S5 Ep03 Part 1 Men's Dinner with Nikita Kollof

Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and to point men to their God-assigned roles. Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Hi folks, this is Johnny, TAWCMM's producer for Man Talk Radio Podcast. This week, Roy is back traveling to spread the good news, so we're joining another men's dinner, this time with the original Russian nightmare, a professional wrestling and national wrestling alliance hall of fame, Nakia Kolov. We'll return to our normal program in two weeks. I hope you enjoyed this message just as much as we did.

Keep your families in prayer. Man, we are under attack in a major way, and just in so many different facets. How many of you ever listened to David Barton? If you haven't listened to David Barton, he's a historian. He's the largest owner of private documents of our founding fathers in the world.

He's got several hundred thousand documents. Amazing historian. I was listening to him this morning, and one of the things that used to be back in the 1700s, 1800s, men used the Bible as one of their textbooks in school. And up until pre-World War II, it was the guiding light for our country. We've gotten so far away from that. The only way that's ever going to change is if we, as leaders of our homes, the priests of our homes, and the leaders in our communities, make that priority warning.

We talk about that quite often, priority warning. Amen? Hey, thank you guys for being here tonight.

It's good to see such a large crowd. The last thing I'll tell you is for those of you that can get back up in the morning, we've got breakfast. It's 6.30, so tomorrow morning, so come join us tomorrow morning.

6.30 won't be done by 8 o'clock. So it's my honor to introduce my close friend and brother. Why don't you come up here and stand beside us? That's always a good question. Go ahead, go ahead. He knows what I'm going to do to pick that up.

Smart man. Nakeda and I met about 12 years ago, 13 years ago. It wasn't long after my son had been diagnosed with a sudden death defect in his heart.

And my son and I were there at Harry Moseman High Point in North Carolina. Of course, the speaker's phoned out. Of course, yeah.

That's very fitting, isn't it? I interrupted the session. Shut your phones off.

Shut your phones off. Don't do like I do. So Nakeda just stood there and prayed over my older son, Kay, and God used that prayer and the prayer of many others through the years to help mediate and reduce the risk of my son having a fatal issue with his heart. But that was his heart for just caring for people.

He was there talking to a group of men much like he's doing tonight because he's had a passion for many years since God got a hold of his heart about getting men to change their lives. Would you all agree that we all could improve? Yes. And the way you improve is how? Proverbs talks about iron sharpens iron, right?

So how do you improve? We help each other, right? We work together, we walk together, we do all those things. The kid is one of those men. He'll call me out of the blue, check on me, see how things are going, see what's going on with my family, how things are at home, how things are with my wife.

And of course, he always keeps me in check on the other stuff, but he should keep each other in check on me. That's the heart of this man. You know his professional career, the wrestler. He'll tell you that was probably the least important part of his life that's given him the platform to do what he does today. Just a quick joke, my boss told me, he said, hey, be sure to tell him the key to good and just go back to his real name.

He said, Joseph Smith wasn't it? I'm pleased with that. That was straight from my boss that I had to convey this. Yeah, but you enjoyed it.

That's right. And he did say, yeah, he told me the warning of that Russian stuff. But, you know, I could go on and on about all the accolades, he's a pastor, he's part of Morningstar Fellowship down in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

But I'm not going to get into all that. I just want to tell you this man loves people. I love him as a brother. You guys, thank you so much for being here with him tonight.

Let's give him a nice round of applause and welcome him. Appreciate you, big man. I know what he was wanting to do.

I didn't say anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He asked a question about wanting to improve, right? Wanting to improve.

I mean, who shouldn't want to do that? But what's interesting is you ask guys to, hey, there's this intensive in January over at the church, man. It's Friday night and Saturday. Man, I'm good, right? Can I tell you how many times, if I got a nickel for every time I heard that response, you know, oh, I don't need to go to that. I'm good. I'm good.

I'm like, let me just hang out with you then, you know, rub up against you a little bit. But that's one way you can improve. There's one way right there.

You know, go out and buy your ticket, make the commitment, you know, financial investment. That's one way to improve. You know, another way to improve is go to the mountaintop. That's another way to improve.

