The Daily Signal - #402: Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson on His Christian Faith

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

Why did he become a Christian after an early life of sexual hedonism? What's his advice to parents trying to raise kids who stay Christian? And what does it mean to be a Christian in our current secular culture? Phil Robertson, author of "The Theft of America’s Soul: Blowing the Lid Off the Lies That Are Destroying Our Country," joins us to discuss. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet,iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, D.C. is covered in snow today, and it is a snow day at the Heritage Foundation. So we're going to bring you an interview that we recorded previously with Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty. And I hope wherever you are that you are warmer than us. Well, joining us now by phone is none other than Phil Robertson. You know him from Duck Dynasty. He's out now with a new book called The Thief of America's Soul, blowing the lid off the lies that are destroying our country. Mr. Robertson, thank you so much for taking the time to call in.

Hey, good to be with y'all. So there is a lot of stuff that we could get into in this book, but I want to ask you, what initially led you to write it? If you read the various text, what befalls the human race, no matter what government they're in or what time frame they're in, it's pretty amazing that if you look at mankind's problems, these are the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was the empire of the world. They rule the earth. and these Bible writers when they wrote to them various things, admonitions, warnings. Well, if you fast forward 2,000 years, Romans 128, because they did not think it worthwhile

to retain the knowledge of God. God gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. And then there's a list. They become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depraved. Cravity, slanderers, God, haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. He ends up, they disobey their parents, they invent ways of doing evil, and he ends that little senseless. You think about a human being, not to the people of Rome.

We've done nothing wrong, and they're ruthless. Well, you read those texts, and I said, you know what, that the Roman Empire had is no different than the sin problem that America has. or France, or England, or anywhere else you want to go worldwide. So the sins are the same, my man. The solution is the same. Simply say, I wrote the book because I looked at what the founding fathers of the United States of America said. Whatever happens, don't lose your religion.

Because if you do, your morality goes, I'm looking around, and I'm thinking, whoa. And then there goes your virtue. It's gone. I addressed all these things in the book, and finally there's a collapse. You say, what happened to it? So amazingly, and they go, sway them down, and we miss a couple important things. How about loving God and loving each other? Now, they're saying we can do this without God.

Love will be there, and the United States will heal itself without God. I am doubting it. What do you all think? I guess we'll see on that. But I mean, I certainly share your beliefs that God is necessary for the culture. In the book, you write about 10 lies that are in American culture today. One of them is that God is dead. How does that lie impact culture in your view? When you look at the Center for Disease Control latest report, 110 million Americans are suffering from a sexually transmitted disease. You're like, whoa. That's one out of three. And the list ofs are long. You say the diseases, immorality.

I mean, that's how you get it. And you better confine your sex to each other and don't sleep around. And you won't get a sexually transmitted disease. And it's far more safer and far more productive at the end of the day. So you look at that and you say they appreciate it. appreciate a husband and a wife who fear God. When life comes and the gift is given to them, their sons of America. You have procreation taking place coming out of a marriage.

A man marries a woman. There's sexual intercourse. There's fertilization. There's gestation. And there's birth. Where would you ever intervene in the empire or any people when they forget? In the answer to that question, you say, once you get God out out of the way, look out because it's of America every year. What in the world?

Biblically, the biblical view is they belong to the evil one, and that's why they murder. They belong to the evil one. They don't love. And we say, no, I'll just take them out today for our current situation. I'm just trying to remind people, neighbor, love, you. your children, be thankful the gift of life has been given to you. I love them enough to tell them. That's the premise of the book. Well, one of those 10 lies that you talk about in the book is this idea that truth is relative. What are some of the ways you see that playing out right now in

America? Amazingly, truth will set you free. So here comes body born of a woman, predicted 5,000 years before it happened, the offspring of a woman will crush the evil one. Well, throughout the Old Testament, all the prophecies, one after the other, after the other, what his name would be, where he would be born, what he would do, he would die for the sins of the world. This is hundreds of years, thousands of years, all these predictions coming. Genesis to Malachi, Old Testament. Jesus is coming. Matthew, Mark, Mark, Lucan, John, beginning in the Roman Empire, this is here, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Well, y'all can look at him. American can look at him, investigate him. What did he say? What did he do? Move your sin.

You from the dead. That's three days after they killed him. Stayed 40 days to convince him he was alive and that he had pulled it off. Think of that. Problems all humans have is sin. We violate. the law. That's what sin is. All your past ones counted against you and resurrection from the dead. A gift from God, life, and immortality for crying out loud. Look, that events. Well, good night. I didn't hear that until I was 28. I heard the truth free from what? The truth that set you free is the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus. I just told you what it set you free from and who was the one who did the setting free. it'd be Jesus. So you look at that and you say, well, these old guys are running around,

hollering about Jesus, you know, and they're pointing us to him and saying, your sins will be removed. Your guilt will be removed. Your guilt will be removed. You can be raised from the dead. There is eternal health care, and the kicker is, if you're temporary. But car wreck, heart attack, we die, but we're all going to die. And if this story is not true, we're never getting out of here alive, ever. A better story. Yes. Well, even though I'm a bit younger than you, I certainly try to live every day knowing it could be my last.

