Don’t Waste Opportunities to Witness

00:00 - Speaker 1This isn't our home, hallelujah. But we keep doing the scorecard of our old way, the world's ways, and we, no wonder we're in conflict, no wonder we're frustrated because we're not. We're not in the game, we're not even paying attention to the right scoreboard. When you said that it just the field has changed when you become a believer, and it's not a spectator sport. 00:25 - Speaker 2That's true. Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast, where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life. Now listen in and prepare to have your life ignited. 00:43 - Speaker 3Welcome back to Ignite everybody. We have special guests with us. Our actual this is second in a series of two, Dr Ham and Dr Scott Pyle Great friends. We feel like we've been friends for years and it's only been maybe three months. But you know, it's amazing. I have found that the closer we get to God, the closer we get to each other. 01:10 - Speaker 2I'll tell you a funny story. 01:12 - Speaker 3I think I've mentioned the past, but we were interviewing folks in Fresno, california, who share their faith, and there was a black lady there my age looked much older than me actually who had just come through bypass quadruple bypass surgery a few days earlier and had grown up poor. And I was the interviewer, but I soon just let her talk. She didn't need me and she talked to that camera and she spoke to that camera. I broke. I said we're exactly the same. 02:02This precious lady lives in an entirely different world from me, a world away from me as much as you can, in the United States, and she was expressing things that I feel in my innermost being these conversations I have with God and nobody else. And she's saying it to the camera. She broke me and I thought I'm at one with her, we're soulmates. I never met her before and we're soulmates. How is this possible? And that's when it first came to me the more we progress through life and we get closer to God all of us getting closer to God, the closer we get to God. That's the unity of the Spirit, that's the family of God. Isn't that special? 02:50 - Speaker 4Yes. 02:51 - Speaker 3You guys and us, Karen and I, are enjoying the family of God together. We're celebrating together because two entirely different paths have brought us to the same point and brought us to the same point. So in our last podcast, we ended up talking about stuff. It's just stuff. Yeah, I remember George Carlin. He did a funny thing way back about stuff it's just more stuff. I've seen that bit. So you guys and us, we have stuff. Okay, Explain what that stuff means to you in relationship to the opportunity you have to represent the Lord every day. 03:35 - Speaker 1I mean, we talk about it. We came from broken family, childhood for America, impoverished, not for the world. For America, impoverished, not for the world. And we know that God has given us a place in the social economic position in the world for the kingdom. It's for his work, it's so we can share the gospel with people in our relationship. And should he decide that we end life financially where we started, we've talked about, as long as we're together and our dogs and our dog, we, this is home, this is home. We have five children, eight grandchildren. We were just all together. That's what matters our, our father and our family. It is amazing. 04:35One of my testimony stories, if you don't mind, was around our pool and it was the pool was acting up all the automation and, to be very transparent, I was very frustrated. Brand new stuff, right To your point, barry, brand new stuff. And you and I had just talked and the pool mechanic was coming to the house and I'd been talking with him recently and I just happened to ask him again. You know how are you doing? What's going on? My wife just left me. He said she raided our bank accounts, she stripped our house and I found out this week. I have cancer. 05:13 - Speaker 4Oh. 05:16 - Speaker 1And I just sat there, personally ashamed, because I was so upset about the spillway and the waterfall on my pool. I mean, god's really sometimes gentle. Sometimes he's like Scott, come on, get priorities here, and then. So I started asking him about what we're talking about right now. And it's so interesting when you move into that because, no matter how many times you do, it is the Lord and we just have to open our mouth. And I thought I was going to ask him one series of questions and this thing went a whole different direction and at the end of our conversation he prayed with me to receive Jesus. 06:05 - Speaker 3That was a divine encounter and an unexpected one. You did not expect that conversation to go that way, but you're open to it. 06:13 - Speaker 1Yes, yes. 06:15It's amazing, and then we wanted to open up our money to him. This man had just lost his money, lost his wife, had cancer. So I go into the house but he's out working on the pool. I go, get, go in and get some cash out of the house and come out and he starts breaking down Cause it's like now. Now we're brothers in the testimony of what's true. Does the stuff mean more to me than him? Is what I was hearing in my head. This isn't, for this was me and I just remember going in and wanting to get all the cash I had at that moment and get it into his hands, and it was an expression of love, because it's just stuff. It's just stuff. But his soul was redeemed on our property and I got the privilege of being there to see it happen. I often say to people in travail. 07:05 - Speaker 3well, it happen. Yeah, I get that stuff. I often say to people in travail well, god has you right where he wants you. Yes, what? What kind of a God is that? Well, he's been trying to get your attention and no matter what he does, he can't get your attention. So you know, this is what happens when you're not paying. That's really good, now you can revert, now you can get back, now he can put it all back together again. 