A Home Is Where Love Is Found

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it and share it.

But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. And I'm with my dad. Now, Pops, we're going to Ararat, Virginia, where you were born.

When I was a little guy, you used to drag me out of bed early on my one sleep-in day on Saturday. You would bring me up to the country. What is it about where we're going right now that really makes it awesome for you? Well, it's a different culture. It's a different setting. It's more isolation, more time to reflect on God's goodness, a great place to study the Bible, reflect, walk in the woods. And this is nature. This is as God intended it to be.

So nothing wrong with cities, nothing wrong with highways, but this is another facet. And we've had hundreds of people come to Ararat, to Prayer Mountain, and to Camp Ararat and have gotten their lives right with God. They've surrendered to God's calling and to that influence, especially servicemen from Camp Lejeune, from Port Bragg, and different army bases, and also first responders come up.

And so it's just a glorified place of isolation to get along with God. In the Bible it says repeatedly, and they went up on the mountain. They went up on the mountain. Jesus went up on the mountain and prayed all night before He chose His 12 disciples. Very interesting. So this is what we invite people to do.

Come and go up on the mountain and meditate on God and His handiwork. And this also is where you got started, not just with broadcasting, but with your whole life. You were born somewhere up in those mountains there in Ararat, right?

That's right. I was born on Unity Church Road, a house my dad built. We had a small tobacco farm there. And we didn't get electricity until about 1942, 43. I was eight years old when we got electricity.

We had no car until 47. But through it all, we used to talk about when someday we'll get a car. But until then, and then someday we'll get electricity. And someday we'll have central heat in the house and might even have an air condition.

Someday, someday. But for right now, let's get up early in the morning and milk the cow. Let's cook breakfast. My dad and mom cooked breakfast every morning, hot breakfast. And let's feed the mules and the horse before we have breakfast. Let's get the eggs from the chicken house.

And now let's go to the field to work all day today. And we'll come home tonight and we'll have a cold supper. Really, beans, usually some sort of beans and potatoes, turnip greens and potatoes. Two vegetables and cornbread and a lot of milk, buttermilk especially. So that's what every Saturday I would go to the mill on Old Dan, which was our horse. And I would ride him to the mill and I'd take a bushel of corn and also a bushel of wheat.

And the miller, Sam Carter, he took a gallon of the bushel, his fee, for riding it for us. And so we had fresh wheat flour and we had fresh corn meal all during the week. And it was an interesting life. Then electricity came and it was just a glorious event. I remember going throughout the house and turning the light on and off, on and off, on and off.

My dad warned me, he said, you'll only do that so many times. And so then my brother came home from college and built a radio station. So within a year after we first got electricity, he built a radio station in our house. And then the whole community started coming every Friday night, all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon. They would bang their banjos and fiddles.

Everybody up in the mountains would come and the preachers would come and it was just a happy time. That's where I fell in love with radio and decided that's what I wanted to do. And then in 1948, on Groundhog's Day, my dad sought out the lumber and built a building for WPAQ in Mount Airy. My brother Ralph built a radio station and that changed our whole lives.

It's still going. WPAQ, 740 on the dial, Mount Airy, North Carolina. So that propelled you into radio and your family all involved.

Now you have a lot of family still running WPAQ, cousin Kelly Epperson, cousin Debbie is involved there, and WBRF, and cousin Brian, and Stephen, and Virginia, and Hal, and just a lot of Epperson still on radio. Brent, WBRG in Lynchburg. And so we're going up there right now to the country to see this beautiful land, the birthplace of my pops. I'm Stu Jr., host of Truth Talk with my dad. Just having a conversation about where we're heading right now, driving up the beautiful Highway 52. Dad, your favorite place to hang out in Arat, Virginia. When you think about going up here, what's the place you look forward to most hanging out? I look forward mostly, interestingly enough, to Prayer Mountain. Driving up, you see forever miles and miles, and we're in the process of building a building there, a meeting place. But Prayer Mountain, something about going up high, seeing forever, seeing the old farmhouse where I was born, and where my uncle lived, my grandfather lived, everybody else lived along Unity Church Road. And that's really inspiring to me. It's really, really conducive to meditating on scripture. The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth his handiwork.

All of these things God made, made for us to enjoy. Now you've had a granddaughter married on Prayer Mountain. You've had other weddings up there. You've had people come to know Christ as their savior on Prayer Mountain.

Most folks when they talk about their mountain getaway, it's all about a condo, a chalet, a mountain house, the scenes, the views. But Pops, when I talk to you, you get excited about people coming to know Christ. Marriage is being healed. Putting a wounded warrior or veteran up in a deer stand and getting some counseling and getting some hope and encouragement. Tell us about that passion as we wrap up this segment.

We started by accidents. One of the chaplains called, Larry Ledford, said, Do you have a place we could bring some people? Larry asked me about it. He says, Yeah, bring the soldiers up. I said, We have the old farmhouses we've renovated.

Bring them up and we'll put them up and no charge. So he started bringing them up and many of them came to know the Lord. And now it's officially on their program for chaplains to bring people, especially soldiers who've been deployed. It changes their lives when they're deployed. And when they come to ARAT, they're trying to get back close to God and get back close to their families, their kids and their wife. And praise the Lord.

He's using this facility to help them do just that. God, whether you're a soldier at Fort Bragg coming to ARAT, Virginia, or whether you're listening to this program maybe somewhere in Utah, what would you challenge people about utilizing whatever they have, their land, their skills, their gifts, their ability to cook, whatever they can do? How would you challenge people to use that to bring others to Christ?

What's your challenge as we wrap up this segment real quick here? Well, we are all blessed. You read the story of the rich young ruler. You read the story of the rich man not likely to come to heaven through the eye of a needle.

And you read those accounts of what Jesus said. Okay. We are in America. We are rich people compared to the rest of the world.

We all have more than we actually need to eat and houses. And so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And it's only through the power of the Holy Spirit and through Jesus name and the blood of Christ that we are, we are moved to do it. And then we're enabled to do it in a consistent way.

So God has to provide it faithfully. He who has called you, who also will do it. That's amazing. He will do it. He's called you and he'll do it. If you will say, and this is hard, stay close to Jesus. Stay close to Jesus.

All right. Your marriage, your family, where you are right now, God's got a great plan for you. And it's awesome to see my dad here. Now we're going to hang up on this brief conversation on the way to Ararat, Virginia.

His birthplace growing up, his home place. And now I've got some land up here where we try to use for ministry. Family tries to get away up there sometimes when we can.

Beautiful area at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I guess this is southwestern Virginia and that's where we're going right now. But I'm going to hang up. This Mr. Everson here is still going to talk to me about the Lord and about Christ.

And what you just heard from him is how he is in real time. And if I'm not focused on the Lord, he'll bust my chops and bring me back in. So I appreciate a dad that used to take me up to the country when I was little. Now I get to be the driver today and I'm taking him up there and we're going to have a good old time looking around and praying and asking God what he can do with this. Truth Talk with Stu Epperson. Special guest Stu Epperson, Senior Big Stu and Little Stu on the road to Ararat, Virginia.