God’s Speaking Through You!

Hi everybody, welcome back to Ignite, have a special guest today, Jim Rice, the voice of Brush Harbor back in the day, I mean for me, I'm back in the 70s, I mean everything you brought out, I liked every song, not one, I mean I like some more than others, but I mean you, the lead singer, but you, you do the banjo and the guitar and the steel guitar, I did some of that, I love it, I was young and I look at it, you live the life, I love music, I'm very musical, no one knows, I don't sing, I don't sing worth the hoot, I don't play the answer, but I love music, I mean I get into music and I can look at you and say that's right, why didn't you give me some of that, but it is great, we have not known each other, no, we were just meeting today, his buddy Mark introduced us, he said he was listening to me and he said hey I think these two guys should get together, and so we've just talked a little bit before camera, but here's the guy, we have never met each other and decided on different lives, I mean entirely different lives, but we're exactly the same, that's true, what ignites our life is exactly the same, and I thought about that a lot with other people I've had conversation with, and you know God's the same, and the closer we get to God, the closer we get to each other, to where we just had a bite to eat, and it's like we're soulmates, I mean there's no separation, no, there really is no separation, well what gets you excited gets me excited, so you just keep talking, so I've been sharing it, I've been carrying it both for 50 years and started back for us, physically and intensely doing it every day in 1973, but for you it goes way back to even er, I don't know, wouldn't it start for you, we didn't talk about that part of your story, well no, I was in college going to San Diego State University and people are throwing rocks at the ad building and smoking dope and stuff like that, these people need to know Jesus because at the time I was listening to John MacArthur who was just starting his church in Panorama City, so I started a Bible study, and we've, dummy me, there's a college kid, there's a college kid starting a Bible study in my brother's house, and we asked John to come down and teach it one night and he came down and taught it, John MacArthur comes to San Diego to teach our Bible as I recall when you asked if you could sing in a church, he didn't let you in the door to me, no, no, no, no, no, I'm right there, because we're playing, we're playing the, the troubadour and the other clubs, because you can't play these clubs, you can't do that so well, you're really gospel guy, it's crazy guys, if you position yourselves so you could go to the secular world, well we didn't position ourselves, we didn't, no, just God engineered us to be there, and so all of a sudden, you were playing in Vegas for Christmas, we're playing Vegas, Reno, Tahoe, and I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, if you haven't heard of it, you need to go back and, and look at their songs, you go to the songs, it's phenomenal. Yeah, I mean one day I'm in college and next day we're opening for Johnny Cash and Merle Haggers, and I'm going, how did this, your, your gospel, your bluegrass, you covered all my lows, I mean just everything in the blending and your voice, oh, they have your voice. Well thanks, it just, you know, God engineered where I went and what I did and, and, and it's been a quite a story. Boy, it really is, I wish we'd go into it, we're not here to talk about brush art or, or the car wax company or anything, we have, we have, we only have so much time with you, and so we're going to talk about your experiences and sharing your faith because they come so often so frequently and so easily. Well, it, it excites you. I mean, when I get to share the gospel and people respond positively, it lights you up. And so I got so, I would say I'd ignite you. Okay, well that's, that's, that's, you know, you can have that, but, but I like lights because Jesus said I'm the light of the world and he who believes in me shall have the light of life. Well, if anybody needed light in their lives, I did. I needed God to show him to shed light on everything that I was doing because, apart from him, everything's kind of confusing and dark. But when, when we accept him, Jesus says, I'm the light of the world and when we follow him, things light up in the darkest of places, the darkest of places, the darkest place God ever placed me to share the gospel was in the, was in the, the, the, the, the, I forget they call it in Africa, but it was out in the, in the bush, the bush, in Africa of all places. Okay. How that got engineered that was material. That really was darkness. It was dark and I don't know. And I just said yes to a guy that asked me to go and I knew God wanted me to go. So I went to Africa. And while I'm there, I'm singing guitar and they said, Mr. Rice, they speak of British, British English. Mr. Rice, we want you to preach. I said, no, I'm not the preacher. No, I'm the singer. They said, no, Mr. Rice, you are to preach. I said, no, I'm the singer. They said, Mr. Rice, will you be obedient? And I said, oh, wow, I don't know what to preach though. They go, God will tell you, you be obedient. I fell asleep. I got up, I dreamed my, my sermon. I preached and I would preach. I'd say the words and then somebody would interpret in Swahili and I would, and I preached when I got all done. People came to Christ, great move with the Spirit of God. And that got me so excited to see that, that I was all excited. And I walked up to the guy afterwards and I said, I said, do you think there's an anointing on my life that I'm supposed to be like an evangelist or something? He goes, oh, no, Mr. Rice, there's no anointing on you. You would have just, there's an anointing on the spot. You would have just obediently stepped on the spot. So I've been wanting to step in the spot ever since. Well, there's an anointing everywhere Christians go. That's a, all of us just need to be obedient, right? Exactly. Here is voice, move everybody, every day. Yeah, that's what you do. I do. So give us some stories. Yeah, you have a million of them, but give me your, you must have a favorite ones. I do, I need your, I keep telling those stories. I get stories every day, but there's ones I'd love to tell more often. Well, I still, since we're already in Africa, I'll tell you one to happen there. I, I thought that I, I can't preach. I don't know how to preach. I'm not trained preacher. I don't know how to tell about Christ, even, but they asked me. They said, well, you preach again. I'm going, oh, man, I already blew my whole wall. I've already said everything that I know to say. So I went out there and I, and I stuttered all over myself on the stage. I, it was awful. I thought it was awful. When I got all done with it, I said, I said to my interpreter, I said, I think I did a really bad job. He goes, oh, no, miss it. I said, I made you sound very good. Oh, he saved your baby. He