Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at box 370367 Denver, Colorado 80237 or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a word-powered daily reading Bible guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll-free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now let’s join Barbara in the studio. On this encore broadcast, Darin and I talked to Harley and Margaret Schmidt about being successful in this life. Harley came into this world under a curse, born to an alcoholic prostitute, and then adopted by a good men and night family. Her life, though, found him in and out of trouble with the law and dependent on alcohol, but he married a godly woman who continued to pray for her husband no matter what he did. He and Margaret started a business of providing enclosures on trucks for transporting glass, and now they are debt-free, multi-millionaires serving the Lord. May God give you a vision of being debt-free as you listen to this broadcast. What would you like that you’re with us here today on Darin and Denver, and we have some special guests with us. We’ll get to them here and introduce them in just a minute. But first of all, we’ve had some marvelous mail come into the ministry, and we appreciate your questions and your support. And don’t you, Barbara? Yes. Oh, I enjoy the letters. Every day. When we go to the post office, I’m excited to hear what has happened in your life. That’s why we’re here on the radio to find out how your life is going. We want to be a blessing to you, and we want to be edifying to you. You know, when you speak about that word edification reminds me of cold weather coming up here a little bit, and we talk about a battery that goes flat. Well, you might say this, it needs to be edified. It’s not build up. It’s not charged up. And the word says, praying in the Spirit and building up your most holy faith. That’s one way you can build up your faith, and get up and get on top of it. Another way is to do the affirmations. We have a marvelous tape on affirmations. In fact, what’s the name of that tape? Affirmations that work. Affirmations that work. You can have that for $6. And if you’d like to write to the ministry and send you $6, I’m telling you to be a real blessing to you. We’ve been concerned though about our people that are listening that are in business for themselves, and we have many people that listen that are in sales, and sometimes they’re just up against it and they don’t know quite what to do. So we’ve invited our special friends, Harley and Margaret Smith to come into the studio today. And I believe we’re going to have a great show because we’re going to target business people and what some of the things they have to do to get up and get on top of it. So welcome to the show, Harley and Margaret. Thank you very much. Thank you. These folks come and they say, every time we come, we come and you drag us over there to the studio. Well, one reason we do that is you guys have been such a blessing and you’re healing testimony early. And by the way, a quick update. How are you doing physically? Doing excellent. God has really, I don’t believe I’ve ever felt better in my life than I do right now. It’s just I have nothing, no problems whatsoever. And what was that thing that you had to do? Is some kind, createitis and liver infection. You were a dying man, weren’t you? Yeah, I’ve had been for the Lord touching me. I wouldn’t have been here. You wouldn’t be here. That’s exactly right. Now is that the way you see it, Margaret? Is he healthy? He looks. Oh, he is just good for another 50 years. Another 50 years? Oh man. Well, I want to live the 107. So we’ll do it together. Well, with beans, I’m 20 now. I think we better get to the work at hand here or we’ll get clear off the track. But how long have you been in business, Harley? About 25 years. 25 years. Did you ever have a day when you just thought you’re going to have to throw in the towel and there wasn’t any tomorrow? Yes, we’ve had a number of those days. One of the, I’m not sure just one other time on the air on Weezon, but one of the greatest prayers that I ever prayed was when I was so down and the business wasn’t going well on you. Your finances wasn’t doing well and your bills was coming in and it just seemed like everything you did wasn’t working. And I went to our home that day and I just ran into our bedroom and fell on the floor and I just cried out to God. I said, “Help.” And that’s all I said. And I just laid you on the floor and ball for 15, 20 minutes. Me actually cried. I actually cried. And that’s all the prayer that I said and I got myself up by the bootstraps. I said, “Okay, now God, you’re in control and I know that because you own everything and I’m going to go out. I’m going to put faith with my action and I’m going to go forth and I’m going to give it my best shot and you’re going to fill in the gaps.” And he did. And that was the turning point in our business where things started to really, really go forward. That’s marvelous. That’s marvelous. You said that for that word that’s so often we proud Americans don’t want to say and that’s help. I’m in over my head and I’m going to, as they say, I’m going to jump in the hole and pull it in on top of me. But that’s marvelous. So how quickly did things turn around? I don’t recall right now. That’s been a number of years ago but it was like in the next week we started getting orders and they were orders that you could tell that were directly linked to the Lord moving in and moving some hearts of some people to give you the orders rather than give it