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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. 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.
So, Mike, what you got for us? Today I've got Romans chapter 4. I said, I believe that the Lord has brought me to the book of Romans, Robbie, for a very, very good reason. And starting in Romans 4, it says, What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. But what does the scripture say?
Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him, who justifies the ungodly his faith, is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. And Robbie, when I see that, I realize that all of my works, everything that I could ever do that would get me into heaven really means nothing at the end of the day. I think it has to do with the idea of gift, you know. Like, yeah, that's a hard thing to grasp.
Gift, we're coming up on Christmas. Yeah, it is, and we're actually really close to, well, depending on when this airs, real close to Thanksgiving as well. And so it's kind of neat that the word, you know, the first place thanksgiving shows up in the Bible.
Where's that? When Leah has Judah, in fact, she names him praise, but actually the word would be better translated perhaps thanks. So the first Thanksgiving was when Judah himself was born, pretty good reason to be thankful.
Yeah, yeah. And so it's very much connected to that whole, like, gift idea. And so that's why, as you talked about in the last episode we did, you know, this was so impactful to Martin Luther because he was in a church at the time where he felt like works was what everybody was doing in order to, you know, get their way to heaven. Yeah, I actually watched, my kids, we watched a cartoon this morning about Martin Luther.
So it's funny that you brought him up. But, you know, I actually heard, I think, I believe it was a true story. The people had told the Pope, they said, hey, you need to stop this guy, Martin Luther. And the Pope said, no, he's probably just drunk.
So supposedly he drank a lot. But, but I guess Martin Luther understood something that a lot of us may not understand. And, you know, I've seen this, I think, with Christians who I would say have lived what we would think of as a moral life.
You know, they don't curse, they don't drink, they don't smoke, they don't go with women or men who do. And, you know, and so you can kind of get caught up in your own righteousness. But I think on the other hand, you know, when I look at somebody who, when I think about grace, I think about Peter. I mean, Peter, he was out there fishing when Jesus first saw him. And Jesus says, hey, put your net on the other side of the boat.
And he did it. And then when this happened, Peter realized that it was a miracle, that there was something going on. And he said, Lord, he says, get away from me, I'm a sinful man. But it was interesting when Peter said that to Jesus, Jesus says, no, he says, come follow me.
And I'll make you fishers of men. And I was thinking about something in the life of Peter. I mean, Peter did a lot of great things.
He also messed up a whole lot too. You know, one of the things that I think of is when Peter denied Christ and when Jesus told Peter, he said, you're going to deny me three times before the night is done. But then when Jesus rose from the grave a little while later, one of the first people that I think he looked for was Peter. And, you know, another time when Peter, I think he lost his job, he denied Jesus, the government wants him dead. And then a few weeks later, he gives a five minute sermon. And in the book of Acts, he gives a five minute sermon and immediately after that, 3000 people were saved. And the cool thing about that sermon is we know there was no smoke, there was no lights, there was no rock band. But I believe that Jesus did all of that for Peter, because Peter, part of the reason is because he was humble. And he knew that there was no goodness in him, there was nothing special about him. It was just, it was just that he was called by the Lord.
And I'm sure you've heard this before, Robbie, but we've often heard that, you know, God doesn't call the equipped, but he equips the called and you've seen that too. Yeah, you just think, the more I have thought about what that idea of self-righteousness is man, what an affront to Jesus. I mean, that is a horrible word.
I mean, it's a horrible word because you can't, you absolutely can't do it. And unfortunately, you know, there's a lot of folks out there that really don't see their need for Christ because they think that they have stuff, well, I'm good, I'm good. You know, I've done a lot of good things. So I know I'm, you know, when you take the balance and I'm going to find on the balance of goodness, not on the balance of badness, and it doesn't work that way, even in, you know, remotest that at some point in time, you know, to be convicted of your sin is to be overwhelmed at how much you need forgiveness in order to be righteous for God.
Yeah. I mean, I, you know, one of the, one of the stories that I think about is in, is in Luke 17 and, and this, this really kind of gets to the self-righteous person and the self-righteous person really has to look at this and say, man, there's, there's something in here that, that I, that I need to do and whatever, but you know, Luke 17 and verse seven, it says, suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, come along now and sit down to eat. Won't he rather say, prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink.
After that, you may eat and drink. Will he thank the servant because he did what, what he was told to do. So you also, when you have done everything that you were told to do, should say, we are unworthy servants.
We have only done our duty. And then the other part in Luke, Luke 18, uh, where, where Jesus said there were two men who went up to the synagogue one Sunday and he said, you know, one of the men was sitting there and he said, Lord, I thank you that I'm not like this other man. He says, I give 10% of my money. I don't commit adultery. I tithe.
