Who Is Michael Zwick?

Nakita Kolov, the Russian nightmare.

No, the devil's nightmare here. From its time to man up. Challenging men to step into their true manhood. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it. Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

It's loud. It's crazy because we just finished Wednesday in the Word and one of our regular attendees is also a talk show host. His show is growing leaps and bounds and I love the name of it. It's called If Not For God. And when you think about all that Jesus has done for us, I tell you what, for me it makes it a lot easier to forgive other people when I think about all the things that Jesus has forgiven me of. As a matter of fact, it makes me think that Jesus is a friend. Oh wait, John 15 15. I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends. For everything that I learned from my Father, I have made known to you. And so many times in my own life, I kind of see God as this thing who's far off and, you know, I'm just afraid of him and he doesn't want anything to do with me.

And yeah, I know he's in control of the universe, but when I look at this, I look at this song and I think about that verse and it says, what a friend we have in Jesus. His name is Michael Zwick. Now, Michael, I've been on your show, but you've never been on my show, Truth Talk. Welcome my friend. I'm excited.

I'm excited, man. Yeah. I've, uh, I've known you for a while now. And, and actually we actually have an interview coming up as well.

Um, where I interview about interview you about your book that you wrote, I believe First Words of Jesus. Yes. And we were talking about the, uh, the Virgin birth. Right. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Heavy stuff. Christmas time. Of course you may hear this interview any time of year, but that is so important. The gift of Christ. Christmas isn't just a December.

It's all year round. Who is Michael Zwick? Who is Michael Zwick? So I, uh, was, was born in Durham, grew up in Winston Salem. Uh, and actually Stu, you and I, I never knew you, but we, I may have seen you, but we, I grew up going to the same church that you went to, Calvary Baptist and, uh, Mark Quartz was the pastor. Um, and I think Robby Dilmore goes there as well, or has gone there as well. And, uh, you know, kind of grew up around a lot of that stuff. Uh, it was a guy named Truman. Remember, uh, true Williams.

Yeah. He's still there and, uh, you know, grew up with that, but it was just, it was kind of something that I did. And then I went off to college and, um, the professor said, there's no such thing as God. And I said, Oh, well, I guess all that stuff was wrong that I learned kind of growing up. And, um, my, uh, my senior year, uh, I met a young lady and she hit me with the gospel and she kept, she kept, she kept it in front of my face, kept it in front of my face, kept it in front of my face. And, um, the long story short was that, uh, one day she said, Mike, you need to, you need to accept Jesus as your savior.

You need to give your life to Christ. And finally I was so tired of saying this. I said, okay.

But when I said, okay, something changed and I meant it. And so we, uh, we started going to a church called a pine deal, Christian church, do you know where that is? And, uh, one day the, uh, the pastor was up there and, uh, he said, the devil won't always tell you there's no such thing as God. They'll just tell you to give your life to Christ.

Do it later. And he said, he said that today is the day of salvation. And I ran up to the front, gave my life to Christ, got baptized.

And, uh, after that, that was it. I decided to follow Christ. I've had some bumps in the roads that haven't been perfect, but I guess one of the things that I never understood was how somebody, if you're really a Christian, how you can give your life to Christ, how you can kind of be halfway about it or just some casual thing, because that just never made sense to me.

And I see that in Houston. Well, we're in a culture where kind of everyone's a Christian, right? Not that we know what that means, but it's a, it's, we're a particularly in the Bible belt and some folks even say America is a Christian nation. And of course the nation can't really be Christian, but there are some significant roots and heritage of the Christian faith.

You know, in our founding, God is all over the capital, the 10 commandments around the Supreme court building, and so on. But you really, it's interesting to see you grew up in the culture, but it didn't really go from your head to your heart until like later on later in college and even after that. That's right.

Yeah. I mean, I, uh, you know, but I'm going to say, but I believe that so many people in my life had something to do with me coming to Christ. I remember there was a young lady named Holly who, uh, she was my neighbor across the street and she had recently sent me a message on Facebook and she said, I remember I invited you to a retreat and it was somewhere with the church and you had said that, you know, this was something that you were thinking about. And that was, and I had forgotten all about that until she said that in many of the things that I learned at Calvary Baptist church and from Truett and from so many of the other people there, they stuck with me. I remember when I was at Calvary, there was a sign that was up in the Sunday school and it said that what's popular is not always right.

And what's right is not always popular. Wow. I don't know about you, man, but I think that might be a message for today.

There's a great message there. Now tell me a little bit about your show. Now you you weren't always a talk show host.