to a competitor or things like this. So in other words, you couldn’t really say in any stretch of the imagination that it was a direct result of what you did. I mean, although you were involved, you were doing your work but supernaturally God was intervening in your business. Yes, definitely. We’ve worked for the effort that we had. I mean, the things that we knew to do, we got on the phone and we made the bids and we made the phone calls and the things that you do in business. But God worked on the hearts of people. He gave us favor with the people. And at many, many times in business I pray that God will move in a way that we have favor with people. And he does that. Now, do you and your wife pray over these things? No, you don’t. Do you have a… Are you in agreement? We’re in agreement. And when problems come up and things like this, why we join hands in the mornings and stuff and pray over certain problems and we ask that God will move in certain ways that we could get these orders and things in business. And yes, and then my wife does not work. So when we were in business, now that I’m retired, we’re we’re together, but when I was in business, she would stay home and pray. She was my prayer partner at home, in which was a big asset to the business. That hard on you standing behind the scenes of my work. At times, probably, you kind of lose your identity. As a woman, you’re sitting at home. But I tell you what, I wanted my husband to be successful because what blesses him blesses me. That’s right. And praise the Lord, we had faith. Faith is what did it. If you don’t have faith, you don’t have anything. You can’t get anything from God without faith. I believe that. I believe that. If you don’t have a husband or wife to pray with, you need to have a prayer partner. And how important is the agreement to you, Barbara? Do we have agreement? Well, I’m asking you, you’re the one that talks about agreement all of that. Agreement is so important because from the very beginning of this world, there was agreement between Father God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. They were in total agreement from the beginning. And when Father God made man and woman, He made them to be in agreement in all things. And Darren, you and I know that when we talk to couples, we want them most of all to be in total agreement. And when couples come together in marriage, that should be a number one priority. Is this person I’m going to marry? Are they in agreement with my philosophies? You know, that’s important. In fact, we ask people on time, well, you know, when you married this person, were they born again? Well, I thought they were. And they haven’t taken the time to basically find out some of the very basics. You know, is this person I’m about to marry and commit my life to? Are they born again? Well, that’s one thing. But then what if this person wants to go into business? And then what can you be married to a person that’s working on strict commission? You know, that’s a big deal. Like you were basically, if you didn’t produce, you didn’t have a paycheck, right? That’s correct. Now what does that do to you as a wife, Margaret, if your husband’s out there? And he is in a sense having to every day produce or you’re not going to have funds for living, right? Well, that’s why I wanted to pull up my end of it. I couldn’t be over there helping him. So I knew I didn’t had to pull up my end of it and we both together. But I want to tell you every morning, I prayed, I said, God, help me to cherish my husband. Praise the Lord. Hold him up and cherish him because life isn’t always easy with your mate. And if you don’t pray and ask Father God to come in and help you to do that, you can’t do it on your own. So I would just say pray for your husbands and pray that God will give you a wonderful love for your mate and to respect him and cherish him. Now you really believe that that contributes to business success. I’m going to be watching you here in the studio. You sound like you believe that. Absolutely. Well, and then she enjoys the reward of the harvest. You’re like, “Come sit from there.” Yes. Doesn’t come overnight. What scriptures would you suggest to some of these, whether we’re talking here to a wife or to a husband today, they’re trying to agree for that person that’s out there beating the streets? And it’s tough out there in business today. I mean, you’re in the monks, the alligators. See you got your finger on your wonderful dates Bible there. Yes. What scripture do you have? Well, X-3, 16. And his name through faith in his name, hath made this man strong. Oh, that is wonderful. How do you know? X-3, 16. Yes. Wow. Now that’s in the King James Version. Barbara wanted to find a new American standard reading. I love the sound of that. Man, that sounds like something. If a wife prayed that, she would be praying real, legitimate, honest support for her husband. Yes. That sounds wonderful. Do you find acts of Roberts in the New Testament there? And on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man. Amen. Okay. On the basis of faith in his name and the name of Jesus, hardly how many times could you just sense when you’re over there at the plant or you weren’t at home certainly, but you’re out there working how many times did you sense that prayer support coming through for you? I felt the strength every day because I knew that my wife was home praying for me. And you’d just see a number of things would change through the days. Like if there was a situation in the mornings that we would pray about and we knew it was coming up, you could just kind of see God moving in ways that things would get better and maybe the employees would be happier that day and you’d have problems. It’s amazing how God can work with people. God really only has people to work with. But he can send Holy Spirit to change the minds of people and people will be kinder than what they were the day before if you pray for them. One of the big things that I’m going to share now with some of the business people is one of the things that I got caught up in is we want to be successful in business to be wealthy. Money is not the answer to all the problems. A lot of people think, “Well, if I just had more money, that’s the answer.” I mean, just extending your light of credit isn’t necessarily the answer. That’s not the answer. And to get wealth for your own gain is nothing. God blesses people who will bless Him. Our goal in life here is to help others. That’s what God put us here for. It’s to help one another, to help His Kingdom. We’ve gotten older that helping others has been such a blessing when you can see that God moves on people and people get saved, their lives get turned around. That’s where the real joy is. All the way through the fights of getting the business to the point where it’s been successful and God has blessed us all the way through. Now we can return, now we can start blessing people. It’s just a real, real blessing to us. And you probably came from a upper middle-class family and you probably have a doctorate or something in engineering? That kind of thing? Yeah, that’s right, Barbara. Well, let me share something with you. Thank the good Lord that years and years ago we didn’t have abortion because my mom become pregnant with me when she was 16 years old. She was standing on the side of the street. Her mother had thrown her out and she was trying to find a place to have an abortion. Well if it would have been readily available as it is today, I probably wouldn’t be here. She had a boarded you. You would have boarded me. So God has a plan for every person’s life. And my mother was standing on the street corner, lady picked her up, took her to her home, I was adopted to some nice Christian family. No, we did not, we grow up as poor people. I never even went to high school. But God can use, if we’re willing, God will use us. He knows. I mean, you put forth the effort and Jesus will take and make up the difference. I mean, ask about your mother a little bit. What word would best describe your mom? My adopted mother or your birth mother? Well, kind of putting you on a spot here. Putting me on a spot a little bit. I didn’t even know my real mother. I went and found her after I was 21 years old and it was very unfortunate. Curiosity got the best of me and she was basically an alcoholic and a prostitute when I found her. You know, I have mixed feelings when people ask me should I go find and try to find my real mother. You better really be ready. Yeah, you don’t. I had two half brothers and a half sister. My half brothers were in the penitentiary when I found them and my sister was a 16 years old pregnant and getting married. So the curse was being repeated? Yes. But in your case, the curse was broken. The curse was broken, yes. And you know the reason I ask you that and I knew. I didn’t tell you at the time I was going to ask you that and I apologize for putting you on the spot. But we have so many people listening already that think they’re victims. So now you could fall into that category of being a victim. Well, I didn’t have a chance. My mother was a drunken prostitute and all this kind of stuff. But you didn’t fall into that. And I praise God that you grew up and you said, I’m not going to be like that. I’m going to change things. It’s going to be changed for me. And I guess what I’m saying to the people that think they’re victims today, get off of it folks. God has an answer for you. What would you say to people that have had a rotten background? Is there a chance for them? Yes, there’s a chance for them. You better believe it. The first thing they need to do is get a hold of their life and take control of their life if they’re not saved. They need to be saved and get in tune with Jesus and say, okay, God, I want to do something. You guide and direct my moves. And I will go forth. I will put forth all the effort that I can and you fill in the gaps and he’ll do that for me. How old were you when you found out you’d been adopted? I’ve known that all my life ever since I was almost remembered my parents that adopted it. They did tell you that. They did tell me that. Yes. Well, you know, we have some people listening today, hardly that have great potential. But I beg them often on the air here. You have to lay down the past. Let God heal the past. And you need to believe that today and the future is going to be brighter than any day you’ve ever had in the past and get up and truce Jesus and go for it. Amen. Am I right? That’s right. I met with the businessman the other day and he says, well, there and you can either be a victim or volunteer. He said, when you get old enough to know better and you still cash into that, you’re volunteering now to be that and you don’t have to do that. And I’m saying, get up and go for it. How’d you do that in the business? Did you set some goals? What did you want to do? Why were you so highly driven to be successful? Well, unfortunately, Darren, part of my first drive was wrong and I was to become wealthy. And then finally, I went broke one time. The Lord took me all the way around a big circle and I went bankrupt and I know how it feels to be hard up. I know how it feels to lose your home and have one year to buy it back or you don’t have a place to live. And then God can speak to you when you’re down. You don’t have to let that happen. But many of us have to hit the wall before we wake up. You know? And then after I put God first and got my life turned around, it was actually gospel music that turned my life around and got me in tune with Jesus so I could get born again. And then I realized that there was more to life than the way I was living it. Right. And I was running my business the way I wanted to run it. And the devil was in control and it wasn’t working with a hood. I’ll be honest with you. And then when I put Jesus first, things started to turn. Oh, hallelujah. I mean, we’ve seen miraculous things just happen overnight, basically. Now that home you lost, were you able to recover and get that back within a year? Yes. Turned the year of redemption? Yes. And I ended up walking back into the court one year later and paying what I had to do to the court to get my home back. Did you know the principal? Praise God. Do you know the principles of tithing when you’re going through all of this or did they come up right away? No, not in the beginning when I was running. When I was running up with the devil, the tithing was no issue. We didn’t, you know, what you saying you and the devil together got it pretty screwed up. We had a real screwed up. And there’s never no room for any tithing or anything. The devil seemed to it. The principle of power of this era seemed to it that all the money got away before the Reservoir, anything left over. That’s what happened. So when did you begin to? After I got my life turned around and got born again. And then it took a little while until we started studying the scriptures and realizing that Jesus really, there’s a real blessing in tithing. In my life, it had prayed a lot about this and she’d talked to me a long time about this before I was even willing to do it. Oh, and would you say a little hard-headed, Mary? Oh. Yes. Now you should. Praise God for that though. I appreciate that because God’s directed. Right. How are you? You know, that’s a great word for some of you that are hanging on for your husband and your wife. That stubbornness, once God gets ahold of that and molds that, that can be a great asset. Yes, it can. That intensity, that direction, that purpose, that’s right on. Yes. It’s really right on. So I’ll tell you, God has got His work in supernatural here. And we got about 10 minutes here, hardly. What would you like to say to these people, they’re really, really business people, some of them here are driving around the circles. And I’ve been there. So I kind of understand that mindset. But they’re driving around today and saying, God, is there any hope for me? Can I get this business turned around? Can I get my finances to, you know, to where I’m not just, you know, running from the creditors and just failing all the time? What would you say to them? How are they going to get it turned around? One of the biggest things I’ll say is debt. Get out of debt. Anyway possible. I’ll tell you a miracle that happened to us. We was in debt. And I felt like the Lord was moving to try to tell us to get out of debt. Well, you need some direction when you’re in debt and you don’t know how to get out of debt. So we started praying. And we was sitting in the house one evening and my wife and I was both praying. And the Lord showed me to give $10,000 to His work. Well, back then, I didn’t have $10,000. Like the old boy said, if he had $10,000, he’d left the state because there just wasn’t any money. And I didn’t say anything to my wife and we just sat in there and the Lord spoke to me again. Said, give $10,000. And pretty soon I said something to my wife. I said, is the Lord showing you anything? And she says, yeah, I can’t believe this. She said, the Lord’s showing me to give $10,000 so that you can get out of debt. Now, folks, I’m telling you something. The Lord might not tell you to give $10,000. But what I’m telling you, if you’ll obey the Lord, then He has a plan for your life to get you out of debt. And once you’re out of debt, things really change. Anyway, to finish my story, we decided that night to give the $10,000 because we both had a confirmation from the Lord we put together all the money that we had, which we came up with. I believe it was $1,200 in some dollars. And we made an agreement to the place where we was going to tie this money to to pay it by monthly payments. It was going to take us seven years to pay the $10,000. Oh, my goodness. It’s going to be a good business. It’s going to be a good business. Now, remember, I did this by faith because the Lord showed me. I needed to do this. In other words, you were saying I’m going to become a giver. I am going to become a giver. And six or seven months later, we had the full $10,000 paid off less than eight months later after that. What should be about a year and a half? We were totally debt-free. Now then, now that I was debt-free, part of the burdens was lifted. You realize that the interest you pay and big bucks when you bought in business is a real burden? Yes. Oh. And once we were debt-free, then God could really start to move and we could get ahead. Are you saying that you’re going to run a business debt-free? Yes, you can run a business debt-free. But you have to make the decision to do it. You have to make the decision to tie it to the Lord so He can bless you. So He can rebuke the devour that’s on your business. So now, what you’re talking here about is sewing. You’re not talking this early about giving, but you’re talking about sewing with the idea of a return. This is what the Lord had me to do. It was partly, it was a two-part thing. It was for sewing and faith, stepping out in faith, believing that God is going to do what He told us to do. So here’s a wonderful thing. As I understand your story, you’re saying you were in debt, struggling with debt, right? Yes. Striking with lack. Yes. So the devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy, and he was eating your lunch. Right. You were paying for the lunch and he was eating it. That’s correct. You said, “Okay, so you figured out, you made this pledge and you thought, “Now on a monthly basis of what we think we can pay, it’s going to take us seven years.” Well, what you’re saying is you had that $10,000 commitment done in seven months. That’s correct. That’s correct. You were willing to work for seven years to do it. That’s correct. You really were. See, there’s a couple of little parts in there that a lot of people miss. We were praying. We had our spirits in tune with God. He wanted help and we said, “Lord, how do we make this business go successfully? Get out of debt, came up.” So how do we get out of debt? Holy Spirit, prompted us to give $10,000 folks. Now you need to get in tune with Jesus because He will show you which way to move. That’s just awesome. So you’re making some commitments here. Number one, you want to get out of debt. That’s true. I don’t know if that’s the first one or not, but that’s one of them. The other one is that you’re going to become a giver. That’s true. You’re making these decisions not in your head. First of all, you’re making them in your heart. So this is a heartfelt commitment. Is that right, Martin? That is right. That is right. It comes from the heart. So giving and sewing and tithing, that’s really a heart issue. Yes. That is a heart issue. So you were saying here, “Okay, I’m in debt. I’m going to make a commitment here to become a giver. I haven’t been a giver in the past. Now I’m going to be a giver and a tither. And I’m going to trust God here. Is that what you’re saying?” Yes, that’s what we do. I’m going to suggest that a lot of you folks out there, you need to make a commitment to the Lord. So I’m going to become a giver. Now we have a lot of people come to us, hardly. I just kind of step aside here for a minute. A lot of people come to us and say, “Or they’re saying in their minds.” And we can tell by letters and what they say on the phone and so on. And when we meet them at the meetings, when I’m blessed, I’m going to become a giver. But I got to get blessed first. Can you talk about that? Yeah, everybody always thinks that God is supposed to make the first move. Jesus has already made the first move read the Bible. It says right in there that if you do what I say, you will be blessed. So what we need to do is take the first step, step out in faith and believe what the Word says and tie them make offerings to the Lord. And He will bless you. I promise you that. Has He abundantly blessed you? Yes, abundantly blessed us. Health, family, money, you name it. Are most of the people that you know as the acquaintances and friends are they as blessed as you are? That’s a good question, no. Why aren’t they? A lot of business guys that call me and says, “What can I do to be successful?” So I pray to the Holy Spirit and He has show me a couple things that they can do. A lot of people won’t step out and even do some of the things that are so simple to make things happen. Let me share one thing with the businessmen. How many of you businessmen out here today? We’re speaking of business, women too. Yes. Girls, we don’t want to catch out here. How many of you have walked around your place of business and plead the blood of Jesus around your property so that the demonic forces that are out there today cannot come against your business? We plead a bloodline around our business and pray a hedge about it, that the good Lord can bless it and that the demonic forces cannot come against our business. These are little things that you can do. We talk about those things all the time. What else would you do besides pleading the blood and putting a bloodline? Some people say, “What’s a bloodline to use a businessmen?” A bloodline is to me, is the blood of Jesus Christ played around our property, around your business or whatever you have so that the demonic forces cannot attack your business. Do you actually walk around and pray in the Spirit and put a line around it? We have even went to trade shows where we’ve put a bloodline in front of it, the booths that we had at trade shows and stating and praying believing that whoever steps over that bloodline will do business with it and we’ve seen it happen. So you’re keeping the devil out and bringing business in? That’s correct. Well, that sounds like a good idea to me. Thank you for listening to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom. Box 370-367 Denver, Colorado-80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom Ministry. Power partner support call to Freedom with Prayer and Monthly Financial Support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom’s website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara’s daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your craze reports and heart prize by mailing them to Call to Freedom. Box 370-367 Denver, Colorado-80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmac@freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy. Thank you. [Music]