Obviously, you know, plug in on a regular basis. Church, come to dinners, go to breakfast. There's lots of ways to improve and exercise as he said, Proverbs 2717.

So in sharp and siren, one man sharpens the confidence of his friend, and so lots of ways you can improve. Great to be back. I'm not sure when I was here last, but it's been a while. But it's great to be back with you guys and pastor and been gracious. Not only to come speak to men, but also to minister at the church as well and, of course, just to be a part of Roy's conferences.

And I saw my mugshot on there. I'll be emceeing, I guess, this year. Master of ceremonies, right? I don't know about all that. But anyway, try to do the best I can there for Roy.

And let me just mention a couple of little housekeeping things as well before I really jump into what the Lord put on my heart. I just went around and handed out a little postcard to each of you. You know, I'd ask you to, if you're not familiar with Truth Radio Network, a lot of the stations are on there. Roy's had a show on their podcast platform for years, and the Lord opened a door. A little over two years ago, I met with Stu Epperson, the founder of Truth Radio. As you can see from that card, I mean, a ton of great ministers and speakers and whatnot.

Not only on the radio, but on their podcast platform. And so he opened up a door, and he opened up a door for me to have the Man Up show, just to challenge men to do just that, to man up. You know, as Roy said, there's a real attack, an obvious attack, on manhood and masculinity, at least in my view.

And it just seems to be accelerating with all this craziness and how they're trying to sexualize children and just everything they're trying to get them in before they even can talk, almost, right? And so I think there's a real need for godly men and godly husbands and godly fathers. And then I hope, a desire to want to improve, great word, want to improve, want to grow, want to mature, right? Into the man of God that God hopes and would desire that we become, right?

And then we model that for the rest of the world. And so, you know, I just encourage you, again, some great resources on how to improve. I mean, I go on YouTube, and I listen to tons and tons and tons of just sermons.

I mean, all night, day, just all different random times, you know, driving in my car, you know, I might pop one on. There's, again, so many great ministers out there who are preaching the truth, and they're preaching the whole gospel, the full gospel. That's what I love about the church here, right? About Pastor and Roy. And, because that's important too, you know, it seems like, I don't know what the percentage would be, but it seems like a pretty high percentage, you know, that the people in today's age love the prosperity message, but, you know, you start talking about what suffering Jesus did and what scripture says about the other side of it. Like, ah, you know, I don't really want to hear that, you know, just, you know, make me feel good walking out of here.

But we're doing a disservice if we don't tell everybody both sides of the coin, right? And so, anyway, so, you know, I encourage you to consider that, you know, if you do that kind of thing, if you do the podcast kind of thing, you know, please help spread the word on the Man Up show. Currently, to date, I think last count in just less than two years, really, was that we hit 76 countries that the show was downloaded in. Downloaded is, and so just to help spread that word, pray over that, that could be even like a little prayer card maybe for you or something, you know, as a reminder to pray for Tooth Radio and all the speakers, all the ministers that are on that network.

And some other things, you might have saw the resource table over here. I know, I think since I've been here last time, one of the books is newly updated, Life Story. So I'm not going to go into a lot of my story tonight, you know, if you like to read or listen or watch, there's different ways to get more of my testimony.

Ring of Redemption is the newly updated Life Story. That one's inspirational, the other one's motivational. If the Lord leads you to sow into the ministry that way, I'll be over there after we're done. You know, be glad to sign anything that you might get over there, take a picture with you, whatever, you know, pray with you.

If you need some prayer, I'd be more than happy to pray with you as well. And so, lastly, lastly, we're talking about improving, so here's a strategy, Roy. I just came up with this strategy right here, okay?

Here's the strategy, so you go to the intensive in January, you go to the mountaintop in February. You see, we want to build line upon line, precept upon precept, we want to take you from glory to glory, right? We want to help you grow and mature. And then in April, you come down with Luger Night to something called Man Cam, and to introduce you to that, if you're not familiar with it, I'm just going to show you this video real quick, if I know what to do here. If I can get over there, probably should have had you help me, Roy. There you go.

