You Can’t Lift Yourself To Heaven

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

Welcome to the Christian Car Guy radio show. I say this calls for action and now. You raise me up so I can stand on mountains. You raise me up to walk on stormy seas. I am strong when I am on your shoulders. You raise me up to more than I can be. You can't lift yourself to heaven today on the Christian Car Guy show. I don't know if you ever thought about that. It seems like a simple enough concept. You can't lift yourself to heaven.

You know, it's a fascinating thing when you try to really work through that as your life goes on, and you are thinking about that. You know, there's so much about this that God has been teaching me all week, and so I should tell you that we're just loaded for bear today on the Christian Car Guy show. We got a new episode of Christian Car Guy Theater, so we have Ann Alt standing by for that.

That's going to happen in the second segment. I got my old friend Bill Mixon back, and talk about being carried by those big strong arms. He had heart surgery last month. We missed him for the first time, I don't know, in probably 20 years, I don't know, a long time. But anyway, he's back with us, and so it's good to have you back, and God carried you right through that.

Oh, miracle after miracle after miracle. So we did a show, Nick and I, my producer, we did a Truth Talk Live show this week, for those who don't know. I often do that show weekly, or during the week, on Monday through Friday, and God gave me this topic, kind of on the spur of the moment, of what's it like to die? And he was like, that's the topic, Rob. And I'm like, well, you know, if nobody calls in on that subject, I can't talk about what it's like to die for an hour. And Nick would tell you, I was quite concerned with the topic when we started it, but oh my goodness, God just blessed it. It was his topic, there's no doubt it was, and people, all sorts of people called in, like I'm hoping all sorts of you will call in today, like when did God carry you? But in the third segment, we got this call from this lady that will forever change the way I look at a lot of things, especially this idea of you can't lift yourself to heaven.

So to give you the beginning of the story, so that, you know, and I have to play the whole segment, but we do have a pretty long soundbite coming. This lady, when she was in her teens, went to Mexico and a hurricane was coming, and for whatever reason, she decided and her friends, like teenagers do, that it would be fun to go out, you know, on the beach and see what that was like. And so she didn't swim, that's a big critical part of the equation. And she's out on the jetty, believe it or not, and with her back turned towards the ocean, when her friend says, here comes a big one. And before she knows it, the wave sweeps her underneath the jetty. There she can't swim.

And so we'll pick up that soundbite there, Nick, and we'll hear it in her own words, this Janet Enrono. I couldn't get up to the surface. I kept on, the waves kept on taking me down to the bottom. I can't breathe. My lungs feel like they're going to explode, and they're on fire. And I'm just clawing my way, trying to get to the surface.

I realize, you know, I'm probably going to die. I heard a voice or felt, it was a voice, and the voice said, stop fighting. And I was like, well, all right.

So I stopped that, that fighting to, you know, to try to get to the surface and trying to, you know, fight my way back. And when I did that, it was the most peaceful feeling that came over me. I was on the bottom with us on the sand to feel the waves. And I thought to myself, it was the most peaceful feeling I have had down there on the bottom of the sand. And I thought to myself, this must be what it's like to die. And it's not bad.

And it's going to be okay. And I felt like I was literally breathing. I literally, there was no pain in my lungs. There wasn't any trying to fight to get to the surface.

There's nothing. It was just so peaceful. But in that thought that happened, this is what it's like to die and it's okay. So when I was thinking this thought that this is the most peaceful feeling I've had, the second thought that came into my mind almost instantaneously was my mother's going to be alone and I'm not going to be with her.

And at that very instant, and I do mean instant, I was on the beach many feet away from the shore and laying in the sand. And people were running up to me, are you all right? Are you all right? Oh my.

Yeah. I mean, the significance of all that, I mean, I just rolled around that in my mind, Bill, as you can hear, you know, here's this poor girl. She can't swim. She's on underneath the jetty. I have no idea, you know, what that must have been like at that point. But somehow or another, all this peace comes over her. And somehow or another, and I actually missed it until I listed again this time, she said she was many feet from the shore. It's like Phillip was lifted up and taken wherever after he, you know, after he, you know, spoke with the unique, you know, and baptized him. All of a sudden just carried away.