07:31 - Speaker 4Yes, To restore your attention. 07:34 - Speaker 3you know that's right. 07:36 - Speaker 1Ooh, that's good. 07:37 - Speaker 3It's just amazing. 07:38 - Speaker 4Sometimes you know our suffering when we suffer. I say suffering gives us a stage and pain gives us the microphone. And when someone's looking at our lives and it looks perfect from the outside but we are showing our suffering, revealing our suffering, honest with our suffering and still praising the Lord, that's when people like they begin to say well, what is it that helps them through their suffering? Because it's a common experience. We all suffer. I know you've suffered deeply, we have too, and yet through it all have too, and yet through it all, we know that God loves us. And our theology is very simple God is good and we trust him. And that simple message is for everyone God is good and we trust him, and we trust him and he loves you. And so suffering is often a great way and a great opportunity to share your faith when you're suffering or you see someone else suffering. 08:59 - Speaker 3Isn't that good. We lost, as you know, our 49-year-old daughter, and I led the service because I knew half the people probably there and they were not Christian. They were car guys, great guys, but not Christian. Coming to see. Is Barry going to smile now? He's always smiling. Is he going? 09:16to smile now, and I did, and I explained I always have good days. I don't always have good things happen, bad things, yes, but God's always there. And there's a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is fleeting. It just comes and goes every day. Joy is well, boy, joy is a. That's a whole different thing. We had a couple with us at that service. They flew out from Tennessee. To be at that funeral meant a lot to us. We had no idea that within two years we would be in the East Coast attending a funeral for their son, their married son. And she came to me about a year later and she said you know the parable of the building the house on the sand or on the rock, yes, and then the storm comes. House on the sand or on the rock, yes. And then the storm comes, yeah. She says you know what? Your comment triggered this in my mind. He says you know what the message of that is? And I threw out every kind I could think of. The message is we all have storms. You just said it. 10:27 - Speaker 1We all go through these periods we all have storms. 10:28 - Speaker 3You just said it. We all go through these periods, we all have storms in our lives. The question is did we have we built our, our life on the rock of Jesus Christ, amen, or the sand of this world? And if we build our house on the rock on Jesus Christ, we will not be moved. That's right. And I again. Just one last thing I just say to Jesus Christ we will not be moved. That's right. And I again. Just one last thing. I just say to people with Christians, particularly when they're in trouble. 10:54 - Speaker 4Don't waste it. 10:55 - Speaker 3Yes don't waste it. Don't waste it. What are you talking about? Don't waste it. You're serving God. You have joy. You're sharing your faith. God's making everything work for good. He's up to good here, and good for God is souls. 11:09That's right, he's using this to get more souls into heaven Now. So get on board and don't complain and say where are you, god, but instead say, what are you up to God? And then, by your very demeanor, your very joy in the midst of the storm, you're leading people to Jesus, and God wants to do that in our lives. He allows us the privilege. He'll never give us more than we can handle. He knows that it's like a compliment Boy. God must really trust you. What he has a lot of respect for you. That's a compliment, because he'll never give anything more than you can endure. He knows you can handle this. Straighten up, and God will use it for his glory and you said it's about souls. 11:51 - Speaker 1It's interesting, as you were saying that, barry, it kind of hit me. So many of us as believers, as Christians who've given their life to Christ, we're still using the old scorecard, the scorecard of the world, the scorecard the Federal Reserve and the banking system set up for us and the scorecard not of god, because it's about your soul, man it just when you said that it just eliminated that if we start counting our days and counting the score according to salvations in christ technically our brothers and sisters, so we can have the last brother and sister come to our father, so we can go home. This isn't our home, but we keep doing the scorecard of our old way, the world's ways, and no wonder we're in conflict, no wonder we're frustrated because we're not in the game, we're not even paying attention to the right scoreboard. When you said that the field has changed when you become a believer and it's not a spectator sport that's true, and I loved your saying don't waste it. 13:05 - Speaker 4I always say don't waste your dying because it's your last chance for evangelism and there's a reason that last words are lasting words. Make them count, make them count for your family, make them count for the nursing and medical staff that's around you. You will be surprised how many people will see you as you are going through your final days and will come to know the Lord, because last chance evangelism is very powerful and we all have that opportunity. And so I say, when we're on our way home, let's worship our way home, because that is a powerful method of sharing Jesus and we'll see more people in heaven from our lives and when you seize that opportunity you guys are. 14:03 - Speaker 3He gives you more opportunities. He does. You know I had this experience. I've talked about a long time, many times so I'm not going to bother with it now. But I did have a guy come into my life, David McNutt, and tell me in 1976, my business was my pulpit, so I didn't see him for 24 years. He left and went to another church. After 24 years he called me. I'd not seen him in 24 years. This man changed my life. From then to now my business has been my pulpit. 