Okay. My name's Lex Lee, we're the co-founders of Man Cam. The key that I met were both professional wrestlers back in the late 80s, and interesting because we weren't friends. We worked together, we were co-workers, but we didn't get into it all. And, so I guess they say we really didn't get along all that well. We just kind of tolerated each other.

And the key to professional wrestling and met the Lord in the early 90s, and then on April 24th of 06, God rescued me, and we were reunited in a way that only God can. Things just grew from there, and so eventually we almost did full-time wrestling together, which eventually led to this idea of the foundation and the founding of Man Cam. I've never seen a vet quite like this begin all aspects of being a man. Mentally, physically, spiritually hollow, has worked together in today's world. It all has biblical truth and foundations behind it. These are some of the key aspects of Man Camp. Number one, the guys taking the time to get away and really dig in in the relationship with God. It's really hands-on with the key in and out. It's pretty intense, but it's a lot of fun, too.

A lot of interactive activities that God's put together. It's so thrilling to watch the men from the first day they come, so on the fifth day when they go back home, we send them off. It's just amazing to see the change in them.

Just the confidence on their face is truly a blessing to us. So just a quick introduction to that. That's the website, mancamp.info.

You know, that may be something, another alternative, another option for you. If you desire to go deeper in your walk with Christ, dig pretty deep. Since 2006, when I went to my first camp in March of 2006 out in Texas, I since then have been a part of facilitating, organizing, ministering in over 70 of these camps. Roy has actually attended one of the camps in the past.

I can't say 100% for every single guy, but I will say this. For quite a high percentage of guys, the words they use coming out of camp over just last weekend in Wilmington, the wife, as she teared up when I said, how's Christopher doing post camp? And she said, you have no idea how camp impacted our family and impacted our lives.

She got choked up and teared up. And so it is pretty life-changing for a lot of guys. And I don't care how good you are, could you improve?

Could you improve? So, just something for you to consider. Our oldest camper to date, I think, was 74, 73, 74. A pastor of 50 plus years who had retired, but still hungry for God. Now he comes back and he staffs all of our camps. He drives eight, nine hours from Northern Virginia to come and staff the camps.

Because he just wants to see other men impacted the way he was impacted. And so, something else. So, good challenge, right? The 10th of January, you've got an opportunity to go to the mountaintop in February. You've got an opportunity to go to the Peach State in April.

We do one in the spring and one in the fall. So, just some things to consider. Tonight I'm going to just bring something to you that hopefully is something of value. And your time here will be well spent. Let's just go to the Lord in prayer. So, Lord, we just thank you. I thank you, Lord. I thank you for this opportunity, Lord, to gather together with this group of men. Thank you for opening this door of opportunity for me, Lord. And I pray, Lord, that I am able, Lord, I am able to really deliver this, what you put on my heart, the way you gave it to me. And that it challenges us all. And I'm just grateful and I'm thankful, Lord, for every opportunity. We just love you and praise you. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Amen. Well, you've got some, thank you, sir. Thank you for your help tonight.

He was instrumental in helping out tonight. So, you've got some physical food for that body of yours. And hopefully now I can serve up some spiritual food for you tonight. I've got just a few scriptures to share with you and a couple acronyms. So, a few scriptures and a couple acronyms that I want to share with you tonight.

The two acronyms I want to just briefly talk about and just look at what the Bible has to say. The first acronym is faith. Faith. Two things the Lord has really challenged me on over the years.

It is, you know, my faith and deepening my faith, right? And the other thing he's challenged me on is my trust. Do I really trust him?

Do I fully trust him? And so, just a couple simple acronyms for you to hopefully embrace tonight. And so, I'll just start with the acronym of faith and the F being foundation.

Foundation. And I'm going to go to Luke chapter 6, verse 47 and 48 that says this. Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man, a man building a house who dug deep, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the floods arose and the stream beat vehemently against the house and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. And so, I don't know what your life is built upon.

Hopefully, you know, it is built upon the rock that you have at some point in your journey up to this point made a decision to open up your heart and invite Christ in and center your relationship then on him. And I know for me, I'm not going to tell you a whole lot of my story. October 1993, 17 October 1993 is when I encountered Christ. It was about 11 months after I left that crazy, wacky world of wrestling. And looking back now, fast forward 29 or so years later, looking back now on that decision that day, here's what I recognized and realized.

