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April 27, 2022 8:30 am

Where is your Faith?

If Not For God / Mike Zwick

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April 27, 2022 8:30 am

The importance of faith, judgment, and revival in Christianity is discussed, highlighting the need to love others, share the good news, and trust in God's power to heal and save. The Bible is cited as a source of guidance and truth, emphasizing the need to believe in its teachings and have faith in God's promises.

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Christianity Faith Judgment Revival Healing Salvation God
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This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.

Hello, If Not For God with Mike Zwick. Today we have a show and we're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 7 starting in verse 1. Matthew chapter 7 starting in verse 1.

I'm going to be using the New King James Bible and it says, Judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

And I'm going to stop right there. When I think about that, I remember Stu Epperson actually said, he says, whether you're a Christian or not, there is one Bible verse that everybody seems to know. And it's Matthew chapter 7 verse 1. Judge not that you too be not judged. And I think what he's saying there is what they're saying is that everybody says, don't judge me, don't judge me, don't judge me. I think in one sense, I think the point that he's made is a point that's really good.

It's a really good point. Is what they're saying is that I'm going to live however I want. I'm going to do whatever I want. I'm going to treat people however I want to treat them. I don't want to care about the poor and the needy. I don't want to do anything that the Bible says to do.

Leave me alone and I'm fine. And so when you look at that verse on the surface, Matthew 7, 1, it says that we're not to judge people. And I say, well, that doesn't mean that you're not going to be judged by God.

There will come a day of reckoning. And if you're encouraging people, as you look in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, where they actually kicked somebody out of the church and they said to turn them over to the devil. If somebody's living like hell and they're just staying in the church and they say, I'm going to stay this way, I'm not going to change. Well, at some point, the church has to deal with that, has to kick the person out.

So I get that. But on the other hand, I think sometimes maybe we go too far the other way where we just say, we're going to completely ignore that verse and we're not going to pay any attention to it at all. And I think what he's saying in that verse, Jesus, he's saying that judge not so that you too may not be judged, for in the same way that you judge others, he will judge you. So in other words, if you are pointing the finger at everybody else and you're not looking at yourself, first of all, it's a lot easier to do that, right? I mean, it's a lot easier to find fault with what everybody else is doing versus finding fault with yourself. And I talked about this a little bit on the last show, but it was basically where these prisoners who had committed murder, they were all basically saying, or just about all of them were saying, I'm a good person. I'm a good person.

And so nobody wants to sit there and say, hey, I've got problems. But I do believe that the first person that we should look at when we condemn or criticize or judge the first person that we should look at is ourselves. Yeah, we know that there's problems going on in the world. And I thank God for good Christian brothers and sisters who are out there and they're helping to fix the problems that are going on in the world, whether it's people who are praying outside of abortion clinics, whether it's people who are running for Congress, senators, president, whatever it is.

And they're trying to make a difference in the world. I want to say, man, that is awesome. That is awesome. But I'm reminded of a story. It's by W. Livingston Larned. And it's called The Father Forgets. It says, Listen, son, I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blonde curls sticky wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone just a few minutes ago as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me, guilty. I came to your bedside. There are things I was thinking, son.

I've been crossed to you. I scolded you as well as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of the things on the floor. At breakfast, I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table.

You spread your butter too thick on the bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called goodbye, daddy. And I frowned and said in reply, hold your shoulders back.

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon as I came up the road. I spied you down on your knees playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your friends by marching you ahead of me to the house.

Stockings were expensive and if you had to buy them, you would be more careful. Imagine that, son, from a father. Do you remember later when I was reading in the library how you came in timidly with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door.

What is it you want? I snapped. You said, nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me. And your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickness, sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me?

The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding. This was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you. It was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fun and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself and over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me goodnight. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness and I have knelt there ashamed.

It is a feeble atonement. I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy. I will chum with you and suffer when you suffer and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come.

I will keep saying as if it were a ritual. He is nothing but a boy, a little boy. I am afraid I visualize you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and worried in your cot, I see that you are still a baby.

Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, way too much. So when I tell that story and when I think about that, one of the things that I think about is this, is that we have very high expectations sometimes of other people. Maybe I have learned in my own life is that sometimes when I have expectations that are super high of other people, because the expectations of myself are super high as well, and maybe I feel like I am not doing good enough, I am not working hard enough, or I am not getting enough done, and sometimes we can lash out at other people. One of the things that I think about when I talk to different people and when I see these stories of people who have been hurt, you know, one of the things about people who are actually in prison and people who have actually killed people is that they said that when they were young, they were molested.

