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The Truth Network Podcast is playing now. And if you're a little bit familiar with the story, you know, part of the mystery of Esther is she's hidden. Nobody knows where she's from. And none of the story works if she wasn't, to some extent, hidden.
Who was she, right? And her mysterious, you know, whereabouts were key to the whole deal. But also God being hidden in plain sight is like a huge part of, I think, all of our lives. And it was, to me, it was fascinating that you talked about that.
James had been discussing it. And I've been actually thinking about that all week. But before we get down to the real part, well, let's pray. So, Jesus, thank you for your Word. And it's so amazing to me, all that you're bringing together all the time. And, Lord, I pray that you would, like, man, that I would just be a window to God. That people would see you so clearly and that they would hunger and thirst for your Word and come to know you, Lord, in a way that would just impact their life and really make a big, huge difference to the point that they would be a light for others. And I ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. So, the Feast of Esther, which we're going to get to, and then just to jump forward to come back. If you look carefully in the third chapter of Esther around verse 12, you're going to find they ordered that all the Jews would be killed on the 13th day of Adar. But they did that on the 13th day of Nisan. So, Haman, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes, and the king of Persia at the time put out an edict for all the Jews to be killed on the 13th day of Nisan. On the 14th day of Nisan, Mordecai mourns and all that. And Esther asked for a fast to happen for how long? Three days. Right? Well, think about it.
Just the overall, just marvel at this a minute. Here you've got Passover week, Holy week. Jesus was killed on the 14th day of Nisan, and he was raised how many days later? And at the end of that fast, as you may know, Esther is risking her life to even go before the king because she hasn't been called.
And so, he's got to raise the golden scepter or she dies. And that was the picture that you guys have in the front of your bulletin, et cetera, is that whole idea of what's going on there. But the connection that God does between Passover and the book of Esther and the idea of Purim, and then obviously Holy week is just like God is hidden in plain sight. And it's been said, and I would say it's true, that you can cut the Bible anywhere you want and it bleeds.
Right? No matter where you cut it, Jesus is there. If you look for it, he's there and he's hidden in plain sight, but it's there.
It's absolutely there. So, as you begin to think about that, like in your own life, where did God just show up that was just hidden in plain sight? So, years ago I learned this verse. It's kind of a tongue twister, but it becomes more and more evident. In fact, you can circle this as one of my Robbie's favorite verses right here because I've seen it come so true so many times. In 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 3, it says, and here comes the tongue twister, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort those with the comfort we are comforted with. What?
Right? What that means is, if you are healed from cancer, guess what? You're going to have an opportunity to pray for other people who have cancer, to minister to other people with cancer. If you were in the midst of drug or alcohol addiction, in fact I've heard it said, if God called you from it, he's going to call you to it.
Because this verse turns out to be true and true and true. Well, again, sometimes I have to pinch myself that I get to do such cool things, but, you know, four or five years ago I got a chance to, they wanted me to do a hundred interviews of Christian counselors at the International Christian Counselor Seminar or conference in Nashville. And I had a weekend, and they wanted me to interview a hundred, live on the radio, a hundred counselors.
They were about ten minute interviews. Now, if you had such a task, you would probably be like me, God, you have me right where you want me. Like, what do I do with that? And so I began to pray, God, what is it that you do? And he said, it's pretty simple, just hit them with 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 3.
Just hit them right between the eyes, coming out of the chute, just hit them with it. And so here they came, all these counselors, right? And I think the first one I had, the lady was a counselor in a pregnancy abortion type of situation where they were counseling pregnant moms. And so I looked at her and I said, so, you know, at the beginning of 2 Corinthians it says, you know, the God of all comfort comforts us so we can comfort others with the comfort we've been comforted with?
How does that play out in your life? And her eyes got about this big because she had not realized the truth of 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Like, oh, yeah, I guess I had an abortion.
Really. And off she went into the whole story of how that happened. And she had never put it together that she was now in this field.
And why? Because she'd come through this, right? And so the more I did this, the more it just blew my mind, like, here came these people, they were marriage counselors.
