The Heart Seeks After God

This is Chris Hughes with the Christian Perspective Podcast with Chris Hughes, where we encourage our listeners to engage the culture with Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds, so enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. If not for God is the name of our next guest's syndicated radio show podcast. His name is Michael Zwick.

He is on fire for Jesus. He's been a huge encouragement to me, and I'm honored to bring him on, because a lot of folks that have heard Mike, his testimony, and his show, his wonderful program, and he's had all kinds of big-time people on his show, and he and Robbie Dilmore, they mix it up like two people I've never heard on the radio, and then they'll once in a while, if they need a ratings boost, they'll bring old Stu in. That's me right now talking to you. Good to be here.

Stu Epperson filling in for my buddy Steve Noble, and hello to all the awesome Steve Noble listeners to the Steve Noble show, and I host a show called Truth Talk, which often I'll take the segments I do for Steve, and I'll put that on my show. But Michael Zwick, it's just all about the ratings, isn't it? We just got to get the numbers up, don't we, buddy? How about that, huh?

We got to do it, man. You know, it's funny, I'm actually just pulled over to High Point, and I'm right near High Point University, and I'm looking at this bumper sticker on the car, and the bumper sticker says, God says, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my faith and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land? And it says, will you pray? Second Chronicles 7 14, man, I tell you what, Stu, that's somebody who's on fire for Jesus Christ.

That's someone that's on fire. Now I'm going to call your cell phone, don't answer it, because you're on the phone on the landline here with us on the Truth Network on this live show. I'm going to call your cell phone, so don't put me in the voicemail, just listen.

I want everyone to hear how he is, his voicemail. This is, like, so encouraging. Just everyone, just listen to this. Do you have anyone like this in your life, where when you get their voicemail, you don't get in voicemail jail, you learn about the importance of heaven and hell. You get encouraged by this. Just listen.

Okay, here it comes. Michael, you're not answering, which is good. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

So that's so cool. Michael, thank you for that, and for that voicemail. I'm introducing you to everyone listening, maybe some haven't met you, but you have this show if not for God. Tell us what the show is, and tell us how you met Jesus, because you're one of the few people I know that came to know Christ trying to ask a cute girl on a date.

Yeah, it was by going into my senior year of college, and this girl from, I think it was my junior year of school, we had African-American history class together, and she sent me an email over the summer, and the email said something. I said, I don't know what to say to this girl, but she's kind of cute. I'd like to ask her out, and I said, I remembered she was really excited about Jesus. And I wasn't a Christian at the time, and I said, hey, I'd like to talk with you and meet you.

I'd like to talk to you about Jesus. And so I think she figured out pretty soon, I was just trying to take her out, but she kept at me, man. She kept bugging me and bugging me and bugging me, and finally one day I said yes to Jesus, and the rest is history, man. Thank God, I think they call it missionary dating.

Yeah, well, in that case it worked. We don't always advise it, but God bless her for sticking to her guns and sharing the Lord with you. His name is Michael Zwick. He hosts a show called If Not For God, and it's just a treat to have you with us, Michael, to hear about what God's doing in your life. Why the show If Not For God? It's heard on a lot of stations, Truth Network stations carry it, I believe on Saturday mornings.

It's one of my favorite shows to listen to. But tell us, the name alone is quite engaging, and what happens on this program called If Not For God? Yeah, If Not For God, stories of hopelessness turned into hope, and I'm sitting here right now, so I believe it was Psalm 127 where it says that it had not been for the Lord, and it keeps on going on and on, and so one Sunday we were in church and the pastor spoke about that, and I said that's the name of the show, If Not For God, and what we talk about is just people who have really, a lot of people have just been turned the other way in their lives and not known where they were going, not knowing where they were going, things were rough, and the Lord just really got them, got their attention. I mean, it says in Scripture, it says, you will find me when you search for me with all of your heart, and I 100%, 100% believe that, but I also know in many people's lives, they were running from God, and God just found them.

Have you ever seen that, Stu? Yeah, it's really interesting, you can't, you know, Jonah's a great example. Of course, he found himself in the belly of a giant sea monster before he really came back to the Lord, but that's one, running from God is quite a conundrum concept, isn't it?