24 years later he comes to me in the year 2000, and he says I have a word for you from the Lord. And I pushed back. I mean if we'd followed every word from the Lord we'd be confused. So I disturbed, I said, oh, maybe not. But he wouldn't let me go and he sat me down. He says you heard of this book, the Prayer of Jabez. 14:49 - Speaker 1I love that book. 14:50 - Speaker 3I had not at that time. It had just come out Within the next three months. I think about everybody in Christianhood who had read this short prayer of Jabez, who had much. He was honoring God and his prayer was Lord, enlarge my territory so I can bring you more glory. And he comes back and says I just read this book this weekend and God told me to come back and tell you he's going to enlarge your territory. I was being faithful with a little bit. He's going to give me more. He says God's going to enlarge your territory and he's going to give you a ministry, separate apart from your business, which is what we're doing right now. It's ignited. It all happened. 15:24But the interesting thing is, in the next seven years our 100-year-old family business doubled in size. It doubled my TV show that I had for 18 years went all over the world. People knew me all over the world. I became number one selling car wax in most countries around the world. Why was that? I got to tell you it was great for the business. But that wasn't what it was about. God enlarged my territory, he enlarged my inputs and I'm using that now more than ever before. Every day, more and more, I'm using what he's placed in my hand. Take it all away from me. I don't care. 16:01 - Speaker 2I know, A few months ago. 16:04 - Speaker 3we thought we might be in internment camps or something. We didn't know what was ahead of us. I said, Larry, if I get internment, everybody's going to need the Lord, I don't care. I'm going to be just as excited as I am now. Wherever he places us, we're in the game, right? 16:17 - Speaker 4Yes, yeah, and it's fun to be in the game. And it's fun to be in the game with people like Fellow warriors yeah, fellow warriors but also I heard you talk once and it made me excited, Because there are not a whole lot of people out there share the gospel with and that I can love on. And you know what, when I ask him for that, he rewards me with someone every single day, and it happens in different ways, and he'll do the same for anyone that's listening, and it happens in different ways, and he'll do the same for anyone that's listening and you will be so excited. 17:12 - Speaker 3It's not a script. The moment we say the same thing twice, we're getting into a script Even in the beginning of the conversation. Don't use a script, Just allow God to speak through you, it's so much fun. 17:24 - Speaker 1It's just so important. 17:25 - Speaker 3And I even tell him we have the privilege. Yes, at this moment, I think of all billions of people all the years, and he shows us to be here now at this most incredible time in human history, to represent him. Holy God, yes, using us, speaking through us. 17:49 - Speaker 1What an incredible privilege. Yes, so I was having a down around COVID in those years. I remember I was having a particularly bad day and I was like Lord, just give me a layup today. 18:00 - Speaker 3Just would you just give me a layup, I've done that. I've done that. 18:05 - Speaker 1I've done that. I'm having a. This is I'm in a bad season. I'm feeling sorry for myself. I need a layup. Would you just give me a layup? Within minutes my phone rings. A gentleman from a hunting club that I'm a part of in the hospital had just become conscious enough to use the telephone and he said the first thing that came to mind is I got to call Scott Pyle. I got to call Scott Pyle, one of the hardest drinking, hardest partying, most enjoyable guys to be around. Just a blast Hardcore almost dies during. Covid calls me and I share the gospel over the telephone with him. Are you kidding, I mean, and the things he said about my life and watching me and observing me all those years when I thought I was up there just to hunt and it led him. When he became conscious after almost dying, I was the and he got a phone. They let him have a cell phone and he called me. I come on, man. 19:12 - Speaker 3That is I was so excited. 19:14 - Speaker 1I needed it so bad. I needed it as much as he did. I needed that like Lord man man, thank you that it was because it was five years of reward that came back. Okay, because he had been watching me and listening to me and judging me, and for five years, and then, when it came time, I'm the one he called what a layup again. 19:36 - Speaker 3His word doesn't come back void so many times. You don't see it, you don't see it, but it's happening yes, yes. 19:43I had one friend of mine in Chicago, bill, call me and he says hey, jack wants to talk to you. He's out in Oregon. What's he need, barry? He's dying, he's in a hospice bed and he's asked his wife to get a hold of you. I knew why. 50 years, wow, no return, zero. Not a response in 50 years, wow, no return. 50 years, zero, Not a response in 50 years. I say it dropped on the ground, nothing. 