They were looking at pornography. They were having a tough time themselves and they never felt like they were good enough. And they felt like nothing was ever going to work out for them, and so what they do is they end up lashing out at other people, but it's not our job to lash out at other people. It's our job to love people right where they are. Jesus even said it himself. He says, I have not come to judge the world, but I have come that the world through me might be saved. You know, we don't just sit here and say, hey, you know, we're going to live like hell, we're going to do whatever we want to do, and that's fine. But we also want to love people right where they are, and then we want to share the good news with them and let God change them. And if somebody is living in sin, we gently turn them away, as it says in the book of James. It says if you turn a soul from death or a soul who's going to hell from death, it says that many sins will be forgiven if you do that. So God is good.

He's good all the time, and I'm grateful for all of you guys tuning in every week. We had a great Seder this past weekend with Robbie Dilmore. There was a lady named Jan. Her husband there was Harold.

Cameron Horner, a young man who was paralyzed. And so, yeah, I mean, life is tough right now. I mean, we see everything that's going on in the Ukraine. We see the tough things that are happening in the United States, and we wonder if it's ever going to get better. Yes, it will. Jesus is coming back. Jesus is coming back soon. But he may not come back today. He may not come back tomorrow. We don't know exactly when he's coming back. There's people who are pre-trip.

There's people who are post-trip. There's people who, you know, it could be 50 years from now. We could be wrong about all this stuff, and hey, maybe we're not living in the exact final days.

I doubt it. It certainly looks like we're living in the last days, but you have to realize that our parents said that, our grandparents said that, and their parents said that. They were saying that 2,000 years ago. So, yes, we always have to be ready for Jesus to come back, but we also pray for revival right now. We know there is a great revival that is going on in this great country of ours, the United States. You always see the bad news on the news. You see everything that's wrong in the world. You see everything that's a problem and stuff like that, and I get it. I get that we need to look at everything, and we need to kind of, we don't need to look at everything, but we need to be aware of what's going on. It even says in the Word of God to be aware of what's going on, because in the last days, there will be many who will be deceived. I've shared with many people that I haven't gotten the vaccine.

I wouldn't encourage anybody else to do it, but I'm not going to beat anybody over the head over it about it. I encourage you to do your own research, stuff like that, but hey, I'm not judging you if you get it, and don't judge me if I don't get it. But at the same time, we do need to love each other, because there are so many controversial issues right now in the United States. We live in our red states versus blue states. We have black versus white, red versus yellow, and it just seems like in the last days that we're living, and I believe we are living in the very last days, that the devil is just doing everything that he can do and make as much noise as he can make to try to scare people, but newsflash, God wins in the end. God wins in the end, and so if you're listening today, I want to encourage you not to fear, not to fear. I mean, matter of fact, one of my other favorite passages in the Bible comes from Matthew chapter 6, and in Matthew chapter 6, he's talking about people who are always concerned about everything, and they're just worried about everything. Matthew 6 25, here it is, it says, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on, is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?

And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon, in all of his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?

O you of little faith! Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after such things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

He knows you need them. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is the trouble of its own. And when I think about that, when I see everything that is going on in this world, I realize, man, you know, what a loss in a dying world is looking for in us as Christians.

Is there looking, when everybody else is freaking out about what's going on, freaking out about the 2022 midterms, freaking out about the Ukraine, freaking out about the upcoming food shortages that are coming, freaking out about all these things, that we can look and we have a peace about us, and we say, I'm not going to worry about it. Now, that doesn't mean don't be prepared. That doesn't mean don't get food, don't get water. That doesn't mean that, okay?

But what it means is that, hey, I'm not going to worry about it. God is good. Yeah, I mean, I know we've pointed the finger on a lot of the problems that are going on in this country. And there are people who need to do things about this. We have warriors, Christian warriors who are fighting.

I want to encourage you to continue to fight the good fight. But we're not supposed to worry like the rest of the world worries. We're not supposed to fear like the rest of the world fears. I've heard that the Bible says in 366 times, do not fear in the Bible. I mean, matter of fact, I've heard many stories of people, of Christians. You know, we've had Todd Nettleton from Voice of the Martyrs on. He said there's been many stories of Christians who were in these terrible positions. They were thrown into prison or they were tortured like Richard Wurmbrand or whatever.

But don't even worry about that. You know, it's interesting, time and time again, many of these Christians who were tortured or thrown into prison or whatever happened to them, they said in the middle of their suffering, they never felt closer to God when they were in these tough times. You know, Andrew Murray, the great missionary who went to, I believe, South Africa, he went down there.

He had many tough times. But when he was there, he said, I'm just going to have faith in God. I'm just going to have faith in God. I'm telling you, and if you're wondering, well, man, I'm trying to share Jesus with somebody.