I recognized and realized that, and by the way, I didn't grow up in church, right? And I didn't grow up in Russia, you figure that one out by now, right? Although I got a call from Russia the other day. Like, I'm not making that up. I'm like, Miss, call Russia. I'm like, really? I'm like, anyway. Yeah, probably so.

Probably so. But I didn't grow up in church. But here's part of my story now. Part of my story is, I knew who Jesus was historically. In other words, I knew the facts, right? I knew that the man Jesus died on a cross, right?

Spikes driven through his hands, his feet, and his spirit through his side. I knew who he was historically. I knew the facts, right? I knew who he was philosophically.

What I mean by that is, you think of the Christmas story, you think of the Easter story, or some of the other stories he told, as we know as parables, right? So there's those different stories that you can get to know him philosophically. So, I knew who he was historically. I knew who he was philosophically. I even knew who he was socially. Now, I didn't run in Christian circles or hang out with a bunch of Christian guys, but I was around enough Christians who lived it that I was with, and socially I had that understanding.

Here's the only element I was missing. I didn't know him personally. I knew him historically. I knew him philosophically.

I just didn't know him socially. I just didn't know him personally until September, October 1993, when I went to an altar and encountered him at that altar, and life has never been the same since. My life was then built. I began to lay a foundation on the rock, Jesus.

It's what brings me here tonight. It's what's taken me to 30 different countries and all 50 states. I just stopped counting at 1,200 churches now to have a radio show and actually a TV show, a man-off TV show on a variety of different streaming platforms and a podcast and camps and conferences and all the stuff that God has me doing. It all started with that decision that day of my life being built upon the foundation of Jesus upon the rock. My hope and my prayer is that story, whether it be historically, philosophically, or socially, has moved from what may be in your head down to your heart, and you've made that decision.

That's my hope and prayer for every single one of you. I mean, a group this size, I'm not going to just make an assumption and say, okay, everybody's bloodwashed, born again, has experienced salvation in this room. And case in point, a year ago, we had a guy come to the camp, and a couple, three days in, he came to me at lunch, and he said this. He said, the kid, I want to share what happened this morning. I said, what happened, Greg? I said, I was out doing some devotional time, out on some personal time, and he said, God spoke to me and said these words. He said, Greg, you got saved in your head years ago, but you've never opened your heart to me.

You've never invited me into your heart. I go, wow. I go, what did you do? He goes, I just started bawling, honestly. He goes, I'll just be transparent with you. I just fell to my knees. I started bawling. He says, I just asked for forgiveness.

I repented this week. He goes, Nikita, I got saved this morning. I'm like, that's amazing, Greg. I go, if you don't mind my asking, how old are you? He goes, I'm 69.

I'm like, wow. I go, can I ask you another question? How long have you been in church? He goes, pretty much my whole life.

And then the real kicker was, he goes, yeah, back home I'm like chairman of the demons. So religion over relationship, right? He was doing lots of good works, and like some people, trying to earn their way to heaven, right? But we know you can't earn your way to heaven. Scripture makes that very clear.

Go read Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. Salvation is a gift, and it's by faith, right, through grace, that you receive Christ. You can't earn it.

You can't work for it instead. So, the F is foundation. Foundation, that's the F in my acronym here tonight.

I hope your life is built upon the foundation. A is associations. Associations. Who do you associate with?

Who do you hang out with? It's been said by others and many others that, you know, you become like the five people you hang around the most. That's kind of what the, kind of how it goes, they say. And I go over to 1 Corinthians 5, 15, 33, and it says this, Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Another translation says bad company corrupts good character.

Bad company corrupts good character. And so this acronym of faith tonight, your life is built upon the foundation, upon the rock, upon Jesus, and you dig deep, so no matter what kind of storms in life come by the way, you're still standing. You're not going to be crushed by any storm because you've dug so deep. And I'm just going to drive it home. That's why you want to go to an intensive. That's why you want to go to a mountaintop. So you can continue to grow and mature and dig deep, right?

And lay that solid foundation. And then consider your associations. Who are you associated with? Who do you hang around? Do you have any battle buddies? I call them battle buddies. That's what General Boykin calls them.

