Destined to Live and Not Die

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Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, the Kita Kolob. Now, the Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Here's the question I have for you.

How do you overcome stage four cancer? Well, you're going to want to hear this story today. With me today, Neon Dion Moore. Welcome, Dion, to the Man Up show. Thank you, Nikita. Thank you for having me.

Well, it's great. You know, I said, Neon Dion, you've got a lot of titles and a lot of names and a lot of story to share. And of course, I opened up with overcoming stage four cancer. It was only just really just a few years ago that you were given a report, if you will, that you were going to have, you had about three months left to live. This is approximately three years ago. You were given a report that you'd have approximately three months to live because you were diagnosed with stage four terminal cancer, right?

That's right. Terminal stage four. It was December 2020. I was diagnosed with terminal stage four lung cancer. I had my lymph nodes, my intestines, seven tumors. I was given three months to live.

And January of 2021, they were not going to do any kind of treatment. They just was going to give up. And they said I didn't have a chance. They said, they being doctors and all the quote, experts said, it's an interesting choice of words.

You don't have a chance. However, right at the opening of the show, I want you to hear me loud and clear. The experts are limited in their knowledge, but there's a God of the universe who created all things, who created you and I in His image. That knows beginning to end, top to bottom. He's the alpha and the omega. So even though the experts might give you a report, like you don't have a chance, guess what? God may just have another plan other than theirs, right Dion?

That's right. God came to me on March 28, 2020, about eight months before I diagnosed with cancer. And I was given an ultimatum. God told me if I continue my ways, I will die.

But if I change my ways, He'll give me 20 more years of life. And the key to I changed my ways, started working out, quit everything I was on and got up to 207 pounds. And about eight months later, I diagnosed and in the final stages, I weighed 127 pounds. Cancer took 80 pounds from me.

If I had not put on that extra weight, I would have been under 100 pounds and I would have died. But I changed my ways and I stuck by God and Jesus doing a whole ordeal. And I got about, I guess about in June, they told me I was cancer free.

They removed three tumors out of my intestines for surgery and put a bag on me and took one of the knots off my neck, left one and then had three tumors and they started a chemo. And I overcome it with Jesus by my side on my chemo ride. He was with me every step of the way. I knew I had faith that He wasn't gonna let me go.

And He didn't. Man, that's a great, so I want to hold on, pause right here because I don't want to bury the lead here because I want people to hear clearly, you know, the conversation you have with the Lord. Deon, change your ways or here's the outcome of the choices you're making. And of course you made a decision to change your ways. You're serving Jesus now. And I know you had shared with me recently, you mentioned cancer free. So I know you said no scar tissue, no cancer cells at this point, that God did what I, well some might term, the miraculous, right? I mean, you're a walking miracle at this point, right? I'm a miracle of God. He healed and, you know, He saved and healed me.

I'll become, it took from March 28th of 2020 to July 17th when I was saved in a church and I was baptized July 30th. And I kept my ministry, even during the cancer. I studied the Bible. I kept progressing toward God, getting my, you know, my knowledge and wisdom. And I followed Him and He guided me out of the darkness and brought me back into the light, a brand new man, cancer free.

You know, got to wear the bag, but that's coming off too pretty soon. So I'm very fortunate that God chose me and give me the chance of changing my ways, which I did. And He saved me, Nikita.

He saved my life. It's almost three years now, almost three years. And God promised me 20, so I'm here to 2040.

I tell you that. And you're how old now? If you don't mind my asking, Deon. I'm 63 years old. 63.

So, because I wanted to emphasize that for this reason. There may be somebody out there in the listening audience and, you know, so Deon was 60 years old when he made that decision to change his ways, surrender his life to Christ. And, and of course, all that's happened since then, one with his health, but even other things that that's happening in, in his life. And so regardless of your age, I was 34. My dad, my dad was 46 when he gave his life to Christ. Deon is 60 when he changes his ways and, and surrenders his life. So regardless of your age, it's never too late. I was saying, saying this the other day, Deon, I was having a conversation at lunch with, with, with a man who's in his 50s and, and reached out to me through, through my website and said, I need to change my ways. I need Jesus.

I'm not sure what the next step is, how to do that. And he was sharing with me at lunch how he believed in God, but he had never received the free gift of salvation. Therefore he had not become a child of God.

And so he in his 50s made that decision. And my point is saying it's, it's never too late. Don't ever give up on anyone. You know, keep praying for everyone. I mean, whether it's a family member, a coworker or anyone else that God puts on your heart. I mean, the thief on the cross is a great example when he says, Hey, you know, remember me when you come into, you know, when you come into your paradise and he said, today you'll be, Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise. This is a thief on a cross. And, and, and we have to understand, I don't know what he did to be nailed to that cross, but he was called a thief.