Well, you know, you hear the story. And, you know, we're going to feel that someday. And in the meantime, you know, we can fight to get to the surface on our own, or we can realize that we need Jesus, we need forgiveness, we need him in order to make that journey, right Bill?

And we've got to quit fighting him sometimes. You know, with the beach, you get in an undertow, the worst thing you can do is to try to swim directly into the shore. But if she'd have just let go, the water that that hurricane was bringing in was bringing him right to the beach.

And all her effort was putting her going in the wrong direction. Yeah, you know, it's a phenomenal thing. But nonetheless, I found it fascinating. And when I asked God what he wanted to talk about this morning, he put me right back on this subject.

And I didn't really originally think about this particular soundbite until later on, he kind of illustrated it for me. But what I actually did was I went and looked at the idea of being lifted up or being carried. And in Hebrew, because I love to study those kind of things. And what I looked at is in Genesis, chapter 7, verse 17, it says, the flood was 40 days upon the earth, and the waters increased and bear up the ark, and it was lifted above the earth. And there is that word, actually the first time you see the word in the Bible, to lift up. And the word is NASA in Hebrew, which I always thought was hilarious, because NASA kind of takes you to space. But nonetheless, NASA, it begins with the letter nun. And that word, that letter and that word has to do with faith.

Like, what do you really, really, really believe? And so Noah, obviously, in great faith, he spent all these years to build this ark and trusted God that at this point in time, he was going to be lifted up. Well, after 40 days of rain, I just pictured the same scene, man. I mean, and fascinatingly to me, the word water is mime in Hebrew, it begins with the letter mem. Well, water is generally the same thing as that letter mem. And the number for the mem is 40. And so 40 days is just fascinating to me, that here's this water for 40 days. And then the letter nun is 50.

In Hebrew, letters are numbers and numbers are letters. So that idea of 50 and freedom, you might remember the Jubilee year was the year of freedom. And it comes with that idea of 50. Like, you know, the Pentecost came, it was 50 days from Passover to the giving and the law.

And it was 50 days, obviously, from Jesus' resurrection to Pentecost. And that whole idea of freedom coming after this 50 is like, man, you just see the whole scene. But there's a struggle. And at some point in time, there's nothing like realizing he's got you. And therein lies the question I would love for you to think about and call in today. When were you struggling, struggling, struggling? All of a sudden, you let go and let God. What did that feel like? You let go and let God.

And I would love to hear your story. 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. I'm sure that rings a bell for you, Dave. Right, Bill? Bill Absolutely. Wonderful show.

Enjoyed it all these years. Truth is a great place to call and get answers for great questions. Dave So have you had that happen where you struggled, struggled, struggled and let go and all of a sudden you got lifted? Bill The last one was, I always had a heart murmur and my GP had always given me a little bit of frustration about it.

And I go on a hike and I'm paced by somebody and I feel for the first time there's something going wrong. Dave We will pick up that story shortly. Plus, we've got Christian Car Guy Theater with Anna Ault, all sorts of goodies coming your way, but we need your story. 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. We'll be right back.

866-348-7304, 866-34-TRUTH. Oh, I love that song, right? You lift me up, maybe you recognize that, but very, you know, there's so many people that have done that song in which those, by the way, are the Celtic women. Most of them don't play that verse. And that verse is spectacular when you think about it, because I'll just repeat it for you.

It says, there's no life, no life without its hunger. Each restless heart beats so imperfectly, but when you come, right, when God comes and I'm filled with wonder, sometimes I think, I glimpse eternity. And when you're lifted up in these times, and I hope you've been there, don't you find it amazing that you can spend time with God in that moment and time stands still? In other words, did you hear the way that Janet described that moment? That that moment, obviously, that was saving her life, but it only seemed like a second, but by the same token, it took whatever amount of time.

It doesn't matter, because when you are with God, you are—he lives eternally. And so you get lost in prayer sometimes, and you've spent hours there, but it just seemed like it was just a second. All those things take place, especially when he's carrying you. And that's, you know, what the show is today. So when did you experience him carrying you? We would love your story.