Guess what? They had tremendous trauma because their parents had divorced. And one after the other they came and every time I hit it, it just opened up. Like, the interview went just, and all these people would come to the realization that God had been calling them to something they had been through. And then there was the lady, same thing, she was working also in actually a suicide hotline for women that had abortions.
And this is a live show, man, I mean, we're like on the radio. And her husband is sitting right next to her and I throw that out there and live on the radio with her husband never having heard this before, she says, well, and she looks at her husband and she goes, I have to admit, I had an abortion. But, you know, you're sick as your secrets. And this was an opportunity for her, like, I still can't believe it happened, I saw it, but, you know, there it was.
God was hiding in plain sight in every single one of those stories. There was a guy came up, he was a full-blown psychiatrist. This guy looked like Sigmund Freud, literally had a three-piece suit on with a vest, right? Goatee, the whole thing, man, the guy was a doctor, he was a psychiatrist.
And so I thought, well, it ain't going to work with this one. So I look at this dude, I was like, well, sir, you know how it says in Second Corinthians chapter one, the God of all comfort, comfort says with comfort of your comfort, how would that work out in your life? And he says, well, I was insane. And he said it with a like, he was insane. And he said, I just totally had lost my mind and I was in a mental hospital and I'd just been married about three weeks. And I was convinced that the red dot on the wall was Satan himself and you couldn't convince me otherwise. And I was just staring at that red dot and trying to figure out what I was going to do with Satan. He said, but my wife, my new wife, my, you know, freshly wed wife is sitting on the bed just bawling.
And she looks up at me and she says, can you tell me how please that I can be insane because I don't want to be without you? And he said, I sat on that bed and there was just no way in the world that I couldn't fight my way in order to come back for my wife. And once again, his story was that God brought him through mental illness, severe mental illness, so that he could comfort others with the comfort that he'd been comforted with. God is hidden in plain sight in your own story.
Those people, all of them, you know, not all of them, but most of them had never came across the idea that this is exactly what was playing out in their life. And I interviewed a young man who was going to the mission field. He's going to North Vietnam. He left yesterday and he'd had a horrible childhood and his father had abused him and all this stuff. And he ended up being a drug addict, an alcoholic and all this stuff.
And he actually just recovered from that about three years ago. And then he went on a short term mission trip to North Vietnam. And when he got there, I didn't realize that that's like the heroin capital of the world. And all these kids were running around hooked on heroin and mistreated and nobody wants to be their parents because everybody in the whole community is all messed up on drugs and all this kind of thing. And he was saying, what are you going to do with these kids? And they were like, well, you take them, we don't want them.
All these kids have all, you know, the mother left, the father left and there's kids just running around all over the place. And he said, I got on the airplane and I just began to bawl and just began to weep and I was like, I can't take it. You know why he couldn't take it?
Because that was him as a kid, right? He had been abused and not wanted and not loved and all that stuff. But interestingly, you know, he said, I just felt God said, you got to go start an orphanage over there. And he said, I came back and I didn't ask one person for money, but all of a sudden money just started coming from all these different people that heard I wanted to start an orphanage in North Vietnam. And, you know, missionaries have a hard time raising support.
It took him six months to raise enough to build his orphanage and go over there permanently. Like, man, like God, you think he was behind it? It was hidden in plain sight. And until we began to talk about it, I could tell that he was not aware that St. Corinthians chapter one, verse three, had come to life in his own life. Because, again, it's just there. But the place I kind of wanted to land, actually, in Esther, and let me give you a little back story, that God, you know, if you go up there at 10,000 feet or maybe even way further than that, God needed the Jews to go back to Israel.
He's often wanting that. But what had happened, unfortunately, as you may know, is that first the northern kingdom of Israel, they kept running away from God and going after idols and shenanigans and this and that and the other. And so, you know, Sennacherib comes down and sends them into exile all over the place, spreads them out all over the map as far as, you know, what the world was at the time. And then, you know, a couple of generations later Nebuchadnezzar comes down from Babylon and does the same thing to Judah. And really tears down the temple, gets all the equipment out of the temple, this, that, and the other, and he heads off to Babylon. But the prophet Jeremiah had written that this was going to go on for 70 years, right?
