicker you're going to hear it. You're going to hear it more, and you're going to get that direction that you need, that we all so desperately need.
You'll hear him. If you spend time with him, you'll know his voice, and you will understand what to do and what he's telling us to do, you know, for each individual person as we go through these times, because these times are way different than when I was a child. I mean, we're living in times where things are really rapidly changing, and it can be very terrifying if you do not know who you, if you do not, you know, belong to the Lord. It can be absolutely terrifying to live in these times right now, but God wants us to walk in peace.
It can, and I agree. I think you, Eleni, you said you grew up Catholic, is that right? Yeah. And you had an experience? I just, I, well, I felt called as a teenager to the Lord. I didn't know what kind, what way. I just felt like he was drawing me, and I didn't know him, and I served in the church as a Eucharistic minister.
I was actually the youngest one in our church to serve, and one day I was just cleaning up after church, and I didn't even ask for anything. The Lord just opened my eyes, and I just, it just didn't feel right. It didn't feel like I belonged there. I didn't know, I just, I didn't feel the life of the, I didn't, it didn't feel alive. It didn't feel like the life of God was there, and I just, I knew that I needed that, and so he had opened my eyes.
I didn't do anything, and he just let me know that that just wasn't it. That wasn't the way he was calling me, and so I had left the church, and the Lord led me into where I needed to be, and I was able to grow, and actually early on in my walk, I think I was only a few months into my faith when this happened. I was in college, and I was failing a class, and I was a really good student, and so for me to fail was very unusual, and this was an elective that I needed to have for my degree, so I couldn't just trash it.
I had to get through it, and so I was thinking about withdrawing, and it was really past the point where I could get my money back, and these kind of things, so I was going to take the hit. The Lord told me not to do that. He said to stand and trust him, to stand firm and believe him, and I went to the dean, and the guy was basically saying, I didn't even say anything about God or nothing. I just was talking about withdrawing in the process, and he said, I talked about possibly not withdrawing, and he said, you better stop waiting for a miracle, and you better just get your, you know, tail out of that class so that you don't fail, and I just could see behind him just that the enemy was working and trying to discourage me from believing God, so I said, okay, thank you for your time.
I could recognize it. I stood strong. I worked my tail off doing everything I could. I believed God. I stood on his word.
Everything looked horrible. I mean, I literally had an F, and so I talked to the teacher, and she said, you better study hard, so I did. I did what I could. I only needed a C-.
That's all I needed. That's all I wanted God to give me, honestly, just to pass it. When it was all said and done, God gave me a B-, because I stood on his word.
I don't even know how he did it. Like, seriously, he took me from an F to a B- in literally, like, three weeks, so it was a miracle. It was my first time at standing on the word against everything that would have looked like was failure. I stood on what he said, and he did even better than what I asked him for, so, but, you know, these things that we go through, these experiences, they gear you more for the bigger yes. You grow in your faith. You know, your standing on faith will get stronger and stronger. It'll be bigger as you grow, but that's just like muscles. You have to develop them to grow them.
They have to be strengthened. That's right, and that's really good. Oh, go ahead, Mike. Go ahead.
Sorry. I was gonna say, that's really good, Elena. I was looking forward to that story from last night you told me you're gonna tell, but Tiger, I remember when you were growing up, you were not a Christian, and you told me a story one time about when you were playing football. Yeah, and I'll try to give you the short version, because I know time's going quickly here, but I grew up in a home that was not Christian.
I actually was mostly raised by my grandfather, and he had a real problem with the church and Christians, and I was taught nothing but bad things about Christians, the hypocrisy, and just don't trust them and everything, so I was very jaded, and I was actually, I was a professed atheist by the time I was in high school. I was very proud of that, and I had a very rough home life, very turbulent, not a good situation, and, you know, when people would try to talk about God, I didn't want anything to do with it, and I played football all my life growing up, all through high school, and we were in my last game of my senior year. It was a game right before the state championship, and we were down by one score, and football was absolutely my passion, and I remember, you know, thinking as the game's going on, like, we need the ball one more time. If we score, we can win, and we can go to the state championship, and that was like the biggest thing in our life, and I remember, like, the very next play, the other team fumbled the ball. My friend jumped on the ball. He recovered it, and as I was walking off the field, I looked up to the heavens. I put my hands together in a traditional prayer, and I said, thank you. I don't know who I was thanking, and here's the great thing about that.
In that split second, the photojournalist who was covering our high school football game snapped the photo. I had no idea until Monday when the newspaper came out, and we were front page, and the headline said, Tiger, Hebert, or Hebert seeking divine intervention, and I was so mad the first time I was ever on the front page of the newspaper, and it was for seeking divine intervention, and so all the kids at school are like, oh man, I thought you weren't into that stuff. I'm like, get out of here, get out of here. So you know, I wasn't trying to hear it then, but the Lord was speaking prophetically, and I'm just so glad that He did exactly what He said He was going to do, and you know, for me, I didn't grow up in the church. I didn't grow up with a godly man or woman to teach me. I've had to seek the Lord to know who He is.
I've had to do it for myself, and that's what we've done. We've just tried to be really intentional, because we can read through all the great names of God, all the Jehovahistic names, and all the awesome things He's done, but until we experience it, it's just not real to us, and that's the whole thing. That's it, man, you know, and I'm just thinking we've got about a minute and a half left, but you know, I've heard that up to 40 percent of the people who listen to the station are not Christians, and maybe some of them are listening, you know, just to make fun or whatever, but I do believe that just like you, when you were in that situation, and you prayed, and when you were in the military, and we can talk about that another time, but where a guy came up to you and kept telling you about Jesus, that if somebody's listening today, they're listening for a reason, and so with one minute left, Tiger, what would you say to those folks? God loves you so much, and I know that that might sound strange, and you might think about all the things that come with Christianity.
Just set that all aside for a second. Think the God of the universe loves you. He has a plan for you. He's known you since before you were formed in your mother's womb. He has a plan for your life, and it's not for the stuff that you've experienced. It is for good. It is not for evil.
It is to give you an expected end. He loves you, but you have to be willing to come to Him. You have to be willing to know Him. You have to be willing to build a relationship with Him, and the things He has in store for your life will blow your mind, and it will exceed everything in your life right now.
Whatever is in your life that you think that you love that is great, it will exceed every single one of them because He loves you so much. Amen, and Tiger Abare and Alaina, thank you guys so much for coming on. We love you, and we hope to talk to you again soon, if not for God. Thank you for having us.
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