866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. But next up, we have my good friend Ann Alt with us. And Ann has been battling some health issues with a brain tumor, and as a result, she's lost her ability to do a lot of technology and lost certain parts of her memory. And so one of the really cool things was God gave her such a gift to act. And I played this episode we're fixing to do at Christian Cargay Theatre for my wife, and she goes, there's no way in the world that you just told her that line, because you can hear her—the amazing gift that God gave her to—like, I'm giving her a few words of the line, and then she is just doing a line, and then we're going on the next, because again, she wouldn't be able to remember a great big long thing. So this is completely miraculous, and God carrying us both through this particular episode of Jack and the Beanstalk is all of Christian Cargay Theatre. When you think about it, Ann, it's always been that way, right? Yes, it's such an adventure.

I mean, I've always loved to act, and the Lord has been really good to me over the years when he let me have a career, but then he makes it even better when you start to dysfunction and not be able to remember things, and then he puts in his—the rest of the story—I mean, he puts in, you know, in other words, that ability to suddenly remember the lines or to, you know, do this part to the— Yeah, the inflection and the acting and so— And that it's there, even when you're weak, that gift is deep. So without further ado, Nick, let's play Jack and the Beanstalk. I can tell you, getting up to their home is quite a climb. At last, we've arrived at the top of the Beanstalk. Oh, here, mister, let me give you a hand. There. Oh, thank you very much. Let me introduce myself. I'm the program narrator. You must be Mrs.

Giant, the giant's mother. That's right. Welcome to our humble abode. Well, it's hardly humble. I mean, it's huge. Oh, well, we need these high ceilings for obvious reasons.

Oh, yes, I can see that. How tall are you anyway? Oh, a little over eight feet. But, you know, lately, my boy simply towers over me. Oh, where is he, by the way? Oh, he's at camp with his friend Jack. You mean the Jack, the one with the Beanstalk?

Oh, that's right. But I thought— I know, I know. Those two were at odds for a time. At odds? You know, what I heard was— Well, yes, some very bitter words were exchanged, and some threats were made, but, oh, you know, boys will be boys. No, I should say so. And I'm relieved to learn that your son didn't fall all that way.

I mean, he could have been badly hurt. Oh, it was quite a fight. But I managed to break it up. It wasn't easy, I can tell you. I bet, because your son is so big. Oh, no, siree. It was that feisty little squirt, Jack. Oh, that kid bites. Oh, ouch.

I mean, how did you— Well, how did you get him to stop? Well, I promised them a bowl of my famous bean soup. Here, come into the kitchen. There's some on the stove. Mmm, that smells good. Mmm, and my secret recipe. And they made friends over a bowl of soup?

No, no, not exactly. While they ate, I read to them. That must be some special book. Oh, it is. It's the Bible. You see, I read all the passages about living in peace together. For instance, Romans 12 18. If it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Right. And do you know, those passages went straight to their hearts, and they agreed to become friends then and there.

The Lord's word truly has power. And now they're in camp together? Bible camp. How wonderful. Well, I must be going. Oh, before you go, won't you have a bowl of my bean soup?

Well, it smells delicious. I don't mind if I do. Have a seat. Here's a spoon.

And won't you return thanks? Dear Lord, thank you so much for this amazing time with my new friend. As you just heard, listeners, the words, happily ever after, are much more complicated than you may think. I am on your shoulders. You raise me up to more than I can be.

You can't lift yourself to heaven today on The Christian Car Guy Show. And the thought that God has just been working on my brain, that it would get to my heart, I guess, all week long, it came from originally, you know, I ended up with that lady that called in, because originally, you know, actually, as I was doing my sermon at West Asheville Baptist Church on Sunday, I illustrated it with a story from Peter Marshall, who you might know. Peter Marshall was the chaplain for the US Senate in the 1940s, specifically on December 7, 1941. He was also the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, DC. And he was asked to give the commencement exercise for the midshipmen at Annapolis on December 7, that morning, 1941.