So he obviously must've stole something, but who, who knows what else he did to be crucified on that cross. And so Dion, let's, let's, let's pause here and give a little bit more backstory to our, our listeners. Give, tell us, tell us, take a minute and tell us about your family to, you know, you're, you're down in, you're down in the sunshine state of Florida, correct?

Yes. St. Augustine, Florida. St. Augustine, a lot of history there in St. Augustine. Tell us about your family. Well, I've been married for 41 years to my wife, Jackie.

I have three children, six grandchildren, and who all stuck by my side. And, you know, I was never, I was not raised in a, in a Christian family. We never went to church, never read a Bible until I turned, you know, almost 60 years old. And, and now I'm trying to get to, you know, put the Christian values in my family now. You know, my early days I was a magician, I was a professional dancer, I did become a professional wrestler, just like you Nikita, we wrestled you, we wrestled you many times. Of course, did some stunts and a major motion picture, and did a few TV shows, and then God put me in St. Augustine in 20, in the year 2000.

And he put me telling stories, and for 20, over 20 years I've been telling stories of the history of St. Augustine, and he crafted me this way, so now I'm taking his stories, the stories out of the Bible, and I'm telling people about Jesus Christ. And my family is, you know, accepting the Christian values, my wife was just saved recently, and it's been a good thing. Come on man, well first of all congratulations on 41 years of marriage, I mean that in itself is a milestone in today's world, so congratulations on that. Well come October, October the 8th will be 41 years.

Well that's okay, yeah, well over 40 years is a milestone in today's world. She put up with me, I was a dreamer, I've always been a dreamer, and I've always pursued my dreams no matter what it was, and now Jesus has come to my life, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life telling everyone how Jesus Christ saved and healed me. I mean he is my life now, I love Jesus, Jesus with all my heart, heart and soul, mind and strength, I love Jesus Christ, Jesus is the reason I'm here. That almost sounds biblical there, loving him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, I think there's a scripture that refers to that Dion. That's right, that's right, in Matthew, and that's pretty amazing, you didn't grow up in church because you and I have some relatability there, I didn't grow up in church, now you're doing everything you can to learn Christian principles and all the truth from God's word. And again, I don't want people to miss what you said just a minute ago, so you had this life-changing encounter, your family is witnessing, like they're saying, it's like this man at lunch the other day, he's got two boys, so they're obviously seeing some changes in dad, and they're like, yeah they don't talk to me, they'll talk to my mom and go, hey mom, like dad's different now, what happened, right? And she was a praying, believing Christ's follower, their whole marriage, and of course she's thrilled now to see the changes in her husband and the changes in their marriage and all that God's doing there. So your family's watching you, and you said just recently, your wife's surrendered her life to the Lord. Yes she did, and we prayed together a lot, we had some challenges yesterday, and it's hard dealing with this, she's dealt with this for almost three years, and it's put a lot of stress on the family, because before God come into my life, Nikita, I had everything. I had a nice home, I had money, I had all the possessions that anyone would desire, I could do anything, but now cancer come into my life, and it took everything, it took everything, but I still have God and Jesus, and we still have a roof over our head, and we have a meal to eat each day, so I'm just thankful, you know, it makes me see life in a whole different direction, you know, you look at things totally different, a sunrise, a green leaf on a tree, or a ripple of the waves or the water, you know, you go look at the ocean different, the sky different, you know, look at this creation, look what God has created, you know, things that I would not even look at before, but I look at now, and I'm thankful.

I'm so thankful, I get to see and live these things out, and get to see my 18-month-old grandson, Mason Deon, he named that for me, I get to watch him grow up, and I hope to get to see him graduate in about 17 years. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com Nikita Koloff here, and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?

Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Koloff Fans, and like it, and follow today. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.koloff.net and donate today. . Would your company, business, or you personally like to partner with me in supporting Koloff for Christ Ministries, the Man Up Show, and Man Up Minutes? Go to koloff.net and click the donate button.

You can give monthly, annually, or one time. God bless you for making a difference around the world. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com I still got that much time left, according to God, my 20 years. Well, that's, I mean, that's amazing story.

So your family, so the ripple effect of your decision is now, and by the way, statistically, it shows that when the husband, when the man of the house comes to Christ first, there's a 90 something percent statistically shows that the rest of the family eventually will come to Christ. So, you know, be encouraged out there in Listening Land with Dion's story today. And, and so you, I mean, you mentioned a lot of the different things you've done in the past. So, so give it, share, share, share a wrestling story of, well, what was it like to be in the ring with the Russian nightmare, Dion? It was great, Nikki. You survived it, so.