It is, it is, and you know, it's so many people. I just heard an interview from the guy who wrote the case for Christ, the case for faith, I believe it was Lee Strobel, and what he did was he interviewed a guy who used to preach with Billy Graham when he was younger, and so what he did was he finally found this guy, and when he found the guy, he interviewed him in a nursing home, and the guy had not only turned from Christ, but he'd become a staunch atheist, and so he started asking this guy all these questions, question after question, and finally he asked him, he said, well, what do you think about Jesus? And the old preacher, who was now a businessman, and he had the starting stages of dementia, he started to just speak glowingly about Jesus, how wonderful of a person he was, a great moral man, and then all of a sudden he started crying and sobbing uncontrollably, and he said, I miss him, I miss him. So there is something in the heart of man that I believe seeks after God, and I believe that sometimes when, even if people have run from God, even if people don't want to know God, don't want to know anything, don't want anything to do with him, especially if they've once known Jesus, and then they've turned from him, it can be even tougher for them, because one time they knew the sweetness of knowing Jesus, and now they've lost it, and maybe that's why some of these atheists who have turned away from Christianity, why some of them may be so angry. So maybe we should be a little bit more understanding, I don't know.

Well, maybe we should be kind to them, maybe we shouldn't beat them over the head and have a good conversation, which you enjoy doing, and it's really fascinating. Some of the greatest minds of the faith today, you mentioned Lee Strobel, an award-winning attorney and journalist, you know, from Chicago, Chicago Tribune, who sought out to discredit the faith, to destroy the faith, became a born-again Christian, a follower of Christ. Simon Greenleaf, the great Harvard, head of the Harvard Law School, brilliant mind, smarter than anybody I've ever shared Christ with who's denied Christ, and I bring him up, I say, are you smarter than him?

Are you smarter than Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel? All these names, these are all men who set out to absolutely trample on the faith, to discredit it. Our previous guest was talking about the power of archaeology that proves the Scripture's veracity, that the Bible that we're reading is absolutely real, and it's true in every page of it's true. It's the Word of God, and it's accurate not just historically, but it's accurate theologically, and it's accurate archaeologically, and it's accurate geographically in the places that you go to. I just studied Acts chapter 27. Every detail about Paul and being in the high seas and the shipwreck and what they did to that vessel to brace it for the storm, every detail, Michael's wick, the history, in fact, secular historians who don't even believe in the God of the Bible, they hold up Acts 27 is one of the most authentic treatments of nautical mariner seafaring history. It's right there in the Word of God. It is, it is, and I don't know if you know this too, but you know one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible is Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12, and it says, "'For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and it is a discerner of the thought and the intent of the heart.'"

Isn't that great? Wow, just what the Word of God says about itself, and then all the extra biblical evidences and extra biblical proofs, and you love telling stories. Do you have a quick story for us? The power of narrative, it's in your show all the time, but what's a quick story that's fresh in your heart real quick?

We only have two minutes, I think, right, Keith? Last week I went out to go sell insurance, and in the morning I was speaking this verse out to myself, and it was Romans chapter 1 verse 20, and I was saying, "'For since the creation of the world, God's invisible quality, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.'" I went to go sell insurance that day, and I saw this guy, he was out in the tent, and I started talking to him, and he said, "'I used to be a Christian,' and then I was a Jehovah's Witness, and I read the Bible 30 times, and he says, "'Now I've given up on organized religion.'" And so I started sharing the Gospel with him, and then all of a sudden, do you know what he said to me?

What's that? He quoted Romans 1 verse 20, and I said, "'That's exactly what I was saying this morning. There is something in the heart of man that seeks after God, and I wonder, maybe if there's somebody listening today, listening to your show, the Steve Noble show, if they've never given their life to Jesus.

I wonder what you would say to them still.'" Well, I just did the invitation from Isaiah 55, "'Come, come to the water, come and drink of everlasting life.'" Jesus says that this water I give you will overflow into eternal life. Jesus said, "'Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'" Every other religion, every other belief system in the world is about man climbing that ladder, about people getting to God, trying to keep the five pillars, trying to keep the temple ordinances, whatever it is, but one belief system in all of history. God came down to us in that precious baby in the manger, and He came to us, and the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.

He's calling to you right now, Michael Zwick. It's time to respond and open our heart to Jesus. Amen?

Amen to that, brother, and thanks for having me on. You're a blessing. What's your website, or how can people hear your show?

Tell us real quick, because we've got to go. Just go to the podcast, If Not For God with Mike Zwick. You could Google If Not For God with Mike Zwick. Go to iTunes, whatever.

You can hear it anytime or truthnetwork.com. Okay, what's your sign-up? What do you say at the end of every program?

Why don't you do it right now? If Not For God. If Not For God. God bless you, folks.

Turn to Him, trust in Him, and tell someone about Him before your head hits the pillow tonight. I'm Stu Epperson, honored to be with you today. Our main website is truthnetwork.com. God bless you. This is the Truth Network.