A day, as you may know, to live in infamy. And while he was speaking, the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor. Nobody knew that at the time, but right before he gave the sermon, or the commencement, the Holy Spirit pulled him up short and said, Well, you know what you planned on giving that day?

He changed it. And he said, I want you to tell this story. And I want you to illustrate this story. And this is the story his wife shared in the book A Man Called Peter, that he changed his talk that day to this, that there was a lady who had a child that was chronically ill, was dying horribly, you know, just the lady had asked and asked and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed that the child would get better. But unfortunately, the child just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And it became glaringly obvious. And the child, as I recall, was like six or seven, very young.

And so obvious that the child himself knew he was dying. And he liked stories of, you know, King Arthur and those kind of things. And so one night, I suppose a couple days before he went on to be with the Lord, his mother was reading from him, King Arthur and that kind of thing, talking about these tales of the knights at the round table.

And the knights were going to go into this battle, into which most of them would be killed. And the little boy looked up at his mother and said, his mom, and said a question that grabbed her. He said, Mom, what's it like to die?

Does it hurt? And, you know, the mom was just gripped with emotion, as you can imagine. She didn't know what to say. She ran to the kitchen, fell against the wall and prayed, God, you've got to give me, you've got to give me an answer. He deserves an answer.

He needs an answer to this. And I have nothing. I don't know what to say. And God gave her this. And she knew exactly what to say and went back in the room and she said, honey, you know how sometimes when you're outside and you're playing so terribly hard that you just get exhausted and you come inside and you come climbing our bed and you fall asleep in our bed? But when you wake up in the morning, you're in your own bed, in your own place. And what you don't know is that while you were sleeping, right, your father came with his big strong arms and he lifted you. And he put you in your place, in your own bed. And that's what it's like to die. And that story, as I recall it, it touches me in a place that I think those men at midshipmen that day would be facing death, many of them very shortly, they would be off into World War II. And so God timed that perfectly, but he's also timed it perfectly for us to hear that story, right, that these things are critical, that we set it up, right, that we will be lifted up like that young lady was lifted up out of the ocean, like Ann is being lifted up to use her gifts to speak, but that we be putting people in a position that they have been forgiven and that they know Jesus and they've accepted him as their savior because this is a critical moment in time, isn't it, Bill? Right before you die, by all means.

And dealing with your child, a difficult question, by all means. Yeah. And so, Ann, your thoughts as you listen to all that. Oh, my goodness. I don't know where to begin. He lifts me up.

I love it. You lift me up. And I and he does, you know, in the worst of times, in the most challenging of times during Earth life, when we really zero in on the reality of Jesus Christ, you know, there's nothing better than to practice doing that, you know, because he lifts us up. He has all the answers.

He is the one source that we should go to, you know. Oh, I'm, you know, and for me, I practice, I actually practice this every single morning. That when I am in the midst of, you know, my deepest trying to get to this place of prayer, which is very difficult in my opinion to really get to that place, but I know that when I really feel the Spirit begin to lift me, I am asking to be seated in the heavenlies. In other words, I feel that and I feel the, you know, and I was thinking about it this morning that, you know, he's not the wind beneath my wings. He's the wings beneath my wind. In other words, I got a lot of wind. I could say a lot of things, but he's the one that's going to lift me, right?

It's those wings. And when those wings lift me, and then to be on those shoulders of our big brother talking to Papa, I mean, that's it, right? And I want to, right, if I don't get to that place, I can't imagine a day without it. Then he's going to tell me things like, you know, go study this and go do that. And he leads me to some wonderful, wonderful places. And so, you know, for you, Bill, what is that like? Well, they tell me I had a critically severe aortic stenosis, which meant that they were going to have to replace one of my heart valves.

And the concept just sort of fried my mind. And you look up the hospital, you look up the surgeon. Well, my daughter had gone to work for Chapel Hills, one of their very best cardiologists.

And my daughter's talking to him. And he says, Well, I know your surgeon, he's excellent. And then it turned out that the neighbor across the street that moved in a year ago, he works in the department that takes care of you after heart surgery. He says, I know your surgeon, that's the one I'd want to have. That I was talking to a friend on the school board. And she says, Well, my husband had this a year ago.