Yeah, it was better than Vladimir, Vladimir, from you than being knocked out twice. I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh.

I'm sorry. Wait, wait, wait a minute. You were knocked out, wrestling's all fake, Dion. What do you mean Vladimir knocked you out two times? Vladimir, the boy could not work, Nikki.

The boy did not know. Yeah, we know it's all, we know it's all fake and stuff, but Vladimir Piotrol felt the stuff was real. And that's why I put on my Facebook page, I got two different sickles and the man knocked me vertically. I mean, I was standing, knocked me to my head, hit me so hard, it drove my head, my feet were straight in the air, my hair would get into the ring and he fought, I mean, he hit hard.

And it took about 10, 15 minutes to realize where I was, I took both those hits. Shake the cobwebs out, right? Oh yeah, I'd rather have the old Russian sickle any day of the week. Well, hey, I appreciate that. Listen, I appreciate that because, you know, many have watched me sickle somebody. Of course, the most famous one they typically bring up is when I sickled David Crockett, the announcer, right?

And so, you know, I would lay things in, in other words, you know, some would say I was stiff, I like to say I was snug, choice of words here. But that's what, so what I want the listener to always understand here is wrestling is theatrical, it's entertaining, but I want you to catch what Dion's saying and it's actually what a dear friend of mine, Lex Luger says from time to time. It's not an exact science and so depending on your opponent's skill level, well, you know, things happen in the ring like being knocked out twice by somebody who doesn't quite have the skills to be in the ring, right Dion? They just find somebody and work them out a couple of times and put them in the ring and they don't understand the concept, you know, protect your, you know, you protect each other. You don't slam somebody and just put all your body weight into them. You use your knees and hands to protect the man underneath you. Vladimir didn't do that. He slammed and he come down on top, legs in the air, it hurt.

Yeah, right, exactly. You were like, Nikki, you were like. I received that. I appreciate that. Hey, listen, what's a, so you're in the ring with the Russian Nightmare, but give us one quick highlight of your wrestling career outside of being in the ring with the Russian Nightmare. With the Nature Boy Ric Flair, I was just amazed to be in the ring and be able to work a young green wrestler to be able to be put in a square circle with the Nature Boy Ric Flair. It was an honor.

I knew that they trusted me. He was a million dollar ticket. You can't hurt Ric Flair. And so it was great. I mean, my highlight of my life was being in the ring with the Nature Boy Ric Flair, just hearing his music and seeing him come down. I was starstruck and he literally had to slap me in the face because I just could not get over. I was in the ring. I'm like, wow. That's Ric Flair.

The bell rings. I'm going, wow, that's Ric Flair. He's trying to hook up with me. I'm like, wow, that's Ric Flair. But after he slapped me, and then woo hoo hoo, I kind of come to him and started getting started working him.

Slap some sense into you. Come on. I was starstruck. Yes, I was.

Sure. Well, yeah, and not uncommon. And I've heard similar stories with others, you know, that whether it was stepping in the ring with Sting or stepping in the ring with me or someone.

Yeah, so I get that. Now, who were a couple other, you know, just name drop here for a moment. Who were a couple of the other names people would know that you got the opportunity to work with in the ring? Lex Luger.

I worked with him a couple of times to work with you. Of course, Ivan Koloff was great, the nature boy. Sid Vicious, Terry Funk, Sting. Of course, I wrestled Sting many times. Flying Brian Pillman had a great match with him.

You know, he was young and green, and I kind of had to lead him through. We had a great time. Brian Pillman was incredible with me, rest in peace. And when I got to WWF, I got to work with the million dollar man, Ted DiBiase. That was incredible with Virgil. Fabulous Russo brothers and Shawn Michaels. You know, the opportunity to step in the ring for those guys, you know, which is incredible to watch Andre the Giant back there playing cards. You know, it was just.

Right. He loved playing cards to get out. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. That was his preparation for his match, playing cards in the dressing room. Yep, he loved playing cards.

That's how he mentally prepared for his match. Well, it's amazing. I mean, I know the wrestling career.

But there's so many others. Like, you said you were stuntman in some different. So you made some movie appearances as well? I mean, I was in 1999. I just walking through the ball when I was approached and asked if I was interested in this film of the Patriot when Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger, I like to come on set.

And when they found out I wrestled, they won't know if I could do stunts. And so I did some balls off the horse and then took a squid pack and explosive to the chest and Mel blew my chest out. And Mel was a very down to earth man at that time. I had a lot of kids, but he was a down to earth. Heath Ledger was incredible. I mean, he was for six months, I got to hang around with Heath Ledger, you know, and got great pictures of he and I together. So I got pictures of Mel and I, you know, it was great being on the movie set six months with Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger.