50 years. I call him. Hi, jack, how you doing Good, what? I'm dying. You're what I didn't let him know that I knew anything. I'm in a hospice bed in my living room and dying. You're what I didn't let him know that I knew anything. I'm in a hospice bed in my living room dying. Tell me about God. And in about 15 minutes I led him to the Lord. I did it twice, actually. I did it. I said okay, we're going to do it one more time and you're going to pray these words to make sure that they're not just words. 20:41 - Speaker 2You're saying to God. 20:43 - Speaker 3You're receiving him. You're receiving his gift of eternal life. And we did that. It was glorious. I said you know, we're going to spend eternity together. He never thought that far ahead. I said you and I are going to spend eternity together. What you and I are both going to heaven and earth is nothing. We're going to spend eternity. We're going to hang out together for eternity. And he laughed Wow, he died a few days later. 21:09 - Speaker 1It just took me 15 minutes. 21:11 - Speaker 3No, actually it took me 50 years. 21:15 - Speaker 4Yes. 21:15 - Speaker 3Of every time I was with him, just saying something, just a kernel, just some chum. If they're not hungry, they won't eat the chum. The fish will keep going right on by. We're fishers of men. You throw out chum, right, but when they're hungry they see the chum and then they start coming up your chum line closer and there's nothing more fun than seeing somebody you've been chumming for for a long time come up and then ready to and lead them across the. There's nothing better than that. 21:46 - Speaker 1As a critical care doctor. She's ushered many people across the debt, the thesis of debt, and she has a story about a man who was screaming and cussing at nurses and just angry and kept telling her she couldn't be a doctor, that she was his angel, because, of course, she's beautiful. 22:05 - Speaker 2Can you imagine her? 22:06 - Speaker 1standing over your bed and that white doctor. You're like, you're an angel. 22:09 - Speaker 4You're not my doctor and then, he calmed down when I started talking to him and I explained who angels are but who Jesus is, and that's who he needed to know. And I was just a person just like him, who loved the Lord and been saved by the Lord. And that's been my journey in medicine so many times as people are reaching their final days. And I've shared Christ with a man named Robert and he had heard from his daughter, who had prayed for him for all of his life, about Jesus when she became a Christian and he always rejected it. And so, as I was caring for him, he was dying with prostate cancer. I shared and he accepted Christ and he said can we call my daughter and tell her together? And it was a time that I walked out of the room. 23:25Wow, and if I never get another moment in medicine or in life, I am so thankful for this moment because it just puts everything into perspective. You know, I can care for someone, I can get them out of the hospital, they can even receive a miracle, but they still die. But the truth is the word sozo means healed, but it also means saved. So the one prayer that always results in a miracle always is the prayer of salvation, and then we go from the land of the dying to the land of the living, and that's the promises of God. So who would turn that down? 24:16 - Speaker 1Yeah, wow, and you know for me, and I know we got to wrap Barry. But it's coming to my mind and I'm realizing my pool's not breaking down, it's drawing workers to our house to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Think about it. The pool wasn't broken, yeah, and he wouldn't have came, I would not have had the opportunity. I have to get my mind right too and remember God works all things for the good of those who love him, who are called, accounting to his purpose, and it's all things, not some things, not bad things. 24:56 - Speaker 3All things, all things, and he draws all into it and there are opportunities. But the world is starving, yes, for what we have. Yes, and it's not just in church on Sunday morning, it's what we represent the Holy Spirit living through us, touching lives even before we speak. Yes, we're in full-time ministry and we have that great privilege, as he draws into us, to be responsive. You said it you have to be focused and be ready for it. You know, don't let it pass us by these great moments we have for lives, for eternity. 25:33 - Speaker 4We'll be celebrating for eternity, peter said I know, and I want to add one more thing is I have a chapter in my book called the Most Important Preparation and it's our soul. But what I loved about Billy Graham he had two questions. He would ask and I asked this in this chapter are you prepared to die? And he's asking is your soul prepared? And then the second thing you would say if you're not sure, if you don't have a day, place and believing that they're saved without the true personal encounter with Christ and that's know your day and time, and if you're not sure, make the day be your day and time. 26:43 - Speaker 3Amen. If you know he's Lord and you confess with your mouth, it is a confession that confirms that decision we made in our heart. Folks, I hope you hear this message. The question is the final question for all of you listening right now are you living your lives for God, or are you living your lives for God or are you living your lives for yourself? That's a decision you can make and you know it. You know the answer right now. If you want to live your life for God, then jump on the boat with us and have the time of your life for the rest of your life Guaranteed. 27:19Thank you, folks. We'll see you next time, love you Bye. 27:22 - Speaker 2Thank you, folks, We'll see you next time. Love you Bye. If you enjoyed today's episode, let us know and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review to help us reach more listeners. Remember sharing your faith ignites your faith. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast.