Barry Meguiar 00:03
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 mean back in the 70s. I mean everything you brought out. I liked every song, not one. Maybe I like some more than others. But I mean, you the lead singer, but you do the banjo and the guitar and the and the steel guitar. I did some of that I love when I was young, and I look at you live the life that I love music. I’m very musical. Nobody knows cards. I don’t sing it. 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 why didn’t you give me some of that. But it is great. We have not known each other. No, we’re 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 a guy we we have never met each other and decidedly 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’ve thought about that a lot with other people I’ve 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.
01:36
Well, what gets you excited? Gets me excited? So you just keep talking.
Barry Meguiar 01:41
So I’ve been sharing Karen, I both for 50 years. It started back for us, physically and intensely doing it every day, 1973 but for you, it goes way back to even I don’t know. When did it start for you? We didn’t talk about that part of your story.
01:56
Well, no, I, I was in college going to San Diego State University, and people are throwing rocks at the ad building and smoking dope and stuff. These people need to know Jesus, because at the time, really, I was listening to John MacArthur, who was just starting his church in Panorama City. Wow. So I started a Bible study, and we’ve dummy me as a college kid, as a college kid, started in 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 bodies. I recall
Barry Meguiar 02:29
when you asked if you could sing in his church, he didn’t let you in the door. No,
02:34
no, because we are playing. We are playing the Troubadour and other clubs. He goes, You can’t play these clubs.
Barry Meguiar 02:43
Manure that so well, you’re really gospel guys, Christian guys that you position yourself so you can go to the secular world.
02:50
Well, we didn’t position ourselves, no, just God engineered us to be there. And so all of a sudden you were praying in Vegas for Christ. We were playing Vegas, Reno, Tahoe, and I brush her. If you haven’t heard
Barry Meguiar 03:03
her, you need to go back and and look at their songs and go to songs. It’s phenomenal. Yeah.
03:08
I mean, one day I’m in college, the next day we’re opening for Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, and I’m going out of country,
Barry Meguiar 03:14
your gospel, your bluegrass, you cover all my loves. I mean, just everything, the blending and your voice, oh, to have your voice. Well, thanks. It
03:25
just, you know, got engineered where I went and what I did, and, and, and it’s been a quite a story, boy,
Barry Meguiar 03:30
it really is. I wish we’d go into it. We’re not here to talk about brush armor or the car wax. No, we have, we have only have so much time with you, yeah. So we’re going to talk about your experiences and sharing your faith, because they come so often, so frequently and so easily.
03:46
Well, 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
Barry Meguiar 03:56
much say, it ignites you. Okay, well,
04:00
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 life, 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
Barry Meguiar 04:31
in the darkest of places, the
04:32
darkest of places, the darkest place God ever placed me to share the gospel was in the was in the, the, the, the, I forget what they call it in Africa, but it was out in the bush, the bush in Africa, of all places. Okay, how I that
Barry Meguiar 04:49
got engineered that was material that really was darkness.
04:53
It was darkness. 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 a British, British, English. Mr. Rice, we want you to preach. I said, 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 said, 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, you know, and I would and I preached. When I got all done, people came to Christ, great move of the Spirit of God. And that got me so excited to see that that I was all excited, yeah, and, 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 were just obedient and stepped on the spot. Yeah? So I’ve been wanting to step in the spot ever since, yeah, well,
Barry Meguiar 06:12
there’s an anointing everywhere Christians go. That’s a reject. All of us just need to be obedient Exactly. Hear His voice, move everybody Yep, every day. Yeah, that’s what you do. I do. So give us some stories. You have a million of them, but give me your you must have a favorite ones I do. I have so I need jerk. I keep telling those stories. I get stories every day, but there’s ones I’d love to tell them more often. Well, since
06:37
we’re already in Africa, I’ll tell you what happened there. I thought that 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, Will 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 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, Mr. Rice, I made you sound very good.
Barry Meguiar 07:11
You saved your bacon. He saved my bacon. All of
07:13
that got me to thinking. And this is what you know as the Holy Spirit intercedes to us, to God. Yeah, 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 through you by the Spirit. 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
Barry Meguiar 07:43
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. But it’s so true, so we can’t escape that fact, no, we’re in full time ministry. That’s right. It’s like so talk about it on 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 beach or go whatever, but we’re in Starbucks and we’re in Walmart and we’re in waiting rooms or you’re on the golf course, right? Ever. So give us some spontaneous, unexpected.
08:17
Well, 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. Yeah. So I shared Christ get
Barry Meguiar 08:37
an interview. Sharing faith is fun. I think it is. So you have fun. You know, just stop, know, 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
08:55
time. Reminds me of the guy said, he said he walked into a 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
Barry Meguiar 09:05
mean, it is, I mean it is, it is, I mean, that’s a little absurd, yet it’s not you just you have fun with it, and when you have you don’t offend people. I get this, you know, rust, those are persecuted. You’re gonna be persecuted. Okay, now, I know those in the political arena get persecuted a lot. They’re standing up for saying, God, we have those people, but on the nor 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, when we don’t, and when, when you’re telling them God loves them,
09:36
I’ve had some people tell me that I’m crazy, because they don’t think that I really talk to God and that God speaks to us, yeah,
Barry Meguiar 09:44
but you don’t necessarily say that the first thing you’re starting out by loving
09:48
- No, no, no. I’ve told some people before, and 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? Right? I go, Well, he knew you’d never. Ever go to church to hear it from, from a preacher? So he sent you a building contractor.
Barry Meguiar 10:06
And so I’m telling you, that’s his other trait. Yeah, builder is his dad was before,
10:10
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. He 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, explains. It goes
Barry Meguiar 10:40
back to detail that 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? Well,
10:48
here’s what happens if you if, 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 is huge, and I get to share Christ almost daily.
Barry Meguiar 11:16
And amazing. Just you look at it like this, and maybe a one time I write, I talk to people, they should they tell me something they did five years ago, and they don’t realize, if they just start doing it, the opportunities abound.
11:30
They’re everywhere they do. The harvest is plentiful in workers
Barry Meguiar 11:34
today, you had 80% of Americans living in fear and looking for God. And there we are, right in the middle of them. We
11:43
are walking by. I’m
Barry Meguiar 11:44
busy getting going to our Bible study, too busy to I
11:48
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.
Barry Meguiar 11:57
Yeah, yeah. So more stories. What are some things happened recently that you’ve just just had?
12:03
Well, the other day, I went up to play golf, and you’re a golfer. You’re no, not really. I play golf because it’s something to do when you’re walking, you know, at 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 talking a guy, turns out one of the guys plays pedal steel guitar, and I said, I play pedal steel. And one, we started trying to point of contact. We did. And we start sharing one thing and another. And I gave them a booklet, yeah, that I carry with me, that I shared with you, and I give them that booklet, and I asked them, I said, if you, if you guys will read this, I promise you I’ll pray every day for you on my knees. I’ll pray, and God hears my prayers. You can expect something very exciting to happen in your life. Yeah, 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 follow up on that the next week. So it’s just exciting. Just keep
Barry Meguiar 13:03
chumming. Yeah? 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, yeah, and some shallow ground, or whatever. It’s nobody’s everybody’s different, yeah,
13:21
and you may already planted it watered, and I’m just first
Barry Meguiar 13:23
exactly that the scriptures are very clear that, but stop trying to get people saved on the spot and just have fun with it. Right, right? So we’ve hardly just begun. Can we, can we do this some more? Yeah, can I have you back? Let’s get into some of the good stories. Okay, alright, alright. Thanks for joining us. We’ll be back with more of Ignite with this incredible guys next time you.