I do all these great things, Lord. And the second guy came in there and he said, God have mercy on me, a sinner. And Jesus said that the second guy went away justified rather than the first. And you know, since we're talking about the Christmas season, really what Jesus has done by dying on the cross and rising from the grave and then coming back and, and, and, and seeing, uh, being seen by over 500 people and then rising back up to heaven, it really kind of tells the Christmas story that it was a gift. But Stu, you wrote a book about Christmas.
Is that right? Well, I wrote a book about the book about Christmas and what Jesus said in his first words, first recorder words, which were really the definition, the whole greatest mission statement ever given in Luke chapter two, when the one who came to save the lost found was lost himself. What kind of parents were Joseph and Mary to lose the son of God, right? So, but yeah, it's just so important that that brings the, the real meaning is always found in Jesus Christ, really the real meaning of anything. And so his name is already in Christmas. We talk about keeping Christ in Christmas, but the reason I wrote first words was to put the cross back in Christmas, that it's a very cross-centered occasion because he came to die on another tree, not the one that we decorate and that we celebrate and we put gifts under.
He was the ornament hanging as the gift from God on that tree of death at Golgotha, at Calvary, and by that death we are given life. So it's a beautiful thing and it kind of ties all of that together, especially the scripture passage that you're talking about today. Yeah, I mean, there's another part that's good, Stu, and the name of the book is First Words of Jesus from the Cradle to the Cross by Stu Epperson, Jr.
So that's a book you definitely want to pick up. But in verse 16 of Romans 4, it says, Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of him whom he believed, God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did, who contrary to hope in hope believed so that he might become the father of many nations according to what was spoken. So shall your descendants be, and not only being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced that what he had promised, that what he had promised he was also able to perform, and therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness. And so, you know, when I hear that, you know, one of the stories that I think about is that I, and this is actually something that just happened to me recently, was that I was walking into my house, and if you know where we live, I mean, we're, Robbie, you've been to my house, but we're in a pretty metropolitan area, and we don't see a lot of animals and stuff like that. But I realized I walked into the house and I turned around and there was a snake that was right behind me on the front doorstep. And I turned around and just kind of looked at me, and I looked at it, and then I went, what are we going to do?
We don't have a hoe, we don't literally do anything like that. I ended up taking a little chopping knife and I chopped its head off. But I realized that, you know, I've noticed, I think, over the last couple of years, a lot of us have been fearful, myself at times, I've been fearful. And I really realized that we have nothing to fear, that we have nothing to fear, that what Jesus did on the cross, he overcame the devil. And now, if I were to go against the devil myself, if Stew were to go against the devil, just Stew, or Robbie, just Robbie, without Christ, I mean, he'd win. But when we have Christ in us, that we can overcome the devil, and that little snake that I killed, it wasn't even close. And so I think so many of us, and especially, I think, in the charismatic circles, sometimes we can be so afraid of demons or so afraid of the devil or so afraid of hell. But just like that little snake that was on my front porch, I think what we may not realize is the devil and the demons are a whole lot more afraid of the Christ in us than we should be of them.
Is that right, Robbie? Darrell Bock One of the funnier stories in the Apocrypha, if you've ever read it, is Bell on the Dragon. And so Daniel, in that book, they were coming to him, telling him how big and bad their dragon was, because they had a dragon. That's why it's called Bell on the Dragon.
If you ever read the book, it's fascinating. And this dragon, they're saying, you need to worship this. I can't help but think about you and your snake. And so you can imagine Daniel, he's had a little experience with animals at this point. Anyway, he's like, it's just a dragon. It's just an animal. I could kill it easily.
And they go, no, you couldn't kill it. You're not a dragon slayer. You know, so you picture this sword and all this stuff. So Daniel mix up a ball of wax, fat, and poison, feeds it to the dragon. The dragon drops dead, right? And these people are wanting to kill Daniel because he killed their dragon, right? They were worshiping this thing like a god. But it was no more more than a snake.
I mean, you know, it's just the wisdom there is hilarious to me. You know, you think about, oh, yeah, I got to get this sword. I got to take out this dragon. Well, you know, like most hungry animals, you feed it something, you know, it's gone for it. Well, it reminds me too of this great, I see, you see these great memes on social media.
Robbie could have made one from that right there. And my favorite is when the devil talks to you about your past, remind him of his future. And the great dragon slayer, the great serpent crusher, as presented in Genesis chapter 315, isn't Michael's wick, although I know you crushed that guy. The knife was sharp as quick.
I want to see him the size of this knife, by the way. But Jesus Christ, right? The seed of the woman crushed the seed of the serpent.
