Saved By Grace

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast 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, I've got my good friend Jason Hamlet here with me. Most of you guys don't know who Jason Hamlet is.

Some of you do. Him and I worked together at a company called Rainsoft many years ago. We were in sales together for a little while. And I remember one of the first times that I ever met Jason, there was a lady who came in and he said, do you need healing or do you need prayer for anything? And he prayed for this woman. And I said, this is not like most people that I know.

This is somebody that I would like to get to know. But yeah, that was back in what, 2015, Jason? I'll be honest with you. I don't remember the lady. I don't remember the story, but I'm going to take you at your word.

But you worked for this company back in 2015, right? Oh, of course. Yeah, that's where I met you. That's where we met. And you're originally from Durham, North Carolina.

Is that right? Born and raised Durham, North Carolina. I actually grew up on a farm in Butner, North Carolina.

Born in a hospital in Watts Hospital. I grew up in a typical Christian home where we went to church on Sundays. I went to Christian school here in Durham, North Carolina until 10th grade. And then 10th grade, I went out into public school.

Sweet, man. And so when you started off, you grew up and you went to church on Sundays and then you said the rest of the week? The rest of the week, we lived like hell.

All week long, but you know what? I had my ticket. I was going to heaven. When you were five years old? When I was five years old, I got saved and baptized. What they told me was that the baptism was a public acknowledgement that I received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.

I've never read that scripture verse in the Bible, personally. That's what I was told. Okay. So you were five years old and then you had some trouble as you got into your teens and twenties, right? Oh, well, the trouble started early. I was not a good kid. But yes, but later on, yeah, I had trouble in kindergarten, trouble in fourth grade. I was smoking pot in fourth grade. It was the first time I tried pot. By the time I was in 10th grade, I was smoking pot, drinking, having sex, doing drugs. You know, it was fun. It was real fun. But then it got a hold of me and chained me down and I spent the age of 35 being a drug addict.

Just completely chained down, broken, prideful, scared, angry. You said people have been praying for you for about 20 years? Oh, people praying left and right. I went to so many different places. I tried Mary Francis Center, was in Teen Challenge twice. Oh, yeah. All sorts of people praying for me left and right.

And I went to Teen Challenge, got kicked out. You know, I did okay for six months fighting it on my own, but I never had the power to overcome this because I never really received the Holy Spirit, I don't think. Okay. And speaking of the Holy Spirit, we're going to be in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 today.

Got the ESV version. It says, Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols however you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

Well, hold on. What does that mean? That no one can say Jesus is Lord except through the power of the Spirit? Right. You know, the way I translate that passage, me personally, it does not start off with telling us how to know who a false prophet is and who a false prophet isn't. Doesn't it say that, you know, to beware of the false prophets, that they cannot say Jesus is Lord except unless they have the Spirit of God? Okay.

So I think that's a good way to do a test. See who you're dealing with. Can you say it, Mike? Jesus is Lord. Verse 4, Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretations of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. And so I was listening to a debate between Dr. Michael Brown and Doug Wilson, and Doug Wilson is a cessationist and Dr. Michael Brown is a continuationist.

Well, what does that mean? Well, there's different types of cessationists, but Doug Wilson says, I believe that God still heals people today, but he says, no, there's not somebody with the gift of healing. And so what Dr. Michael Brown actually said, he said, what's interesting when the Apostle Paul was talking about this, and then in the second part of the chapter, he's talking to people in the church where he says, some of you will have gifts of healing. Some of you will have gifts of prophecy. Dr. Brown says Paul never goes in the Bible and rescinds that.

So he never says, well, this is going to stop at a certain time. Well, people say, well, there's a time when prophecies will cease. It says when the perfect comes, then the imperfect will be done. Well, is this world perfect yet? No. Yeah, and by the way, that scripture verse that says that there's a time when prophecies will cease, it doesn't say there's a time when the gift of healing will cease.