And so God's plan was that as soon as they got the 70 years of punishment over with, that they would go back because, obviously, if Jesus is going to be born, we need Jesus. He's got to be born in Bethlehem. The Jews got to be back there. We need a temple. A temple is a big part of the situation.
That's got to be built and all these things have got to happen. Well, they began to build the temple, you know, in Zerubbabel and whatever. If you read the way the Bible's canonized, you know, Nehemiah happens and then the book of Esther. So here's the temple, but we don't have any Jews, you know, because they're all up in Persia.
Why are they in Persia? Well, it's party city up there. But if you read the book of Esther, you're going to find that, man, this dude is throwing party after party.
And these parties last for like a year. And so the Jews are not going back where they need to go. And so what does God often do when he needs to get your attention?
Right? And if you watch the story of the Jews, like through all those different kings, and it was time and again that all this trouble would come as a result of trying to get you there. You know, it was COVID at the time, whatever it was, they'd get people's attention because, you know, you guys have strained, you know, you forget where you came from. And so at the time, interestingly, after Nebuchadnezzar's son becomes emperor, he throws a big party and he gets so bold that he breaks out the goblets out of the temple to drink the wine out of. And you may know the story that while they're drinking the wine and having a good time, all of a sudden a finger starts writing on the wall, many, many taker euphorisms, right?
Which means you've been weighed and found wanting like this is not good. And actually that night, Belshazzar would be killed. But they were drinking from these goblets. This was not good because, I mean, you're blaspheming God himself. Well, interestingly, and this is written in Jewish writing, not so much in the book of Esther itself that you can see, but I believe it's true that this last party that Belshazzar, excuse me, that the king of Persia threw, he was trying to get the Jews to sin. You see, he knew the reason that Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom fell is because if you curse the Jews, you're going to be cursed.
And so he knows what happened to obviously the last kingdom. And so who am I to make sure that I don't curse? But at the same token, if I can get God to turn their back on them, then I can be free to go do what I want to do. It's the same idea that Balaam had with the donkey, right? You know, that he was going to curse, but it turned out that he couldn't curse them.
So then what do you do? You put in all the women so that the Jews would sin and God would turn his back on them because, you know, that was the idea. Well, you know, the king of Persia had this same idea by throwing all these parties. And so when he becomes king, he throws this giant party and he gets so revved up, I guess is a good way to put it, that he wants to bring his wife, whose name is Vashti, out in front of all these people at this party, and he wants to bring her out and show her off.
And to show off in this particular culture at the time means that's that without any clothes, right? This ain't good. This is the queen. And she says, you're out of your mind, buddy.
This is the Rabi pure phrase. So he didn't know what to do. She's a beautiful woman, etc., etc.
He goes to his counselors. They say, man, you can't let a wife not obey her husband in this culture. Every wife out there is going to be disobeying their husband. You're going to have to do something, and you're going to have to put her away is what the Bible says.
If you look carefully, you'll find it actually executed her. So the next thing you know, he's lonely. He doesn't have a wife.
He's obviously got problems because of all these parties. And so they go about literally kidnapping every beautiful woman in 127 provinces. You can imagine the amount of women that are involved in this whole thing. And one of the women that they kidnap is Esther. And Esther's uncle is Mordecai. And Mordecai is in the 70s Sanhedrin of the Jewish faith. He's the rabbi of the area.
He is a very high, well-respected Jew. It's his niece that he's been raising that's an orphan, Esther, that they kidnap. But Esther is full of grace and favor and all that, and apparently she was a babe, however you want to look at that, because when the king and all his people saw her, it was like, man, this is the one. And so he marries Esther, and it begins to set up this chapter three and four. Well, then they raise up this guy by the name of Haman, and Haman is the bad guy in the story for sure. But if you look carefully, you'll see that what's happening is the king of Persia is going to manipulate Haman, because he knows that Haman is literally, the best way to put this, he brings up this long-standing grudge with Jacob, or with the Jews. So Haman's great-great-great grandfather was King Agog.
And King Agog, let's see if I can do this simply. King Agog was the king of the Amalekites when King Saul was first made king. So Israel gets their first king, his name is Saul. He seems like a pretty good guy at first until he's told that he's supposed to wipe out the Amalekites, and he is supposed to take out every single last living thing, including all the sheep.