And Kincaid was his surgeon, and he just loves him. And then I'm calling and I'm talking to a friend of mine with a scuba diving. And she says, My husband just had this operation less than a year ago. And she's the type that knew the serial number off what they put in them. And we talked for a half hour.

So every time we turned around, God was saying to my wife and I, you know, I got this, there isn't any reason for you to be worried about this. Well, it's amazing how successful heart surgery is now. But there are numerous types. And there's one type that they go in through your leg and they pop in the valve, and you're in and out, you're up and around a month later. Then there's another where they cut the sternum, breastbone in half and crank it out. And you're out a lot longer. Well, somebody said they can go into your side and they can stretch your ribs a little bit.

And your recovery is a lot quicker than one and a little bit longer than the other. So I go in with all these preconceived notions. And the doctor says the surgeon says, Well, we found another problem if you got a 25% blockage in one of your heart arteries, we normally at this point would not do anything. But if we're going in anyway, we might as well fix this too. But we got to go into the front. So I sort of take a deep breath and say, Okay, God, you know, you've given me all this, I'm not going to worry about it.

Well, the long and the short of it. A month later, it took a month for him to say you're now allowed to drive. Well, within the next month, I did a 13 and a half mile hike around Grayson Highlands. I've done 30 miles worth of hiking the month after. So I am up and about and doing everything that I would do if we'd have gone the shortest of the three, the simplest of the three. So yeah, God's working and we can either land on the beach and not worry or we can get pulled out in the slipstream out into the ocean.

Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of fighting we all do. We would love to know your story of when God carried you. You know, what did that feel like?

What was your experience? Please call us 866-348-7884 is the number to call in and share. 866-348-7884. We'll be right back.

Darrell Bock You can't lift yourself to heaven today on The Christian Car Guy Show. When did you glimpse this eternity when he was carrying you? I would love to know that story. And you got plenty of time to call us.

The number is 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884. You know, one of the first times I experienced this firsthand, which I've had numerous times. But anyway, one of the first I had it, I had been miraculously healed from cancer. And I've told that story many times. And then, fascinatingly, I got crushed behind a Jeep.

And it's a fairly long story. But my left leg was almost severed. And I remember vividly as I realized what was going on, I was going to the ground, I cried out for God, I cried out for Christ, Jesus. And there was a peace that came, not unlike what that lady talked about when she just, I was laying down on the ground, and I remember this unbelievable peace came over me.

I call it a God hug. It was just like, oh, I'm fine. Like, I'm fine.

I don't know. And this guy was over me screaming, because he's the one whose car went out of gear and hit me. And he was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I looked up and I said to him, how's your insurance? You know, because that was, I was fine. And actually, they came, it took about an hour to get the paramedics up there, because we were way up in the mountains.

And when they hit me with the morphine, it didn't feel any different, because I was already fine. In other words, I know that that peace, it transcends all understanding. It's right there. So we got Jerry Mathis is with us. He's got a comment for Bill.

Jerry, you're on the Christian Car Guy show, as always. I hope you've been doing well, sir. Good morning.

Hey, I'm great. And I just wanted to say, Bill, just a blessing to hear you on the radio this morning. Glad for the recovery. And then Robbie, throwing in his story, you know, all I can say is God is good.

Absolutely. And so many times we don't slow down to give God thanks for what he does in our lives. And sometimes we don't take time to share our story with other people. That can be a, you know, just something that encouragement to other people. And I just appreciate both of you, as we do you, sir. Just a great group of men that are involved in this radio station. And like I said, just the opportunity to be able to encourage others. And sometimes and that's what I hope the listeners here is also sharing their story can encourage somebody and no clue who it might be, but somebody out there be encouraged by somebody else's story. Yeah, I'm sitting there just kind of amazed.

Because at the same moment, this never happens. I have with me, Bill Mixon, Jerry Mathis, and Ann Ault, which are all fundamentally important for many, many, many, many, many years. I mean, this all started in 2006. And so, Yeah, I started as a child.

Bill and Jerry were there almost from the beginning. I think you came around 2010 or 11. When did you come to Charlotte, Ann? Yeah, good Lord.