That's right, it doesn't. And so when you were, your mom was praying for you for about 20 years, right? Oh yeah, she was praying for me a long time, but you were talking about the Holy Spirit there. And the Holy Spirit sounds pretty powerful. We're about to get to that, but I want to make sure people know kind of where you're coming from. So for about 20 years, she was praying for you, and then one day your mom wanted you to go to a revival, is that right?

That is correct. Wanted me to go to a revival with her the very next day. I was not planning on going. I was playing a poker tournament online. I was about to lose, and I said, God, if I win this tournament, I'll go to that stupid revival tomorrow. Couldn't lose a hand, sure enough, won the tournament, went to the stupid revival the next day. And this was up in Charlotte.

It's where Morningstar Ministries is now at Starlight Drive up there, that big building. But anyways, I walked into the place, and this fella came over and asked me what I needed prayer for. Of course, it was the fella that I did not want to pray for me. He had a shower in two days, was wearing loose pants and open toes. But he came over.

I was like, God, anyone with this one? But he came over, and he prayed for me. And he didn't ask God to heal me. He prayed a little differently. Well, a lot of people in the church, when they pray, we were talking about this.

How did they pray? Most of the people, and the way I grew up, if we had somebody that was sick or needed to be set free, we would pray, and we would say, Dear Heavenly Father, Mary, could you please heal Mary? Mary's in the hospital. She's still in that.

Please heal her in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, something like that.

And to be honest with you, Mike, the results sucked. I mean, sometimes I would hear, Oh, praise the Lord. God used the physician's hands to heal her. And I'm like, Where's that in the Bible? I mean, the complete opposite's in the Bible. There was a lady who was bent over to have the issue of blood.

And because of the doctors, her condition was worse. So anyway, this fellow, he did pray a little bit differently. And here's the prayer that he said, and so I believe that those who are listening, if you have anyone that is chained, is enslaved, and it could be anything little, anything big. But I believe that when I just tell you what he prayed, it'll set you free. So he said, In Jesus' name, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I command those bands to be broken from around your mind that are restricting the way you think.

And I command the chains to be broken right now in Jesus' name. So he didn't ask God to do it. Why would he ask God? He commanded.

Why do we ask God? See, in Isaiah, it says when Jesus died on the cross, he bore all our griefs, all of our sorrows, all of our afflictions. And by his stripes, we are healed. So if God's word says that Jesus bore everything on the cross, yes, that includes salvation, everything. He bore it all on the cross. And we were all delivered. We all were set free.

We all had it then. Then why are we asking God to do that? When God, when you look at his word, his word says, Those who believe and are baptized shall be saved. Those who believe not shall be damned. And these are the signs that shall follow those who believe. They shall tread over servants. They shall cast out devils in my name.

If they drink any poison thing, it shall not harm them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. It clearly, God's word, when you get into it and you look at it, God clearly tells us to speak to the mountain. His word says that he gave us power and us authority when? After we received the Holy Ghost. So how do we receive the Holy Ghost?

Because there are some Bible stories here in the Bible about people, and this is Acts 19. This was when Paul was in Corinth, and he met a couple of fellows, and they believed, and they had been baptized. And Paul asked me if you received the Holy Spirit, and they said, We didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. And Paul asked me, he said, What type of baptism did you receive? They said, We received the water baptism.

He goes, Oh, John's baptism. That baptism is for repentance. See, when I was five, I didn't know it was for repentance. I didn't even know the word repentance means.

Repentance means to change your mind, to change your direction. We even see Jesus change his direction after he was baptized. Because Jesus did not perform miracles before he was baptized, before he was filled with the Holy Spirit, according to his word. But afterwards, he did see a change in direction.

Well, you actually said this recently to me. You said he, you know, we think, you know, did Jesus perform miracles when he was one? And you said he grew. He grew in all areas as a man. All means, all is very easy to understand.

All areas. He grew in wisdom. He grew in stature.

He grew in knowledge. We can't even see his faith grow as he starts to exercise. But would Jesus did miracles when he when he was one or two or three or four or five? Well, hold on.

