Welcome back to Ignite, I want to talk to you for a few moments on the subject of God is holding you accountable. And He is. There’s a scripture in the Old Testament, Ezekiel, actually, Ezekiel, chapter three, that puts a pretty clear description on how he’s holding us accountable. Now, granted, it’s the Old Testament, it’s prophets of, we’re living in the New Testament. We’re not prophets per se. But there’s a connection with God never changes, right? He’s the same yesterday, today and forever. And so if that’s the case, there must be some sort of connection there.
And as you recall, back in those days, they would have watchmen on the walls. And they would be there 24/7. And their job was, among others, was to watch in the distance to see if the enemy was coming. And if the enemy was coming, they could see it from afar off, and they could warn their people to get ready, the attack is coming, right? And he’s saying, he said, to the Prophets then, and I think He is saying it to us that we should be that for those around us. I mean, the churches aren’t doing it much. I mean, there are so great churches, thank God for so many great churches in America, but for the most part. I mean, Pew just did a study said that only 10% of the sermons in America, they’re even touching on salvation. So I’m not, I’m not commentating on churches out of my own understanding. I mean, this is what it is today. The church is not doing as well as we would love it to be. So who’s going to warn the people? I mean, the Scriptures say, how are they going to know, you have 90% of our population not going to church? They’re lost. We get mad at them, we get really mad at them, we can yell them. Particularly when there are politicians, right? But they’re not necessarily bad people. They’re lost people. And Jesus said that Satan will blind their eyes and they will see good as evil and evil as good. They’ll see, I won’t get into all the issue, but you know what I’m talking about. They actually see these things as good, right? And, and so people are lost, and how are they going to, how are they going to know unless somebody tells them? And how, who’s going to tell them unless they’re sent and our pastors aren’t sending us. When’s the last time you had your pastor and your church say, I’m sending you. Ephesians four: love it is the role of the pastor equip the church for ministry, equip the saints ministry, that’s you. You’re not that, you’re not hearing that. So there’s no expectation you should be sharing your faith. And so we’re sitting there. And when we sit there, we kind of just atrophy down to where we’re just paralyzed to basically 80% of all Christians are living in fear today. This is not how He wants us to be obviously.
Let me ask you a question. How many people do you know who are lost? Think about it, in your own family? How many people do know that if the rapture happened today, they’d be left behind? A follow up questions. How many of those that you just thought about? Have you warned? We’re walking by people every day, all around us, we’re surrounded by people who are lost. And if you don’t tell them who’s going to tell them? There is responsibility as we can’t get away from that there is responsibility. And it’s not like you’re just trying to talk him into making sure you’re not late to dinner, this is eternal! They’ll be eternally lost. So easy to, to walk through and satisfied at our own lives and see all these people hurting and feel like they’re not our responsibility. They are our responsibility. Everybody comes under our influence. And our influence not just by the influence we have where we, we have direct because of responsibility input. Because we, everything we say, everything we do is influencing those around us to come closer or further away from God. And it doesn’t happen necessarily on schedule, certainly not according to our schedule.
You know, I just I had this experience not too long back and again, I put up my book Ignite Your Life. Where I had a friend in Chicago call me, Bill, and he said, hey, guess what? Our friend Jack in Oregon is dying. He’s on his hospice, on his hospice bed. And he turned to his wife and he said I need to talk to Barry Meguiar. So here’s his number. So I called him and act like I didn’t know what’s going on and he quickly told me he’s in his hospice bed. He’s dying. And I said, well, what can I do for you, Jack? He says, well, you’ve always been talking about God, I need to get more serious about God. I mean, I’m, I’m at that point. And the next 10-12 minutes I led him to the Lord. It was great. In fact, to make sure I let him to the Lord. So let’s do this one more time. And I want you to pray the word. So you consciously understand what we’re saying here. And he did and we celebrated. And after that, I said, you know, guess what’s gonna happen? We’re going to spend eternity together. He said, what? It never even occurred to him. He never had those kinds of thoughts. I said, Jack, you and I are going to spend eternity together. We may be separate for a couple years, you get to start before me. Isn’t that crazy? But we’re going to spend eternity together. And he laughed. He says, yes, you’re right. I said, yeah, we are. It took about 10-12 minutes to do that great conversation. No, actually, it took me 50 years. It took me 50 years of what I called chumming, I use that term, but what do you just, you just love on people and throw out things and leave it alone. You can’t force feed Christianity. And when they’re ready, they’ll come and I get calls. Not every day, but I get calls on a regular basis. That I’ve always been there. And finally, when they, when they find out they have cancer. Or they’re, they found out their son just committed suicide. Or their wife’s leaving, or whatever it is they call, I need help. Bad things are not necessarily bad things if they lead you to Jesus.
