Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1056 | Jase, Al & Zach Absolutely Lose It over a Classic Phil Folklore Tale

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

Jase narrates a classic Phil tale from a whole new angle, leaving Al gasping, Zach gagging, and himself struggling to keep it together. Al and Zach confess to thievery in their pasts, but they’re intent on setting it right. The guys explore the story of the “bronze snakes” during the time of Moses and how that symbol is commonly embraced today by the medical community. In this episode: John 3, verses 10-17; Numbers 21, verses 4-8; 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21 —  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. Daisy did you catch my sermon yesterday or were you on the road? Well, I preached yesterday. Look, I'm going to give you an interesting analogy about time. Because look, I don't know when this episode will be aired. Really, only Maddie knows for sure. So look, it will be a certain amount.

of time from now. Because here's what happened. This past weekend, I went on this trip. Oh, it's great. Well, it was during the weekend that time sprang forward. Is spring a word?

Is that? Yeah, spring is a spring. Spring? Spring. I tried to use proper English when I'm around. Zach would know. Guys of your vocabulary. And the redneck world is.

Spring is a word. It's optional. And so, you know, it's an interesting. interesting thing if you think about it because here we are in the middle of nowhere to Arkansas and I only have about four hours once I got to the hotel after the event I only have about four hours before I have to get up so you're flying home Sunday morning oh yeah okay so I'm looking at this my clock my that's on my phone but it

hasn't moved the time because it won't till 2 a.m. I tried to manually move it back because I said, I don't trust this thing. What if it didn't catch the memo? Because I'm not missing this flight. Guess what? Can't do it? I had to trust a phone, and I don't like that. I only trust Jesus.

And I got that from Jesus when he said, y'all, I don't trust what's inside a man. And I thought, you know, I had an idea about how you can make a lot of money. Because in that moment, when I entered the hotel, because it was the night that we're going to spring forward, I would have paid $100 for an old-fashioned alarm clock. Yeah. Because guess what was not in the room? Alarm clock. Yeah, they got rid of them because of phones. And even if they do have one, you can't manually change it unless you've got a fill-up set a screwdriver.

So I'm just saying, I want to introduce this. Zach, you're a businessman. I think if we had a team of people that went on. on street corners, especially around hotels, the people that are traveling, and sold old-fashioned alarm clocks, you could make millions of dollars. Because in that moment, I thought, I would buy one. Just put them on street corners. And look, I introduced this thought on the elevator, because surprisingly, I realized Northwest Arkansas airport is not very big. It's small. Everybody was leaving. Everybody in the hotel. We all gathered up like cattle. Everybody's getting the shuttle together.

And I said, you know what? I'm going to make, because everybody was grumpy. Nobody's had any sleep. You were about to have a marketing. I did it. A marketing meeting. In front of the crowd, I said, I had a thought. And I know it's weird to think, well, these are perfect strangers.

Weirdly enough, everybody. They probably all knew who you were. They know who I was. And so I was like, I got a marketing idea. I wanted to run by you. And they said, we all had the same fear. We were looking for an alone. And I was like, this will work.

It will work. The only problem with your analogy, Jay, is that it only worked twice a year when you would need to pick up a quick buck. But if you organized it in, you know, pyramid skiing, Zach has been supply and demand. It's, it's, we were, I was at a concert recently in, uh, one of the ski slopes here in North Carolina, it was, uh, need to breathe. And it started to rain. Is need to breathe the ski slope or the band? That's the band. They're a band.

They're like a Christian, kind of Christian country rock. Yep, yeah. Southern rock. So anyways, place was packed. I mean, it's a beautiful setup. And then all of a sudden,

the clouds, they start swelling and you're like, it's going to rain. Well, they had those ponchos. They were selling it. Some guy who had, they had all the vent.

That's it. I mean, and look, these things were probably a dollar. Probably less than a dollar. Oh, less of a dollar. You know how much you're selling them for?

what's that $15 and you know what they were selling them for when they almost ran out 25 they did they went up in price and I was watching the whole thing in fold I was like that guy he looked at the weather the only guy looked at the weather says it's going to rain

he bought a bunch of ponchos I bet he bought about 200 of them sold all 200 and just made a killing yeah so you're on to something so that was my point and my point was when I got back I went and I went out and saw Phil.

And I put your sermon on, because he just, you know, his wires weren't, he was having a tough day. And I was trying anything, you know, to just connect a little bit. And so I put the worship music on because even though that had already happened, so think of time. We now have devices. This is the good thing about. The bad thing about the phone is I've got to trust it on that.

that, which it did come through. Yeah. It came through. Alarm went off. Bam. But now I'm going back in time. It's a time machine to show what just happened. Yeah.

And, of course, it was blowing Phil's mind. Because he's like, they're doing that now. Because he was looking at the, how is this happening? Which was good because we were connecting on this. I was like, no, that just happened. And he's like, well, how are you? because you take somebody who's having mental issues, this was blowing his mind that we're now.