I think it was around then, you know, actually, I don't know, I'm so great at keeping. I know, I know, it's been a long time. And, and but, you know, I think back and I bet all you guys remember, golly is now his name's is used to do all the acronyms whenever you gave him Dr. Sonny.

Oh, Sonny. Yes. Yes. And absolutely, because I think, you know, Robbie, we had before he passed away, just a few months before that, he came into Winston, it was on the show.

Right. When I was there, and that was just, you know, God is good. Like I said, He is so good. Yeah, his heart attack was sudden, and nobody knew it was coming, Bill. But he was for years and years and years, you know, he was he was another one of those people that just God gave us. We were talking, Bill and I were talking about how God just brings people into your lives perfect timing, because when he was going to go out with his heart surgery or concerned with you, I had a prison ministry going in a jail ministry going and just the right people slid in, because I knew I was going to be out for at least a month that I was figuring three.

So I had to find volunteers that were educated and qualified and been through the training and God put the right folks in the right spot just at the right moment. And he does a way of doing that. Speaking of Anne, I can remember when she first came on board and doing the fishing theater with you, Robbie, I remember looking back at her background and I thought, wow, I mean, how did Robbie hook her? Robbie's often wondered that one too. I marvel at, I was telling my wife that story last night, and she said, I just don't, she goes, how in the world, because she was listening to several episodes of famous fairy tales and she goes, how in the world does she do that? I said, Tammy, she's an unbelievably, she was off Broadway then, she was a Hollywood actor. I mean, she is the real deal in so many different ways, but she just heard the show and wanted to be part of it.

I mean, that was, she called me, I didn't call her. I just, I love it. It's like the highlight of my life, literally. I mean, it's, everything fits, you know, the gifts he's given me, the Lord has given me, and then to be part of something that is so fun and yet it glorifies the Lord every which way.

And it's because you, you know, have the courage to, you know, go forward, ever forward and get this show on the road. And it's just, it's so wonderful because people love drama and they love to, and that's such an amazingly, you know, I mean, it's a great way. The other thing is that we would be remiss if we didn't say it, is that Anne brought Ellen Kennedy and Ellen wrote all those episodes. I mean, it's as miraculous as all of it, it's just like what Bill talked about. God raises up people when he is doing something that just literally blow your mind. And so, you know, Ellen realizing Anne's, you know, current physical stresses, memory problems, all that, she has written all these new famous fairy tale episodes for us.

So that we could, and oh my goodness, we're hoping to record it. And it's one of the best ones, Pinocchio next week. And I'm going to tell you that Anne plays Pinocchio. Give him a little sample of Pinocchio's voice. Well, I guess it's sort of like this, if you say so.

I don't know. I just kind of open my mouth and out comes Pinocchio. What can I say? And then Mrs. Geppetto is Italian. And so when, you know, when she comes to the door, you know, Buongiorno, how to say it for us? Buongiorno, buongiorno, come in please. Have some of my tasty Italian cake. So Ellen is behind the scenes writing these fabulous scripts for Anne.

And again, you know, God raised them all up and, you know, as big time supportive friends. You can't hide talent. You just can't hide talent.

That's it. And the other part of the story that maybe I don't have time to get it in, but I got to tell it is that, you know, when I started this show, I was the Chrysler dealer in Mocksville, North Carolina, and okay financially. Within a year, I lost a dealership and all everything. And a lot of these folks came to my aid in miraculous ways. And the whole thing is just a miracle from where I sit. So again, he lifted us up.

And so we got a chance to tell that story, didn't he? Well, thank you, Jerry. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Anne.

Thank you. And of course, all you that listen, you know, I don't know if you're aware of this, but you're the ones that make the show, right? Without our listeners and the amazing, amazing, amazing phone calls like Janet from Roanoke today, like how many of those is just blow my mind? So we always are so grateful for you, all the radio stations that carry the show all over the country. And again, just we love you and we thank you for all this. And we just want to remind you, of course, to slow down. Jesus walked everywhere he went, got it all done in 33 years. Thanks for listening. This is the Truth Network.