So we have influence that should be all the time, everywhere we’re doing, everywhere we go. I had a dear friend who lives, who lived in Pennsylvania. And a car guy, his name was Chip, and I love Chip. And I spent a lot of time with Chip, he is my dear friend. And way too early in his 50s he found out that he had a rare form of cancer. And he was in the struggle for his life and I knew immediately, I knew immediately I need to get to Chip and talk to him about the Lord. Because I knew there was nobody else around him who would do that, that I knew of. So I kept putting it off and putting it off. I got the news in the fall and now it’s spring time and, and I know I should, I knew I should go I kept praying for him. I want to get down there. I just haven’t had enough time. I’m on the west coast. So I have lots of things I’m doing. My ministry thing to do and speaking engagements. I mean I just I didn’t get around to it. And finally I’m at the Amelia Island Concord in Florida in March. I get a call from his right hand guy who told me Chip just died. I was devastated. I was just devastated. I had responsibility for him. I don’t know if anybody else did but I had responsibility and I let him down. I let God down. So I went to the funeral. They went to the fairgrounds and a lot, a bunch of us who are his closer car guy buddies got into an old antique bus and we, we drove to the funeral in this bus and we pulled up. There were just cool cars. That’s how I want my funeral to be. I want to see the cool cars all over the parking lot. Although I don’t think I going to have a funeral. I think I’m gonna get to go up first. The ranch is gonna have persons, but that’s another story. Anyway, I drive along and it happens the guy beside me, I don’t know, he was very good friend of Chip’s. But I didn’t know him and he knew me but not not as a as a friend. And I brought specifically God, Chip of course didn’t have anything to do with God. I just lunged inside. So we get in the service. I’m I’m a rock. And then there’s a lot of people who were a wreck. Becuase he was a greatly loved man. The pastor finally got at the end of the service to give his message. A young pastor, he said, you know, most of you knew Chip for a long time. I did not. I only met him after he got his cancer. But from then until now, we became really great friends. And I want you to know I led Chip to the Lord and he’s in heaven today. I so distrought. I was bawling. Nobody could figure it out. They wouldn’t. They didn’t know just just sobbing in grief. My grief was tears of joy. And I said God, you saved my bacon. You saved my bacon. And you reached him when I didn’t reach him. You got there. You did hear my prayers. I prayed a lot of prayers but I wasn’t there for him.
There’s this entertainer in Vegas. We talk about the story a lot. Penn Jillette who’s an atheist. A, a fabulous entertainer but about atheists. And a guy came up to talk to him after one of his performances and gave him a Bible it’s very nice to him. And in a nutshell, he said you know what? If you really thought I was going to hell, how much would you have to hate me to not tell me? That’s a heavy subject. Obviously with Chip I didn’t hate him. I loved Chip. But the commandment is: Love your neighbor as yourself. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’re as concern for their salvation, as you are your own. I obviously as much as I love Chip, I must confess I didn’t love him as much as I love myself or I would have gone to him, I would have dropped everything and just gone to him and I did not do that. And I should have and I told God, you saved my bacon this time. I’m in now. And when when I get that call, or I find out something’s going on, I’m running to those people. And I have and a number of people are in heaven today because I followed that lead. I’m reminded of, remember Schindler’s List? Terrible camps, and all Liam Neeson played the role. Remember that? The great line, there’s a lot of great lines. But at the end, he gave this line when he got out he felt something and reached it and he pulled out a fountain pen. Do you remember that? And he said, oh, I could have gotten one more person out. And he’s broken, not for all the ones that he got out. He could have gotten one more.
Let’s finish our lives well. Let’s resolve to move everybody every day closer to Jesus barring none. Until we get that last person into heaven and hear God say well done. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Can’t wait for that day. See you next time.