I think it's a good way to live. I'm telling you. So I wanted to ask, you were very frank in the book, and you talked about your own period of sexual debauchery and sleeping around. How did that affect you, and why did you leave that lifestyle? Well, I underestimated, and at the time, I didn't know that verses like this one, 1 John 519, we know we're the children of God and the whole world is under the control of the evil one. Text like 2 Timothy 224, people are taken captive by the devil to do his will, which murder, rape, robbery, pillage.

I was under the control of the evil one until I was 28 years old. I earned a couple of degrees. It didn't help me with my sin problem, and it certainly, none of my college professors came up with any kind of story about being raised from the dead. I never heard a kind word about Jesus Christ, and I was a heath one. It was the 60s, y'all got to remember. They call it. It was just a, basically. I run upon Jesus at 28, and I said, whoa.

wait a minute here. Life and immortality? Solid. I know he was there too much evidence. I know he was there. The question is, he said he was. I said, you know what? I've ever found that offers me hope beyond the grave and immortality, eternal life. So I said, indeed to hear the gospel, his death for us, his resurrection, we obey it by going to a we die to sin. The old, out of dramatic change, You know, the irony of it all is the Apostle Paul who wrote most of the New Testament. Before Jesus, Jesus struck him down personally, walking down a dirt road, children of God. The dude that Jesus, just think about that.

So I never got into murder, but I was certainly in Marl getting high and getting laid and getting drunk, that's for sure. He wrote most of the New Testament, and my thinking is if he could save him, A heathen like me or anybody else out there on planet Earth. You know, we go into the prisons, the rehabs, the prisons. We're talking to rapist, murderers. They're in the raw, arm, robbing. And we preach the gospel, and we remind them, you guys and gals can be under lock and key.

So we give them the truth that sets them free, and we go to the next one. Pretty amazing, huh? Yeah, absolutely. Well, Phil, in your book, you know, you mentioned a period where you would read the Bible daily. In America, we see polling that shows that a lot of Christians don't necessarily do that or attend church regularly. How important do you think practicing your faith daily was? Where we went astray, we got worship tied down to just drive walking to a structure on the side of the road, a church building.

what we don't understand the religious world, I'm just reminding them here. We are the church building of God. You can read that Ephesians by chapter 3. We're the temple of the Holy Spirit. So when we meet, that's just there to remember Jesus and what he did for us, his death for us, his resurrection. We remember that as a group. He said, don't forget this.

It's the Lord's Supper. So we partake of his body, we drink his blood, the wine of one another. When we walk out the door, we walk as Jesus walked, the Bible says. In front of a decadent and depraved world, hopefully people will say, hmm, how come I never hear you use any profanity there, Rob? I said, oh, you don't have to use unwholesome language. you just can say what you say, but don't get into that. It's a bad reflection on the one who died for us.

He never made a mistake, and look what they did to him. Therefore, when we walk as Jesus did on the earth, we in fact become salt of the earth, light of the world, our lifestyle, whether we're working, play died for us, and was resurrected from the dead. So worship is one's life, 24-7, seven days a week. We're aware of God. Things like love, we have that.

We're happy. No temper tantrums and sin against us. Jesus said, forgive them 70 times seven. When they said, how many times should we forgive them, Lord, seven, which is a lot. America doesn't give you about one or two strikes in your act. But with the Lord, he says, look, just forgive. the ones who sin against you, 70 times seven. So true worship is, and I'm trying to get that, that it's more than going to church.

By the way, going to church, that term is not even in the Bible. We are the church. So I'm trying to get the godly in America to understand that. So what would your advice be to parents who are trying to raise their children to stay, you know, Christian, and yet often our finding as their kids go to college, et cetera. There are so many temptations to become and lead a more secular lifestyle. It's really difficult now in our culture, because remember, once you remove God from the institutions of learning, grade school, junior high, learning colleges, once you remove God completely, teetotally out of that system,

where your children are not going to find him there because it's unlawful. It's against the law to read Bible verses, to pray to God. We've removed God from the education system 60 years ago or so. Well, how has that worked out for us? They're not going to get spiritual training there for sure. One day a week going, that's not going to do it either, not enough. So with my sons, I have four, when I raised them, said write down. You take the script for teaching to be right.

how to be good. And you give them to your children. Mom and dad, to be that way. You're to be a good citizen and a patriot of your country. And you are to love God and love your neighbor. You teach them at home. And when they see you, here's dad, loving their mother. There's their mom.