He'll be here in January. That's what he calls them, battle buddies. Proverbs 27, 17 is iron sharpens iron. One man sharpens the countenance of his friend, right? Who's your battle buddy?

Do you have a battle buddy? Do you just have somebody that holds you accountable? I mean, I meet with my pastor every month on a regular basis, one-on-one, right? I'm accountable to him. He's accountable to me. I'm transparent with him. He's transparent with me. And he has permission to ask all the hard questions. You know, if I'm walking a straight and narrow path, am I doing anything I shouldn't be doing, right? And whatever questions he asks, probably the last one he'll ask is, did you just lie to me about anything, right?

And so just transparency and honesty. Who are you associated with? And do you have somebody you're accountable to? Do you have a spiritual father?

I'm fortunate. I interviewed him this afternoon. Ronnie Raven, he's out of Missouri, just had his 75th birthday, and he shared with me today.

Here's what I wanted to have on the show. His first sermon he preached was January 8th, 1967, Roy. 1967. And this past October 30th, just a few, couple weeks ago or whatever, he preached sermon number 10,000. Sermon number 10,000. First sermon he said was Jesus was greater than Samson. He said this last sermon number 10,000 was Jesus was greater than Solomon.

Right? And so he said, I'm just still preaching the truth, Nikita. I'm still just putting the truth out there, right? And how great Jesus is and who he is and what he did for all of us, right? Sacrificing himself on the cross so you and I could have a personal relationship with him.

Foundation, associations. Do you have a spiritual father? Do you have a battle buddy?

Are you mentoring anybody else? I don't have time for that, Nikita. That's an excuse. You have time, you can have time for whatever you want to make time for. There's lots of stuff you make time for.

It's just a matter of whether it's a priority or not. And I'll just say this, he may, I think he knows this, but his son, Josh, some of you probably met him, probably know him. Reached out to me when he was a freshman in college down at UNCC and said, can we meet on a regular basis?

I said, absolutely. And so we've been doing that. He's now a senior down there. We just met this past Tuesday, we usually meet for an hour or two and get together on a very regular basis. And he's kind of like a young Timothy in my life, right? And so who are you mentoring? Who are you associated with? Who are you mentoring? Are you mentoring anyone?

If you're a seasoned Christ follower in here, can I just challenge you tonight? You should be mentoring someone. Just like Ronnie Raymond has mentored me the last 25 years. Now I've had the privilege the last four years or so of sowing into young double J, Josh Jones.

You should be mentoring somebody. Who are you associated with? The I is identity. Where is your identity?

Where is your identity? I'm going to go over to Psalms, go over to the Old Testament for a second and go over to Psalms. And there's a pretty cool scripture in Psalms 139, a few verses here. And it says this, for you formed my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works that my soul knows very well. My brain was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in your book, they were all written.

The days were fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them. Another interview I did this afternoon was a guy named Justin Reeder. He founded Love Life down in Charlotte. If you're not familiar with Love Life, they help empower churches to embrace women and young girls who are considering an abortion and perhaps not go down that path. But how to actually embrace them and love them, not shun them or put a scarlet letter A on them because they sinned and had sex outside of marriage.

And it was interesting because he was very passionate about this and it was interesting. We were talking about whether it's life in the womb or life after, whether it's 12 weeks in the womb or 12 months after they're born and come out of the womb. God loves them. God sees them.

You will not forget. So bring your printed Bible, journal, your toothbrush, maybe your favorite pillow, and of course, don't forget your towel. Everything else is included, including meals, linens, coffee, snacks, and plenty of worship for you to join in. Jesus said, when two or more gather in my name, there I am. So come and feel the Spirit of the Lord. To register for this life changing event, go to Tawkm.com slash M-T-E. That's T-A-W-C-M-M dot com forward slash M-T-E for the Mountaintop Event. As we conclude today's show, TAWCM talking and walking Christian men's ministry are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home, communities, churches, and work environment. Check us out on our website for upcoming events and regular scheduled meetings. Don't forget to send us an email for topics that you would like us to visit in the future. Thank you for joining us today on Man Talk. Visit us at TAWCM.com.