He said it is finished. He conquered death. He conquered sin. Satan knows your name, but calls you by your sin. Jesus Christ knows your sin, but calls you by your name because of not just who you are, but now whose you are, because 619 of 1 Corinthians, you were bought with a price. You are not your own, and therefore He is yours.
You are His. So that conquering is such a powerful thing, and that's why it even says that in Romans 8 on the same line. You are more than conquerors. So this all came through the seed of the woman, which came through the seed of Abraham, who's really not the star of Romans 4, but Abraham's seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we could be sons of Abraham. Father Abraham had many sons, and by Jesus we are his sons in Christ Jesus. So that is a powerful picture, and what the whole narrative of the Scripture is, and you see it manifest and really beautifully articulated by the Apostle John. I believe it's in Revelation 17 where the seed of the serpent, this great dragon is pursuing the seed of the woman to cut it down, to destroy it, to expunge it from the earth. The seed of the dragon does it.
How? All the way through Exodus, right? Kill all the male children. All the way through Ruth, right? Remember that in Esther for such a time as this, get rid of these Mordecai and Haman, that whole story, and out of that came this great feast of Purim, God redeeming his people all the way to kill all the male children in the city of Bethlehem, that bloody, horrible day, to Jesus Christ, born of a woman in the fullness of time, Galatians 4, of the seed of Abraham, to bring that imputed righteousness that only he could bring, Romans 4. That is the awesome victory we have in Jesus. He's the one, and he's the way, the serpent crusher.
That's it. That's excellent, Stu. One of the things that's kind of reminded me, Robbie, of why what Jesus did on the cross is so important is, it's James 4.14, and I'll use the NIV. It says, why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. We've talked about this before. There are some people out there, they are so focused on the tribulation. What's coming in this country? What's going to happen right now? What's going to happen? I think what it does, if you don't gain the proper perspective, that you could say, oh, my gosh, I'm freaking out.
I'm worried, this, that, and the other. And by the way, the Bible does say in the book of Revelation that in the last days, and even Matthew 24, that in the last days, it's going to be tough times. It says it's going to be worse than it's ever been before. But I believe when you realize that where we're going is an eternal place called heaven, and I've said this before, but every once in a while, I just go back and I look at Revelation 21, and I said, no matter how bad it's going to get, I remember one of the things that Jesus said in Matthew, Matthew 24, where he says, if those days had not been shortened, then he said, then no flesh would be saved, but for the sake of the elect, that he'll shorten those days. So things may get bad, and they may get bad for a while, but like it says, our life is like a mist. And man, I'm looking forward to heaven, Robbie.
I'm looking forward to heaven. Well, one of my favorite passages in the Bible is for some reason, I just keep going back there and back there is in Isaiah chapter 11. And there you see the seven anointings of Christ, which it's interesting how many times you'll see this play out because they're the seven spirits in the book of Revelation that's in the menorah. Those seven spirits are wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, and then fear of the Lord.
And the last one is the whopper. It's a delight in the fear of the Lord. So if you think about it, the fear of the Lord is like, okay, he has this, but to delight in the fear of the Lord is no matter how bad it gets, it's going to be great, right?
Because he is working this thing out and it's going to be absolutely amazing. Just like the Egyptians who would have thought that when their back was up against the Red Sea, you know, the next thing you know, they see all sorts of stuff. The great news is if we really delight in the fear of the Lord, then there's this peace. No matter how black things get, the blacker things get, the more your light shines.
It just does. Especially if you can, if you can stay in that place of that seventh anointing, which is a delight, like, all right, man, this is getting good. There has to be a time. It's getting good regardless. And we know Jesus is coming back regardless. And the good news is anything that seems to be a crisis in my lifetime sent more people to church than anything else. In other words, 9-11, people are going to church, COVID hits, people are worshiping online like never before. In other words, all these things have a tendency to give people a reason to turn for answers when they run out of their own.
Yeah. I mean, I know it says in the Bible, it says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. And one of the things that I keep coming back to, and I've heard many, many times is that why would somebody look to you for the answer if you're just as miserable and depressed and fearful as they are? And one of the biggest problems that I've seen over the last year and a half is I'm worried less about what's going on in the world than I am about the way that Christians are reacting to it.
I mean, I see many Christians out there. And like I said, myself, I've got three fingers pointing back at myself. There have been times that probably at the beginning of the pandemic where I was just as fearful as anybody else. And then I realized, and I was reminded of how this thing ends.
If I didn't know how this thing ended, I'd be pretty miserable too. But you know, it's the old expression. It says you can't sell a dream if you're living a nightmare. And you know, I mean, if when people are looking for something, they're looking for hope, they're looking for good news. And I can't think of a better time in history since I've been around. Maybe 9-11 was kind of like this where people are looking for answers. And we have the answer, we have the hope and his name is Jesus Christ. And just by believing in him, by committing your life to him, you will have eternal life forever. So no matter what is going on right now, we know the true meaning of Christmas.