You didn't always have a show called if not forgot. Right. Tell us how that happened. I mean, that's a real fascinating story. I love the program. Yeah.

Describe it for people. Maybe folks haven't heard it yet. Well, a friend of mine, Tony Jackson, have you met him?

Sure. He comes in Saturday mornings and he's on the white, which is under the truth network as well. But they do a show called now try Jesus ministries every Saturday morning at eight 30. And one day I was talking to him and I was talking to him over the phone and he had, we were talking about something and I was quoting a Bible verse. He said, Mike, stop. He said, why don't you come on the radio show?

And so I started going on the show, doing that on Saturdays. And all of a sudden it was just maybe about a year ago, something told me that I need to have my own radio show. And of course I said, well, I'm not qualified to do that. Nobody would want to listen to me.

And, you know, I can't do that. And then I just randomly called up, called up the truth one day and Robbie Dilmore called me back and, and, and ended up happening. And, you know, thank God for people like Robbie Dilmore. Thank God for people like you who have helped me do the show, because I mean, as you know, when I'm, when I have the show, it's not just me sitting there talking for, for 26, 27 minutes or anything like that.

It's, it's other people who, who know, um, a lot more than I do like yourself, like Robbie Dilmore, like Ray Comfort. Um, you know, Pat, we had pastor Chad Harvey on pastor, uh, Alan Wright, uh, from right here in Winston-Salem. And so you've had Marty on the guy holding the video.

I've had Marty on holding the video. Absolutely, man, coming, coming from a, a culture of drugs and alcohol and just got just, wow, just completely turned his life around. And so what we talk about is more anecdotal stories about how God has changed people's lives and what God has done to miraculously change people's lives and miracles that have happened in our own lives.

And it's funny that we talk about this. What is your story? What is your story? And you talk about this a lot about what is your testimony. And sometimes it's like, if you just ask people to tell what has God done in your life, they just go on and on.

Where did you get the name? If not for God, what's significant about that? Tell us about that.

So go to a church, uh, called the Lamb's Chapel and we have a, I think you, you know, the, uh, the worship leader. Yeah. Right. That's right.

Richie. Yeah. And, uh, I was trying to figure out a name of the show. And one day, um, it was a Sunday, the pastor, Brian Biggers, was talking and he said, if not for God, if not, if it had not been for the Lord and, and he said, and he was quoting a book of Psalms and I looked in that book and it wasn't there. So he had actually had the wrong chapter, but I looked it up and I went to the other chapter and I said, that's the name of my show. Every show you close with those words. If not for God.

Yeah. And I love it. And every show there's a, you, you, you just douse a lot of scripture. Like this, the longest I've ever talked to you where you're not quoting scripture because you have to go to scripture some earlier, but really the story of what God has done in your life and what, how Christ has saved you. What's your message to everyone out there? Maybe someone out there that's struggling, man. They're there.

Maybe where you were, they're living the life, they're putting it off and postponing it. What would you say to people out there right now? Listen, as you talk about calling them to God, I said that God is not mad at you. Um, you know, for so long I thought that God was mad at me or that he would never accept me because of all the things that I had done. But, um, Christ died for our sins.

And so that whatever you've done, I mean, you know, whatever you've done, if you come to the foot of the cross and you ask Christ for forgiveness and you turn away from your sins, that he will accept you just as you want, just as you want. And you can hear the program. How now you've got a podcast as well, right? We have, if not for God with Mike's wick podcast. Um, and you can go on there anytime. If you go to iTunes, you can listen to the podcast anytime. Um, but in addition to that, uh, a lot of people listen to it by www.truthnetwork.com And you can go there at 8 30 AM, uh, Saturday mornings and it's 8 30 at 8 30. So if you go to 8 30 AM and you're in the Winston Salem, Greensboro, Burlington, Reedsville, I think all the way up to Danville, Virginia, maybe you can listen to the, uh, you listen to the show on there live, uh, 97.7 FM, 37.7 FM.

And if you're in Micronesia, you just have to be traveling throughout Asia. You can listen on the truth app, which I did on Saturday. I heard Marty's testimony listening on my phone. Your phone's also a radio.

I just download the free truth network app. And it was eight 30 in the morning. I got to hear him tell about Christ meeting him in jail and all these other crazy stories, man. I was like, wow, who is this guy?

And I got to meet him too. So God bless you, man. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for sharing Christ. Thank you for the show. If not for God, Michael Zwick, if not for God, if not for God, this is the truth network.