What do we do to share Jesus with somebody to a lost and dying world? If we're just as scared and worried as they are, why would they want to listen to us? Yes, we're prepared. Yes, we do. Yes, we fight the darkness. I had a dream this morning, actually, where there were these snakes and I was killing these snakes. All of a sudden there was this guy, I could tell he was a wealthy guy, and he says, hey, man, if you leave the snakes alone, then they just won't come after you. And I really thought about it.

I said, let me think about this interpretation of this dream. And I kept thinking, no, we don't quit fighting. We don't stop fighting the good fight. It says in Matthew 24, it says, he who endures till the end shall be saved. As a matter of fact, if you've ever read the book of Ephesians, pull out your Bible now and take a look at Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six, looking in verse eight, it says, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive from the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing, threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven. Neither is there respect of persons in him. Finally, brethren, be strong in the Lord.

You hear that? Be strong in the Lord. Not fearful, not weak, but be strong in the Lord.

And in the power of his might, there is power in the name of Jesus. I want to speak to somebody right now who's been praying for their healing for a long time, and you have not received your healing. I just want to pray right now in Jesus' name that you are completely healed.

I want to pray that the cancer is gone. I was thinking about it, I was listening to an interview that I did with Pastor Chad Harvey, and it was on The Power of One, and he talked about a guy, I believe the guy's name was Tom Watson. He was at his church many years ago, and this guy had pancreatic cancer. And he said, I think it was the Sunday before he was going to get checked again, and they had already made funeral arrangements for this guy. He said, but when they were making the funeral arrangements, he said they just started, they prayed for this guy, they were at the church, they anointed him with oil. And he said he went to the doctor the next day, they knew that this guy was a dying man. But he went to the doctor the next day, and when he went to the doctor, they checked him. They checked him, they checked him again. 38 times they went in and checked this man for pancreatic cancer. And they said, we don't see anything, it's gone.

You know what the doctors said? They said, oh, we must have missed that. You didn't miss that, that was God. That was God. And the same Jesus who raised Lazarus from the dead 2,000 years ago, right now, and I'm going to speak to somebody right now. He can save your lost child. Your child who is not walking with the Lord. You raised them up in church the right way, and they walked away, Lord. But I want to pray right now in Jesus' name that you are calling that child back.

Continue to pray for that child, and I pray in Jesus' name that they will be saved. Do we believe this book or not? This book says that greater is he who is within you than he that is within the world. So if we're walking around afraid of the enemy, what we're really saying is, God, I want to believe you part of the way, but I'm not going to believe you fully and wholly, and I'm not going to believe that this book is true.

It's either all true or it's all not, okay? Well, why do you say that, Mike? Look at the end of the book. Revelation 22. Revelation 22. You go to verse 18. For I testify to everyone who hears the words 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.

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. He who testifies to these things says, Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. I want to pray right now. I want you to pray with me every day for a revival to come to this country. Because if it's either revival or die, it's either revival or judgment.

And it says that judgment must begin in the house of God. O ye of little faith. O ye of little faith. I had a dream probably a few months ago, and in the dream, right before I woke up, it says, Have more faith.

Let me ask you a question today. Where is your faith? Well, I'm going to the doctors, and I'm taking the medicine, and the doctors are going to heal me, but the doctors are saying that there's nothing else they can do. Instead of going to the doctors first, go to Jesus. Go to Jesus first. Jesus is the ultimate healer. Jesus brings salvation, and he brings healing. I heard one time that there's a word called sozo where it talks about salvation, and it also means healing, delivering God.

But as you go through this book, and you look, right now I want you to find something else. Hebrews chapter 11. Remember, as it says in the book of Revelation, we either believe this thing or we don't. Hebrews 11, starting in verse 1, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and through it he being dead still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death and was not found because God had not taken him, for before he was taken he had this testimony that he pleased God, but without faith, here it is, it is impossible to please him.

For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, preparing an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. He didn't know where he was going, but he went out in faith. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful, who had promised, therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky and the multitude innumerable as the sand which is by the seashores. These all died in faith.

You hear that? They died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar. Off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return, but now they desire a better that is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. 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, for which he had also received him in a figurative sense. By faith Isaac Jex blessed Jacob and Esau, concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed one of the sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw that he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's command.

And it goes on and goes on and goes on. But what I'm telling you and what I'm asking you is this, where is your faith? Some of you have never given your lives to Jesus Christ, surrendered your lives to Jesus Christ. Ask him right now to forgive you of all of your sins, and to turn to him and look to Jesus, because he will save you. And let me ask you again, where is your faith If Not for God? This is the Truth Network.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-04-26 09:28:34 / 2023-04-26 09:39:24 / 11

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