Yeah. You've had a lot. You've got to experience a lot of things in life that, you know, let's just say the average person, you know, has not got to experience. I mean, God has given you a full, full life up to this point. And, you know, and I want to make sure, you know, before we run out of time, I want to make sure, too, that people transitioning back to your walk with the Lord. I know you had sent me a YouTube video. I want to encourage people to, you know, go check out. I think you said I'm looking at right now, Jesus saves and heals ordained minister from terminal stage four cancer.

And so people can go watch that one. The other day you sent me a series of videos because the Lord's put it on your heart. The Lord's put it on your heart to, and I forget what you call them, uh, like the, the, just, uh, like a minute, something minutes or something. What do you call the, your posts that you do now on YouTube or Facebook? I do a Jesus minute.

Well, it's up to like three to five minutes. Now I'm, I'm incorporating more into it, but it started, I was walking my dogs and, uh, I had my phone on me and I was filming the dogs. And I said, Jesus put on my heart, quote a Bible scripture. And so I got, you know, John 14, six, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except for me. And so I said it and put it on YouTube. And people said, man, I love these Jesus minutes. So I started doing a scripture or two and it's turned into four or five minutes.

And who knows where it's going to go after that? The Jesus minute, the Jesus minute, right? Jesus minute. And people, when I was up there for the man up in June, y'all guys kept us humping so much. I didn't get a chance to post and people were texting and calling, emailing me, are you okay? And we haven't saw the Jesus minute. And I had to tell everybody, I'm up in Fort Mill at the man up conference. I haven't had a chance to post, but I did the Jesus minute back. They looked forward.

And can they find you on Facebook just like under Dionne Moore or how do they find you on Facebook? They go to JesusWorldMinistry.com and you'll see Pastor Dionne videos and there's about eight different videos there. You know, I did prayers on the, I do weird things. My first sermon, I called it Sermon in the Park, was the last March, the two year mark that God come to me, March 28th, but I did it on March 27th.

It was exactly two years when Jesus come into my life. I called it Sermon in the Park. I had like 30 people show up.

It was just in the recreational park under the pavilion. I had a big banner up saying it's all about Jesus. And then I did prayers on the plaza, blessing other bikers. They had a big biker convention.

They wanted me to come over and bless all the bikers. And now we're getting ready to do salvation in the streets. Well, we're going to go in the streets and just tell people about Jesus. And I want to do jump for Jesus for the young kids, you know, have dance parties and bowling for Jesus. I got little bowling games and party games that kids can play and good, upbeat Christian music that they can dance to because I love dancing.

I've always danced my entire life and I love helping the youth and putting things together. And I want to reach, you know, I hope I reach the children. That's my main goal is that 10 to 12 year old age bracket because they're the ones who are going to carry out a future and they need to know about Jesus Christ. And I was talking in chemo. I had chemo three weeks ago and a young lady was taking chemo beside me and she heard me doing my Jesus minute while I was taking chemo. And she told me that she works with the school systems and how young children don't know about Jesus and God.

And that's what she does. And she had a little boy 12 years old named Sean, autistic, did not believe in God at all, had no concept of God at all. And over the past, it was the past six months, how the 12 year old boy has found Jesus and believes in it now. He's so happy.

His actions have changed and he's a good lad now. And I said thank God for that one right there. That's awesome. Give that website one more time. One more time. What's your website? JesusWorldMinistry.com. Jesus World Ministries or Ministries? Ministries.

It is singular, not plural. Okay. JesusWorldMinistry.com. I want you to go check out Deon Moore and check him out on Facebook too.

I'm just looking at some of the videos he sent me. You know, always give thanks to God the Father for everything. The gospel of peace. Rejoice always in any crisis or in any game you play. The armor of God will get you through anything.

In my Father's house there are many mansions. Just some of the titles of some of these Jesus Minutes that Deon Moore is sharing. Deon, thank you for being on the Man Up show today, man. What an incredible story.

Wow. Nicky, I'm just glad you had me. It's been a good 45 year run. He's given me everything. He's given me everything and created me.

He molded me over 45 years to become an ordained minister November 30th of 2021 right in the middle of cancer. Awesome. I kept going. I kept going. I kept going. You didn't give up. You didn't give up. I did not give up. I was in my house April 2021 saying they can make me comfortable with all this pain.

I said I'm not going to be more themed up until I die. Jesus. No, you have a story Deon. You have a story. Listen, we're out of time. You're out of time. But I want to thank you for being on the show and I want to thank all of you for tuning in again and go out and live a God-filled, God-blessed day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to kolof.net and donate today.

Hi, Nikita Kolof. Be sure to check out The Man Up Show, now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today. If you are enjoying The Man Up Show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. Nikita Kolof here.

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