Let's look at his word. In Matthew 12, Jesus had healed a deaf and a dumb man. And the Pharisees said, You healed that man through the power of Beelzebub.

You said, Hold on now. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is unforgivable in this world, the world to come. I healed that man through the power of the Spirit of God. Jesus Christ himself in Matthew 12 said, I do these miracles through the Holy Spirit. So see, that's an epiphany for me to realize that Jesus did miracles as a man through the power of the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that should be in me. But we got to get to how we receive the Holy Ghost, because there were people that were baptized in the Bible with water and they weren't filled with the Holy Ghost.

How did they receive it? Let me let me finish up the end of this chapter, because I'm going to get back to that in a second. First Corinthians 12 27. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping administration in various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret, but earnestly desire the higher gifts?

And I will show you a still more excellent way. So when I read that, Jason, he's talking to the church. These aren't the disciples. See, some people say, well, this just happened in the first century. It no longer happens. The apostle Paul was talking to the church. And once again, I'm gonna say what Dr. Michael Brown said.

This is not me. He said, and Paul never rescinded that. He never said, oh, no, this is just for a certain period of time or this is no longer going to happen. So it does. It happened then. And it happened today.

If it doesn't happen today, Jason, I don't know what you or you and I are doing. Well, you know, Mike, the God's word is only big as your belief. And you said it today. You said people's disbelief can limit God. And the Bible says, according to your faith, so be it unto you. So those people that don't believe this is for today, in their world, it's not for today. They're saying no.

They're saying no, it's not for them. But there are those of us that believe that his word, we believe that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. So there are those of us that do believe that is true. Hebrews 13, 8. That's right.

Yeah. And so if it is for today, you know, in fairness, a lot of people, I don't think know about this. They've always been taught a certain way. And they said, you know, hey, you know, you believe in Jesus, you trust in him as your savior, which we agree with. But then you were in the book of Acts.

What does it say? Oh, well, this is when they received the Holy Spirit. But, you know, yes, and I had to transition and it was difficult for me.

But it's so much better where I met than where I was. But this is how those guys received the Holy Spirit. When they heard this, let me back up a bit. He says, John baptized with the baptism of repentance. And he said unto the people, they which believe on him which would come after him, that is in Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them. They spake in new tongues and they prophesied. There were about 12 men in all. Hold on, 12 men in all. So these weren't the 12 disciples, were they? This was a different set, isn't it? Different people. Well, I guess it is for more than just the disciples, isn't it?

Yeah, and it continues today. We were, and this is not just something that's in theory. Dr. Brown, when I was watching that debate, and I would recommend the debate.

It gives both sides. I mean, but what Dr. Brown said is he said the word of God says that God uses Christians to heal. I mean, we were talking about this when I was preaching over at Northside Baptist.

I believe it was Mark chapter 16. And if you've got your Bibles, let's go over to Mark chapter 16 and starting in verse 15. I'm using the ESV and it says, And he said to them, Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons. They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up serpents with their hands. And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay their hands on the sick. And they will recover. And Jason, when you found this out several years ago, you just started to pray for the sick.

And what happened? Well, that verse right there challenged me. Because the way I read that verse is the way that it says. And it says that these signs follow the believers. And I didn't have any of those signs following me.

So I'm sitting here thinking, Am I really a believer? So what did you do? You started praying for people or? Oh, well, first of all, I needed to get the baptism of the Holy Ghost by finding a spirit filled person to lay their hands on me.

Right. So number one, I asked Jesus because John the Baptist said, I'll baptize you with water. But there's one whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry. And he will baptize you with fire and the Holy Ghost.

I didn't know what that was. I talked to a preacher about it. I said, I'm scared about what I do. He said, just ask God for it. All gets forgotten. So I asked Jesus to baptize me with fire and the Holy Ghost.

What happened? And I tell you what, after that, the word started to come to life. They weren't just stories about things that happened 2000 years ago. Everything is applicable for today. Everything. And there's all these layers to it. It's just it's much more wonderful.