Well, this is the famous scene where Samuel comes in and he goes, what's this bleeding of sheep I hear in my ears? Because Saul didn't kill the sheep, and most importantly, he didn't kill Agog. Well, Agog is Haman's great-great-great-great grandfather. Well, see, Saul, the Benjamite, the original king of Israel before King David, was supposed to kill out all the Amalekites, Haman's people, and was supposed to kill out his great-great-great grandfather, Agog. Well, even before that, these people all related to Esau, which was the brother of Jacob that didn't, right, that wanted to kill him, which is the whole reason that all that happened.
So there's a lot of back story, a lot of back story that I could go and spend a lot of time on. It's kind of important to know that when Jacob saw Esau and Esau did not kill him, one of the things that Jacob did was he bowed down to Esau. And so with that, all his sons and his wives at the time all bowed down. But what was the one tribe, what was the one son that had not been born yet? That was Benjamin.
Okay, so keep that in mind. Saul is from what tribe? Benjamin, the one tribe that never bowed to Esau.
You following? So now, go all the way fast forward to Haman becomes essentially Viceroy, the number one guy under the king of Persia, and he hates the Jews. He lays awake at night trying to figure out how to kill the Jews because these people have wiped out all his people and that's all he can think about. And the whole reason the king of Persia raised him up is because he wanted to do away with the Jews, but he didn't want his hand in it because he would get cursed. And so Haman's the perfect guy to bring up and make the Viceroy because this guy hates the Jew and he's going to come up with a plan to kill him and I'll let him do it. So when he raises up Haman, he also dresses him up as one of the Babylonian gods. And so when Haman walks in, you're supposed to bow down.
Well, who's the one guy who will not bow down? Mordecai, who is also from the tribe of Benjamin, which also tells you that Esther was from the tribe of Benjamin. And you see what's happening here is God is giving the tribe of Benjamin a chance to make good on what great-great-great-grandfather Saul did not do.
You see? And it's really a very interesting set of back story, but you've got to see kind of what's happened now is Haman, he didn't bow down and so he begins to hate more and hate, hate, hate. And so here's what we're going to do. We're going to kill all the Jews and we're going to start doing it on what day? The thirteenth day of Adar.
I mean, yeah, of Adar, which is the twelfth month of the year, but they make the edict right there at Passover. So we get to the fourth chapter, and I'll read this first one. It says, When Mordecai learned all that happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and went out in the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud, bitter cry, and he went as far as the king's gate, for no one might enter the gate clothed with sackcloth. So in those days, the only time you would put on sackcloth, especially in this culture, is if you were allowed to mourn, but only if the king was dead. So if you showed up at the palace with sackcloth on, you're essentially said the king's dead, and you're probably, based on this king's reputation, you wouldn't last long, right? And so Mordecai putting on sackcloth, and he, by the way, was a senator in this government, I mean, this was almost like signing your own death sentence, and then to show up at the gate is really like signing your own death sentence. So this is a pretty drastic thing to do. But God was going to call for drastic measures because, again, the whole overall plan is we've got to get the Jews back to Bethlehem so we can have Jesus and we can have Jerusalem.
We've got to have all that. But Mordecai really was mourning because he knew some things in heaven because, again, our battle is not against flesh and blood. His battle really wasn't against Haman, and he knew it. Our battle isn't against flesh and blood, but spiritual forces in high places. And so if God had allowed this edict to be done that all the Jews would be killed, then that means something's going on in heaven, and we're losing this battle. And if you look in the book of Daniel, chapter 10, you're going to see a very interesting interchange about the prince of Persia, which was apparently an extremely, maybe the most powerful force against the Jews, which, by the way, is Iran right now. And when you think about just how it sounds in your ear, Iranian and Aryan, you can make a really strong case for the ancestors of the German Aryan people were the same group that obviously came out of that.
We're living this history right now, believe me. So all that kind of gives you the world picture, but let's see if we can land it down here where you walk and talk like I do. Like, okay, Ravi, that's really awesome.