In my case, Ms. Kay, when my son saw me loving my wife. Loving, and I all listed earlier, love, joy, peace, all those things. They will take that, and even though they go into the school being taught, they're being taught that the divorce rate and all that, thousands of hours with all the people coming out of the broken homes. Once they're kept between themselves and the direction is not there through strong family structure, once you get in America, reap what you sow is right all along. Grandma, with what you now have. The rehabs are full. The prisons are full.

They're wandering around and don't know what to do with themselves and to help them. And I'm just, I wrote this book so they could at least read it and maybe say, you know what, I'm going down the wrong path. These to destruction, Jesus said, and there's a very narrow road that leads to life. And a few find it, he said. So the odds are not good, but for everyone to turns, television's shown up at one time or another since that time. And we give them the good news of Jesus.

We take them down on the river like they did in the Book of Acts, like John the Baptist did. We baptize them in the river. We pray and sing a few songs standing on the riverbank. They go back to where they came from, Indiana, Pennsylvania. I've got a woman coming in the next few days. I met her in Pennsylvania. I spoke to them up there. By the way, one of the Amish guys came out of the audience after you heard my little lesson for him.

and he asked me, would I come talk to the Amish? I said, I will. So I'm going to do that. The woman is coming here via motorcycle with her man, and she said she wants me to baptize her in the river. I said, well, come on down there. She's from Pennsylvania coming by motorcycle, and we're going to go down there on the river, and I'm on baptizer,

because she asked me to, and I said, yeah, I'll do that. So it's pretty cool if you think about it. You know what? That is so interesting. You know, in your book, you also talk about being bold with your faith, not just in those settings, but also in your business, even though some folks have been offended by that. What's your advice to believers who are trying to be courageous in their business or in their workplace but might be, you know, scared of the consequences? You have to remember everyone who lives, say, here's the Bible verse, everyone who lives a God they life in Christ. Jesus. These things happen to me all the time. You can imagine? Can you imagine the betrayal and the

hatred directed toward me? And I'm pointing them to Jesus trying to get them to love him and love each other and they are hating me for telling them we all have sins. Give them to the Lord. He'll take them. He'll give you immortality. I'm making the case. I'm loving them enough to tell them. them. Jesus said, blessed are you when they hate you. They do. Some. Blessed are you when they exclude you? Blessed are you when they insult you? That happens all the time. They have bum rushed. Sometime I'm speaking, I look up and they bumrush me and cursing me at the top of their lungs. And I'm thinking, man, I'm giving them life and the immortality and they're cursing me. And then Jesus said, blessed all you when they reject your name as evil because of me.

When all those things come, he said, leap for joy for great is your reward in heaven. It's two forces at work here. It's been here since God made human beings. You have good, that's God, and you have evil. That's the evil one. It's this cosmic struggle that's been going on since God made the human race. Satan was the one who brought Adam and Eve down. That's been passed on to us, that sinful nature.

And we all make mistakes. We all sin. Jesus is the answer to it. It's real simple, like I mentioned earlier. It's the greatest story ever told. I'm waiting on someone to step forth. and top the story. You got a better story.

Well, lay it on me. All the atheists and all, I love them, but I say, you know what? It takes a lot of faith to believe saltwater, H-2-0, put a conscience in me, put a realization of good and evil in me. Saltwater put in me, I can appreciate the beauty of a sunrise coming up when I'm in the duck blind. I appreciate that. The animal world doesn't, but humans do. All those qualities, your conscience, you're knowing right from wrong, the guilt that comes when they make mistakes and with the heartache that we have.

Salt water put that in us? What department in saltwater dream that up? It's just nonsense. They, by faith, they contemplate the atheists. they speculate. Well, you can go down that road if you want to, but at the end of the time when you finally die, you have forfeited the only chance you ever had to get out of here alive. With them, there is absolutely no hope, none, pass the grave. You just live your short life here and you're gone forever. The Bible says there's life beyond the grave. Either way, you've got to

have faith to believe it. You've got to have a lot of faith to believe salt water created all life and the vegetation we see. So I'm looking at it saying, I'll tell you what, by faith, I understand that the universe was formed at God's command so that what is seen, all of what you're looking at, the stars, the planets, the planet Earth, the beauty of it, what is seen was not made out of what's visible. That's the history. Hebrew writer about Hebrew chapter 11, he just said you could look around and say, how do you think that all got there? Did it make itself? Or is there a creator behind it? I'm going with the creator because I have a hope to be raised from the dead. And without him, I do not have that hope.

So I'm following Jesus to the day they put me in the ground, as I said in the book. It's a wonderful story, and I guarantee you one thing, he promises you peace of mind and immortality. Think about it. Peace of mind. That's a rare commodity in America. Too much vitriol and hatred and anger, and they don't even know why. It's the evil one. So it's a cosmic struggle between good and evil. I'm up to the task to reach out to my neighbor. I'm doing my job. Well, the book is called The Thief of America's Soul, blowing the lid off the lies that are destroying our country. Phil Robertson, thank you so much for your time and calling in. Thank you.

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