It's true. And so I went to be my mom. We actually went down to my mom and I.

We went to go watch Charles and Francis Hunter. They were quote faith healers. They didn't call themselves faith healers, but they were down there in Texas. And we learned how to pray for the sick, how to heal the sick. And so after that, when I see someone hobbling along or this or that, I was on fire and saw lots of miracles. Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Lowe's, lots of people healed. Now, you also went to the churches as well, and you might have had a different response.

Is that right? I did. I wanted to bring this to the preachers. I wanted to bring it to the churches. I was so excited and almost got in a fight with a couple of pastors in the parking lot.

One is his domination. But you ain't all that. Get out of here, boy. And it was like I was a threat to them or their position. And I just wanted them to believe. So I got tired of going to church.

OK, I quit going to church and I just took it on the street. But see, then and we were on fire. My dad started speaking in tongues.

He hated he was a cuddle against me. And then he started speaking in tongues. But anyways, make a long story short, my mom died from cancer as I was over top of her praying over. OK. Well, I got mad at God. You got mad at God. And I did, because, you know, your word says I will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.

Doesn't give any stipulations, God. You're a liar. So, yeah, I got mad at him. I wanted to fight him.

I want to try to kill him or die trying. And so so so, yeah, I got mad. And then my dad died a couple of years later. And at this point in time, I'm married. I have kids. And so I just focus on working. I'm like, you know what?

I don't want nothing. I'm focused on working and doing whatever. And, you know, my advice is don't get mad at God. He's going to get you back where he wants you, either the easy way or the hard way. OK.

So you may as well take the easy way. OK. But I still, you know, we had a hard heart this morning. I told him, I said, you know, I said, God, I said, you know, I'm trying to trust you. I said, but with what I've seen, it's hard to trust you. What do you mean?

Between like mom dying, dad dying, man, I could go on, you could talk about financial. And so I'm sitting here quoting the description verse, you know, I know the plans you have for me to prosper, for open a future. Oh, my God. Are the plans collecting dust just sitting over there in the corner?

You know, is that all it is, is a plan that you're not going to incorporate? You know, how about this one, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto me. God, I'm seeking.

I'm seeking you with all my heart. So, you know, him and I have this little this little I don't want to call love hate relationship, but there are times when I really get upset with him and question him. Well, what do you what do you do when you start questioning him? Do you do you just give up or do you know, I usually only do this when I'm on my knees and it's just me and there's nobody else to see what's going on. You know, but the end of it, I basically the end of it. I always say doesn't matter who you slay me. I'll still serve you. Yeah, I think you're if you're listening right now, we all we all have times in our lives where we're going to have doubts or we're going to question God or we say God what is going on here and and this and that the other but at the end of the day, you know in that same chapter Matthew chapter 6, he says do not worry and you know, the the cool thing is is that you know, God we may not give us Gucci. We may we may not have a new Corvette or a brand new Mercedes, but he has always promised to take care of our needs.

Hey, man, some days I'll accept a cheap knockoff bring it on God. But going back to what we were talking about some specific stories recently, when did you and I really start to talk a lot? I mean, we've talked a little bit over the years about this or that but when we started you said you took some time off of work, right? Yeah, I've taken some time before and you said it was to get closer to God or to no actually because I sinned against God and he pulled the rug out from underneath my feet.

I landed on my butt and I said, you know what? I'm going to use this time to just get on my knees and draw closer to him. So for the past eight months, I guess or so, I mean eight months I've been on my knees, you know, I've been drawing closer to him and trying to get back in his favor of trying to earn it. I know what the Bible said, but I'm trying to I'm basically I'm trying to I am drawing trying to draw closer to him, right? So he will draw closer to me and will consume me and then that's all this around me all the time. Yeah, draw draw nigh unto me and I will draw nigh unto you. But in the meantime, you have been praying for some people and you've seen some amazing results.

Can you give us some examples? Oh, this past Saturday, this past Saturday, I was up at the corner of Main and Mangum in North Carolina and fella, he needs some prayer there after the preacher did his he David Smith. He has a really good service.

Meet me at the bridge. He helps the homeless. He feeds them.

If you're ever out there on Wednesdays at 12, go meet the man. He's a great man of God trying to help the people out there. But he I prayed for a fellow who had arthritis pain all down his back in the back of his legs all the way down to his knees for, you know, a couple years, he said the pain level was a 10. Pray for him. And God took that pain down to a zero and that I didn't pray for him to be set free and delivered from drugs. So, you know, I make sure I do that next time. This past Sunday, you and I were at the church, there were a few people and this was at North Side Baptist Church over in Greensboro, and there were a few people that came down and every single one that actually got up and came down for prayer were healed.

The ones that sat in their seat and did not come down, I can't say the same for them. And then this past Sunday, there was a fellow, there was this fellow in this girl at church, the church I go to, I found I've got a church I go to I kind of like because it kind of sounds like Corinthians, you know, because it says first apostles, then prophets, then teachers, then get some miracles. And you know, there's some prophets in there.

And so this grace assembly in Wake Forest, North Carolina on Highway 98. And there was a fellow that was just screaming and rolling around and he wasn't foaming at the mouth. But I never seen anything like that.

I know one stage because I've been going there and he was a visitor in the same thing happened to another girl. I tell you, we didn't have service. The Spirit of God just dropped. Everybody was praising the Lord, casting, casting out the devils. And well, this was in a church, right? This was in a church.

I thought people said Christians couldn't have demons. Oh, well, here's the way I see that. All right. Let me give a scripture verse back this up, but, you know, when you're driving your car down the road, sometimes you get an accident. Right. Right. And you're safe.

But your car gets banged up. Right. See, my spirit's in my car, which is my physical. All right. My spirit is saved. It's protected. It's sealed. I got the seal of God.

All right. But this physical body can be attacked. And so you know what? If someone has arthritis, whether they're saved or they're not saved, the spirit of the spirit of arthritis needs to go. And then you speak life into the. So you don't ask God to heal them. God, God's word told me my son.

Why would I ask? And then he his word says, you go into all the world. You baptize me. You go heal the sick. You go raise the dead.

That's like the that's like if your employer asked you to do tells you to do something and you go right by them and say you do it, they make any sense. But that's what we're doing. You know, and if it's diabetes. That's the spirit that needs to be cast out.

Cancer is all time. Well there was a and this isn't just theoretical because there was a lady who I think she at one of the churches that we went to, she had schizophrenia and her her arm was hurting really bad. And so you prayed for her. You cast that out.

And what happened? But she had depression. She had other things, too. She had neuropathy.

And so there's four or five spirits that need to be cast out. And then we spoke all that into existence. We commanded her arm to be healed, her leg to be healed. She was healed.

So the proof is in the pudding. I mean, it works. I mean, I couldn't have had worse results than I had by the church that I grew up in praying and asking God to heal the sick.

I don't know. I don't even know if we were at one percent success rate. Every church that we've gone to and they've allowed us to do this, we're 90 percent.

It's not because we're doing something new. And you and I have never claimed to heal anybody. No, I can't heal anybody. But you have to realize who you are in Christ, because when you receive the Holy Ghost, you receive power and authority. And then he did say, go heal the sick.

Now, would God tell you to do something you couldn't do? He told us to do it. And Jason, we're running out of time, but make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Jason and I have done several shows together. We could talk for about three hours about this, but we've run out of time today. If you've never given your life to Christ, I want to ask you to pray with me right now. Dear Lord, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I've done wrong things, Lord, forgive. I ask you to forgive me of my sins. And I thank you for this free gift of eternal life in Jesus name. Amen. A A A A A A A Alright, for my YouTube channel, if not for God with Mike Zwick, just like, subscribe and hit that notification bell so you'll be alerted when we have our next video. This is the Truth Network.