saved my bacon. All of that got me to thinking. And this is what, you know, as the Holy Spirit intercedes to us to God, the Holy Spirit speaks through us to other people. And right when you think what you said doesn't make any sense, it makes all the sense to somebody because you're allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to you. So for me, that was a big changing part of my life. Being in Africa at that time when I was younger made me realize, I don't need to worry about making mistakes. Just be filled with the Spirit of God and go and realize we're all in full time ministry. We are everything we say and everything we do is moving everybody watching us closer or further away from God. We want to deal with that, but it's so true. So we can't escape that fact. No, we're in full time ministry. So talk about it on the, and your normal life, when you're going through life, just this, these spontaneous, I particularly interested, most of us don't go to Africa or go on to beach or go whatever, but we're, we're in Starbucks and we're in Walmart and we're in waiting rooms and we're on the golf course or you're on the golf course right ever. So give us some spontaneous unexpected. One of my favorites was once I was sharing Christ with a guy on the golf course one day and another friend came up to me and says, rice, you can't be talking about Jesus out here on the golf course. I said, what are you talking about? You brought his name up three times on the last hole. And that's how it started. So I shared Christ with him. Can't get any energy. I said, yeah, you've got to have fun with it. Sharing faith is fun. I think it is. So you have fun. Get off. You just stop. No, the sweaty palms and you're trying to figure out how to do it just relax and have fun. Yeah. And they'll say silly things. You silly back and that removes all the tension. It reminds me of the guy said, he said he walked into bar to share Christ, said to the guy says, you want to go to heaven? The guy goes, no, he goes, then go to hell. That's funny. I mean, it is. I mean, it is, it is, I mean, that's a little absurd. And yet it's not. It's just you have fun with it. And when you have, you don't offend you. I get this, you know, rust those are persecuted. You're going to be persecuted. Okay. Now I know those in the political arena get persecuted a lot. They're standing up for that. God, we have those people. But on the, the normal course of action when you're bumping into people and you let them know that God loves them, they don't get mad at you. No, they don't, when, when, when you're telling them God loves them. I've had some people tell me that I'm crazy because they don't think that I really talk to God and the God speaks to us. Yeah, but you don't necessarily say that the first thing you're about to start out by loving them. No, no, no. Well, I've told some people before on this, I've used this line more than once because it was so effective. I say, I know God loves you a lot. And they go, how do you know God loves me, rice? I go, well, he knew you'd never go to church to hear it from, from a preacher. So he sent you a building contractor. And so I'm telling you. That's his other trait. Yeah, yeah, he built it. This is dad was before. Yeah. So I, for me, having fun with it. Yeah, you got to have fun with it. And by the way, the guy that I was sharing Christ with on the golf course, eventually I went to see him get baptized. You accepted Jesus. He got baptized and it was a great, it was a great thing. So, you know, I don't really know what it is about people being afraid to share the gospel because once you do, God rewards you and then you want to do it again. Yeah. And for me, it goes back to the, it goes back to the, it goes back to the, because we're getting the details of it. What happens when you start sharing your faith? Why do you want to do it again? What is it? What takes place? Here's what happens. If you, if God gives you light and you step into that light, the reward for that light is more light and you got a choice to make again. So the first time I sensed God tell me, share the gospel with this guy and I did and I was obedient. Then he started opening up more things to me and I would step into that more things and now the light just as huge and I get to share Christ almost daily. Yeah. It's amazing. It's just, you, you look at it like this and maybe a one time, all right? I talked to people, they should, they tell me something they did five years ago, you know. And they don't realize if they just start doing it, the opportunity is abound. They're everywhere. They do. The harvest is plentiful. It is. It is today. You had 80% of Americans living in fear and looking for God and there we are right in the middle of them. Walking by, I'm busy getting going to our Bible study, I'm too busy to, I don't know how people can live in this life and not be excited about Jesus and sharing their faith because it's more exciting. Once you get this excitement, there's no going back. Yeah. Yeah. So more stories. Well, one of something has happened recently that you've just, just had to, well, the other day I went up to play golf and you're a golfer, you're not really, I play golf because it's something to do when you're walking, you know, with the ball, that makes sense. But I was, the two guys I'm praying for right now, once named Brandon, one named Zach and their cart guys up at the golf club where I go, where I golf. And they asked me, they go, what is it with you guys because they saw us having fun. What is it with you guys? And I got to talk to a guy, turns out one of the guys plays petal steel guitar and I said, I play petal steel and one, we start sharing a point of contact. We did and we start sharing one thing and another and I gave them a booklet that I carry with me that I shared with you and I give them that booklet. And I asked them, I said, if you guys will read this, I promise you, I'll pray every day for you on my knees, I'll pray. And God, here's my prayers. You can expect something very exciting to happen in your life. If you read this book, they both told me they would. So this last week when I was there, I asked both of them have read the booklet and I'm going to follow up on that. And that's it. So it's just exciting. You just keep shumbing. Yeah, that's it. You know, we've been so often taught and many Christians still believe this today. If you don't get them saved on the spot, you fail. No. But some say lands on hard ground and some shallow ground or whatever, there's no way, everybody's different. Yeah, and you may have planted it and watered it and I'm just further away. Exactly that. The scriptures were clear of that. But stop trying to get people saved on the spot and just have fun with it, right? Right. We've already just begun. Can we do this somewhere? Yeah. Can I have you back? Oh, yeah. Let's get into some of the good stories. Okay. All right. All right. Thanks for joining us. We'll be back with more of Ignite with this incredible guy next time.