That's interesting, but okay, now what do I do with that? Well, I think that Mordecai gives us here a picture of what mourning really looks like. And first of all, to some extent, if you're really mourning, you're saying the king's dead, right? Because only things can't be too bad if we know Jesus won this deal. We're all going to live with him forever. This is a short period of time, and next thing you know, we are going to have a lot better party than Haman ever had.
In other words, this is pretty good. And so if we're really, really, really, really mourning and putting on sackcloth, we're saying the king's dead. He ain't dead, right? That's why they fasted to find out that the king wasn't dead.
I mean, the king, and I'm talking about Jesus, he is not dead. But the interesting thing is that when they, and I don't know if you're aware of this, but when they rent their clothes, in other words, and this started out in the book of Genesis when Reuben realized that his brother had been put in a pit, he rent his clothes. Well, the way they rent those is they would take a hold of their collar like this because the idea was to expose their heart. And so when you think about why you would mourn is you're broken hearted, right?
And so I've got to expose my heart. Well, if you look carefully at the way they made the priestly garments, they put a special hem around the collar of the high priest's robe so he could not rend it because the king ain't dead. You know what I mean?
He's just not. But nonetheless, in Joel chapter 2 verse 13, you can look this up, it's pretty cool. God said pretty clearly, rend your hearts, not your garment. And the whole idea, again, is if you're broken hearted, and certainly David was at a certain time, what are we going to be broken hearted about? Our own sin, okay?
The king ain't dead, but I know what I really mourn is my own sin. And so you might guess I have a story, and I do have one, that for a long time I was in the car business. Those who know me well, that's why I'm a Christian car guy. But we had the dealership in Mocksville, North Carolina.
We took over that dealership. There was an old salesman there by the name of Johnny Hendricks. Johnny Hendricks was a good guy, man. He loved kids.
He played with kids. But he would not talk about God for nothing. He sold more cars than any salesman I had.
He was a really great salesman. But when I think about this particular story, you know, the famous line from the book of Esther that most people can quote is, for such a time as this, right? And so when you add that into the equation, you go, God was hidden in plain sight for such a time as this. You were there based on what you had happen in your life, what we talked about in 2 Corinthians. You're there for that person for such a time as this. Esther was there.
Mordecai was there for such a time as this. Apparently, I was there with Johnny Hendricks for such a time as this. So I worked with Johnny for about six years, and I don't know how many Bible studies I invited him to. I don't know how many times I offered to pray with him. I don't know how many times I asked him to go to CBMC with me, all sorts of stuff. He didn't want to talk about God, didn't want to have nothing to do with God.
Well, one day, he knocks on my door, and he says, Robbie, I need your prayers. They had just diagnosed me with pancreatic cancer. And honestly, I didn't know that much about pancreatic cancer at the time. I was a cancer survivor, but I just assumed, number one, I was really busy. I was in the middle of building a new building and a bunch of stuff that really, really I never, ever should have been thinking about anything. But wait a minute, Johnny Hendricks has never asked for prayer.
This is my moment in the sun. Johnny wants to know about God. This would be time to chime in, but Robbie was too busy at that particular moment being a car dealer, okay? And I was like, Johnny, you're going to be fine. I'll pray for you.
I didn't pray with him. I just said, I'll pray for you. And I said, you're going to be fine. I had cancer.
It won't be, you know, you'll be fine. And as he went out the door, I remember the sinking feeling of looking on his face like, Robbie, I think you just blew it, and oh my gosh, did he look dejected and scared. Well, two weeks later, I get a call from his wife, Tammy and I actually did, and they said, we need you to come to the hospital because Johnny's in a coma. And so we get to the hospital, and we go up to intensive care, and his family's there and his best friend's there is Bruce Rollins.
And they're talking about when we get in there, how bad it is. And so I asked Bruce Rollins, I said, Bruce, do you know, does Johnny know Jesus? And Bruce, I knew from several Bible studies, et cetera, did know Jesus. And so I was like, Bruce, did Johnny know Jesus? And he said, well, Robbie, all I know is about ten years ago, maybe 15 years ago, he went to Turntine Baptist a couple times. He got mad at the preacher, and he never went back.
He said, I don't think he does. I was like, whoa, Johnny could be going, right, to eternal place with no love, no joy, no peace. I mean, I don't think we really have any sense of how horrible hell is. I don't think there's any way that we could ever know what it would be like to spend a moment without God because he's been with us ever since, whether we were in Christ or not, we've always been around people that, in other words, we have no idea what it would be like to wake up and not one person care a thing in the world about you except wanting to wait for you to hurt as bad as they do.
It seemed pretty horrible. His wife comes in, and she says, Robbie, they'll only allow one person in with me. Will you go with me because I know you'll pray. How high does Robbie? I mean, I could not have felt more horrible about the situation, but I said, I'd be happy to, Geraldine, but I've got to know, do you think Johnny knows Jesus?
No, Robbie, I don't think he does. So I went in there and prayed and, again, feeling like, man, if there was ever a time in my life I'd blown it because I realize now I went back to the moment where I had my moment and I did not take that opportunity for such a time as this, right? So I went and I took it to the streets. I was mourning, okay? I realized that I had totally blown this. This is horrible, and I pulled a full malachai.
I rent my clothes. I was so brokenhearted it was unbelievable, and I went and I got my car because they didn't know what else to do. I just couldn't stay in the hospital and I couldn't go home. I just had to go do something. I had to pray somewhere, and so I had this favorite place where I would pray on the street, on the road to Mocksville. When I went by a certain billboard, then that's where I would pray, and that's just what I had, right? And I said, well, that's where I got to go because, God, you know, I just need you because I don't know. So I'm going out there on the street and I'm going by my billboard, and I was like, God, God, God, oh, God, you know and I know what I didn't do. And I said, please, please, please, please, please, if there's any way in the world if you, and I was so contrived and desperate.
I said, if there's any way in the world that you would let Johnny just have a little time, however much time you would give him, I promise you, I promise you, I will either introduce him to you or help him to get to know you better. And I felt something. I don't know what, but just a sense of, Robbie, I'm with you.
You know, like, I'm with you. So I go back to the hospital. Geraldine, his wife, says to me, Robbie, they're saying there's no brain activity, there's no this or that, they want to pull the plug. I said, no, no, please, you know, please, don't, don't, don't. You know, we don't know if he knows Jesus and I've been praying and I feel God wants to do something, don't pull the plug.
So they didn't. Second day, go back, same exact story, spent some time, you know, however many hours sitting with him, they're wanting to pull the plug, we didn't pull the plug. Third day, same thing. Now they're really looking at me like, Robbie, how long has this got to go on? It's hard. Fourth day, Johnny wakes up, sits up in the bed like nothing happened.
He even puts his Davie County ball cap on. Right? And I get a call from his wife, Robbie, you're not going to believe it, Johnny's sitting up in the bed, he's sitting there, he feels great, man, I can't even believe it, it's like he never left. Now it's like, oh, man, I got a problem. Because I told God that I got to introduce him, but I said, but Johnny will never talk to me about God, I don't know where am I going to go with this. So you know what I did? Broken hearted, I went back out to that same billboard. I was like, man, I'm going to take it to the streets again.
And so I'm taking it to the street and I'm like, God, you got to help me, I don't know what this, I mean, I know you did this, man, this is so amazing, I love it, this is beautiful. What can I say to Johnny? And he says to me, Robbie, Johnny is a car salesman. That's all he had to say to me. That's all he had to say to me because immediately I knew, it just, my mind tracked with what a car salesman, Johnny had been a car salesman for 40 years, so he knew exactly what it is.
Honor among thieves and all that kind of thing. To a car salesman, a deal is a deal. You see, we've had so many people back out on so many deals that when you make a car salesman, when you make a deal with another car salesman, it's a deal because you know the honor of what that is. And I knew that Johnny knew what the honor of a deal was.
So I walk into, there's Johnny sitting in the bed, Davey cap, ball cap on, Davey County ball cap on, all that stuff. And I'm like, Johnny, I made a deal with God. What kind of deal did you make with God, Robbie? I said, well, I said, I made a deal that if he would let you live, that I would either introduce you to him or help you to get to know him better, if you already know him.
And he said, Robbie, you better get to it. So I started taking him through the Gospel of John, right? You do the I am statements, right? I am the bread of life, I'm the living water, I am the truth, right? All those I ams that are in the Book of John, and we're going through them one by one. And this goes on for a few weeks. And we finally get to the part where I am the resurrection.
It's kind of an important part. And I go in there, and by this time he's moved out of the hospital, he's had his house recovering, and I teach on I am the resurrection with him, and the idea of Lazarus, we came out of the grave, right? Well, how many days was it before Lazarus came out of the grave? Four days late, but right on time, right? So I teach, you know, I go home. Next morning I show up, man, and when I get to his neighborhood, there's cars everywhere, and I don't know if you know what that means, but generally it means somebody died.
Fortunately, that was not the case. I walk in the door, and everybody apparently in Davie County was in Johnny Hendrix's room, including a good friend of mine who was a pastor by the name of Jimmy Lancaster. And Jimmy looks at me, and he says, Johnny, tell Robbie what's happened. He said, well, Robbie, you know, I listen to all that stuff about Lazarus, and you walked out, my sister came in, and when she came in, she had a stack of Gaither CDs.
Gaither's a vocal band that, you know, that's pretty famous, and he says she takes out the first CD, sticks it in there, and it's four days late, but right on time. And he says, man, I knew right then that I needed to accept Jesus, and so I called the only pastor I really could get along with, Jimmy Lancaster, because Jimmy used to work for us, and he was a good friend of all of ours, and so Jimmy walked him through. You know, look, you can know Jesus, but this is what's got to happen. You've got to admit that you've got something to mourn for, right? And the king needs to die. By the way, when you're the king, which is what I thought I was, that's the guy that needs to die. That's the person I've got to put the sackcloth on for, right? That guy needs to die, and I've got to make a new king, right? I've got to crown Jesus.
I've got to accept him as my savior, right? There is no ever, ever, you know, explaining the difference between Johnny Hendrix before that day and after that day. In other words, I went from a friend that I could talk to a little bit about certain things, but to a brother who was deeply concerned about me and deeply concerned about things of God and deeply concerned about this and that, and he even wrote the most beautiful, almost like the next day, he wrote a beautiful article that was posted in the Davie County Enterprise.
I have it in my office today. Because two weeks later, Johnny met him. For such a time as this, right?
I bumbled and I stumbled, and I did whatever I did. But you see, God was there every step of the way. And who knows when it is, you know, your time to be for such a time as this for somebody, a time to help them mourn to get it straight, you know, whatever that might look like. In that moment, God has used to bless so many folks, that story. The doctor told Geraldine that Johnny was going to die, and she didn't want the doctor to tell Johnny that, and we were there visiting, and she came in and she said, Robbie, I don't want Johnny to get this news from me or from the doctor.
Would you tell him that he only has a few more hours? What's fascinating about that is it's not the only time I've been asked that, because Edith back there is my best friend's wife. She asked me to do the same thing for Vic. And what happened for Johnny that day, of course, God once again had me right where he wanted me.
I'm like, I've got no idea, what do you say? What do you say when you're going to tell somebody, look, in a little bit, you're going to go see the one we've been talking about. Didn't know exactly how that worked, but I began to pray, and God reminded me that I had the same conversation once. I was in the hospital, I had a brain abscess, my infection was spreading through my brain from a brain biopsy that they had done, and I put a plate on there, and I was, I guess they thought, dying, because the nurse looked at me and said, Mr. Dilmore, I'm hanging this last antibiotic here, because in a few hours you may not be here.
So you need to make whatever arrangements you need to do whatever, because you're real close. And I can remember that well. I bet you would remember, too, if you've been told that, and many of you may have. But I remember thinking back to the 23rd Psalm, and at the very end of the 23rd Psalm, it says, Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And there's a book, it's an amazing book. It's called The 23rd Psalm from a Shepherd's Perspective. I'm trying to remember the name of the author, but everybody ought to read that book.
It's beautiful. But anyway, this guy was a shepherd, and he was talking about sheep. And sheep, if they have the right shepherd, are called the animals with the golden hooves, and that the pasture that they leave behind them is super green if they are pastured well, because if you leave a sheep on the pasture too long, then they eat the grass too short and it dies. But if a good shepherd's there taking care of them, making them lay down, et cetera, et cetera, then you can tell where the sheep have pastured because their manure, et cetera, makes the pasture green. And so in the Song of Solomon, when it says follow the tracks of the sheep, it's because there's going to be like a green aisle. Like there you go, that's where you go, that way. And he said that goodness and mercy is like you leave a trail behind you in your life with the things that you did or you didn't do for such a time as this, right?
And so I walked in there to Johnny, and I said, Johnny, I, you know, share this with you, but they're telling me to tell you that you don't have but a few hours left. And I saw the eyes roll up in his head like I knew exactly the feeling. I knew exactly the feeling he had.
What's it all about? And then I had a chance to share with him, right? The things I knew about his life and the things that were following him, the goodness and mercy and all the people that he had touched, just especially in the short period of time. But Johnny Hendricks had no idea.
He really didn't. The people in his story would touch because for whatever reason, God chose it. It still blows my mind, but there was an organization called 365 Christian Men, and they put out a podcast worldwide of the story of 365 Christian Men. Like, man, you talk about Spurgeon or some of the real heroes of the faith that I, you know, just amaze me all the people that are in this list of 365 Christian Men and this thing goes out across the world. Well, guess who they picked for November 13th? Whatever day it is, it's the story of Johnny Hendricks. Like, if you go there and so every November, whatever day that is, I promise you, like, my podcast statistics will go crazy because a bunch of people don't want to hear that story. You know, it's just, you know, we're talking about thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of downloads of that story to encourage people to share their faith, right, even when they've blown it. And I mean, that's the deal.
With all that said, there's the 13 Nissans for such a time as this. God is not hiding in plain sight. He's right there. And so with that, let me pray and we'll close. Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you're teaching us all the time. And Lord, help us to use what you've given us, our very testimonies, the things that you've brought us through, help us to comfort others with that. Help us to see the need for you in their lives and help us to have the boldness to ask people, you know, where do you stand? Do you know Jesus?
Are you experiencing a relationship with Him? Lord, because we don't want anybody to face eternity without you. And so Lord, help us to be truly your disciples. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Stand with us and let's sing together. My soul finds resting right alone My rock and my salvation A fortress strong against my foes And I will not be shaken Though lips may blest and hearts may curse And lies like arrows pierce me I'll fix my heart on righteousness I look to Him who hears me Oh, praise Him, hallelujah My delight and my reward Everlasting, never failing My Redeemer, my God Find rest my soul in God alone Amid the world's temptations When evil seeks to take a hold I'll cling to my salvation Though riches come and riches go Don't set your heart upon them The fields of hope in which I sow Are harvested in heaven Oh, praise Him, hallelujah My delight and my reward Everlasting, never failing My Redeemer, my God I'll set my gaze on God alone And trust in Him completely With every day pour out my soul And He will prove His mercy Though life is but a bleeding breath A sigh to grieve to measure My King has crushed the curse of death And I am His forever Oh, praise Him, hallelujah My delight and my reward Everlasting, never failing My Redeemer, my God Oh, praise Him, hallelujah My delight and my reward Everlasting, never failing My Redeemer, my God Oh, praise Him, hallelujah My delight and my reward Oh, praise Him, hallelujah My delight and my reward Oh, praise Him, hallelujah Oh, praise Him, hallelujah My delight and my reward Everlasting, never failing My Redeemer, my God So, I'd be remiss, I think, if I didn't explain this a little bit.
I think it's cool. When you look at the word hallelujah, I don't know if you've ever broke that down, but it's really spectacular that the beginning of it is halel. And you may know that many of the Psalms are referred to as halels. And that idea of a halel is you're being united with that which you learn about and that which you love.
Because when you love somebody, you want to learn about them. Like, when you go out on that date and you're asking a million questions, yeah, that's how it is when you date God. And so, that idea of being united with that which you want to date is God, right?
So, that's the halel part. Of course, my favorite part is the end of that is Yah, which is Yahweh, right? It's a short version of the ineffable name of God that, you know, is everything, right? And so, with that, may God bless you and keep you. May He make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift His countenance upon you and give you peace. Shalom. Thank you so much. All those fun. You may be dismissed.