And we know the true meaning of Easter that Jesus Christ, he was born, he came into this world from a virgin. He died a death that he shouldn't have died. He rose from the grave and he's coming back again soon. I can't say that enough times. I like that you said that, Robbie.
He's coming soon. Yeah. And, you know, there's this, we teach this at boot camp, an orientation, what we call the larger story because I have a tendency to sit around with my head in the refrigerator.
Okay. If you've ever seen the movie Brazil, there's a scene where this guy's sitting there with his head in the refrigerator. And so, you know, I remember one time I had gone through, the heat was not in my house. One of my family members had been in the hospital. I was so upset and it was my practice to get up and start to write out all the things I'm thankful to God for. But this particular morning, the heat's not on, I'm freezing to death, I've got 14 blankets on, you know, my loved one's in the hospital and I'm upset and I'm like, okay, God, I'm not going to pose here.
I'm upset. And so as I was sitting there reviewing in my mind, you know, the events of the last 24 hours, I realized, hey, I've got this amazing warmth with this cup of coffee and this blanket. And oh, by the way, my loved one lived in the hospital. The doctors help and like, oh God, look, you did this, you did this, because rather than see what God was really doing in the larger story, see, I had my head in the refrigerator. I was thinking about how does this affect Robbie rather than how does this affect what God's doing in the world? So, you know, here we are with a larger story going on, which means, you know, historically, things are going to really, really get good. Yeah, I mean, and, and, but I'm concerned about whether or not, you know, this happens to me and that happens to, you know, and so I think of it as, am I looking at the smaller story of how things are personally affecting me and the fact that, oh, you know, I'm not able to go everywhere I want to without wearing a mask, or am I, or am I thinking about, wow, what a cool opportunity it really is to be alive.
It really is. And one of the things that I think of is, you know, a story of eternal perspective. Back in 1921, a missionary couple named David and Sophia Flood, I don't know if you've heard of them, they went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa to what was then called the Belgian Congo. They met up with another young Scandinavian couple, the Eriksons, and the four of them sought God for direction. In those days of much tenderness and devotion and sacrifice, they, they felt led of the Lord to go out from the main mission station and take the gospel to a remote area.
It was a huge step of faith. They, they went down there and what happened was they got so discouraged, they only – there was one young boy who sold chicken and eggs twice a week, and, and, and Sylvia Flood, she decided that it was a great idea for, for her to tell him about Jesus. And she won him to Christ, but there were no other encouragements. Meanwhile, malaria continued to strike one member of the Little Band after another. In time, the Eriksons decided that they had enough suffering and and left to return the central mission station.
They remained near Andola to go alone. Then in the middle of it all, Sevilla was pregnant. She delivered the baby.
And then 17 days later, she died. So David Flood, the guy actually went back home, went back to Sweden. And after that, he said, I'm rejecting God.
He says, and because God wasn't there for me when I needed him the most, he gave up the baby. It turns out they gave the baby to a missionary couple. She came to the United States and the girl grew up and gave her life to Christ. The family loved the little girl and they tried to return to Africa.
And that is how Aggie grew up in South Dakota. As a young woman, she attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis. Then she met and married a young man named Dewey Hurst. Years pass, and then one day in the paper, she saw something about her real mother who gave birth to her and then died.
And then she told the story about how that young boy who her mother had won to Christ, won the whole area, the whole city, the whole town to Christ and this girl Aggie went back and turned to found her dad in Sweden, who at that point was an alcoholic at 73 and she turned him back to the faith because he thought the whole thing was for nothing. That reminds me of the bigger perspective is that do we have, are we looking at what's going on right now or do we have eternal perspective? I hope that we look to eternity and look to the gift that we all get that makes it all worthwhile.
So, wow. We thank you for listening today and all I can say is if not for God, why not for God? The pandemic has reminded us how fragile and unpredictable life is. Have you thought about your loved ones and their financial security if the unexpected happens? Plan for the future with PRCUA Life. Since 1873, the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America has been protecting its members and their families financially. Join PRCUA Life today and take advantage of affordable life insurance plans, competitive annuity rates and additional member benefits. You can even lower your income tax bill and boost your retirement income by opening a new PRCUA Life annuity or transferring your existing account. Earn up to 3.75 APY with a one-year guarantee and $500 minimum deposit. Visit prcua.org or call your local PRCUA representative at 336-776-7456. PRCUA Life, protecting life through all its stages. This is the Truth Network.