And we listened to about half your sermon because now the problem is we were really into your sermon, but then I got a phone call. Which is another problem with watching it on your phone. Because now my dad's like, hey, he's pushed. That's why I knew I was getting a phone call because he started pushing it. I was like, no, Phil, don't push it.

It's not working. I was like, let me see. it and I got it. So a phone call interrupts when you're watching a sermon. Yeah, and I was trying to help Phil connect, but actually it did more harm than good, because now he's like, well, we've lost that. I'm like, no, it's still there. And he's like, well, time, you know, we just got, but then it made me think, we just try to understand time. So we put numbers, and we, but it's moving at a pace that's actually, we're not able to capture. Yeah.

We put seconds and minutes, but it just is, and we're as humans trying to figure that out, but it's passing by, but it's actually timeless. You can't put a number on it. It's just moving at whatever pace this is that we're moving, which is why what is found in this book, and I'm grabbing my Bible, because it's about a person who created time. Yeah. Just think about that. He's above time.

Outside of. He's outside. It's a creation that we're participating in, which should lead you to a creator. Right. That's why when Jesus came back from the dead, you should have said, hold it. Wait. Time was. That's what we use these little slogans.

Like, let me take a timeout. No, there's no time out in time. but we oh no that yes it is we stopped the clock well you stopped that clock but you didn't stop your clock because it's still moved we're still moving so did you did you make it long enough to hear my story about coming at stealing did you hear that no we we got a phone call so so that's okay so in Ephesians four is where I was preaching out of you remember in that text Paul gets down the point says those who have been stealing must steal yeah I made that analogy a few times and so I told the story, and I've never talked about this public. It was funny how it just popped into my

brain, because I was speaking on the side of our, we have two assemblies that go at the same time. And on our instrumental side, the crowd is more of a celebrate recovery crowd. And it's, you know, so man, when I'm talking about all these things that Paul says don't do, this audience is right with me. Because, you know, we were talking about lying. Yeah. We're talking about stealing. We're talking about hustlers. We got any hustlers in there. You should have seen the reaction. So they're with me. And it prompted me to tell the story. I was like, you know, my dad, he told us when we were growing up, Jay,

as you remember this, he said, don't steal. Yeah. That was a big thing with dad. That was a butt whoop and a fence. But whoop and a fence. You don't even consider it. If it does not belong to you, you walk right past it. I mean, he did not like thievery at all.

He hated it. And that's why he was so protective of his nets and his materials and all. So I knew, don't steal, no matter what. But I was making the point. at stealing in the context of Ephesians 4. Remember he says, I don't want you to steal, but I want you to work so you can produce something to give to someone else. So the whole point of stealing is most of the time,

especially the people who have had problems with addiction, like most of the people I was speaking directly too, you steal because you want something. Yeah. You know, the reason you hustle. And it's easy. It's easy. You hustle and sell drugs because you want to do drugs.

I mean, and that was totally resonant. So I said the, so I broke Dad's Rule and the rule. of the Almighty. I mean, I'm sure I stole something else, but I'm saying the only time I remember actually being a part of thievery was when I was a teenager, living apart from the Lord,

and we wanted to drink, but we didn't have enough money to buy beer. So you stole the beer, Al? No, we didn't steal the beer. This is where the story gets funny, and it was funny in the moment. So I said, we decided we would steal car batteries, which when you think about it

is a really stupid thing, to steal because they weigh like 50 pounds a piece. Yeah. But they were easy pickings because you don't realize how many people at their houses underneath their carports is just a battery sitting out there. Yeah. It's all around town. But us in our inebriated minds, we saw that as an opportunity.

So we would go and grab a battery and run and jump in the truck and drive off. But there were people holler. I mean, like, it's a wonder we could have been killed easily. But I said, the only thing I was thinking about was buying beer. And so we would take those batteries and sell them for $3 a piece at some place in town that bought old batteries. Yeah. So that's how we made our beer money. And so I said, I said, so if some of you old timers are here today, which would have been the other side of our assembly,

I said, if you're thinking, man, somebody got my battery back in 1981, I was like, it was me. I owe you three bucks. So just find me afterwards and I'll make good on it. So now, based on our two stories, you've given people outside of the Lord an idea. twice a year. I was thinking the same thing. How to finance their beer drinking. Don't do it.

It's not worth it. It's a bad idea. One is it hurts your back and there's a lot of bad things. So don't do it. Well, that's interesting enough. I think actually he said it's easy. Sometimes I'm shocked at how difficult it is to break the law and to come up with schemes. And I'm like, man, if you would take that attention.

Exactly. And direction that you have for scheming and direct that towards something legal, you could probably accomplish a great deal. Well, what if I had been shot on somebody else's property, which could have easily happened, especially in 1981, for stealing a stupid battery that was worth $3 to resell? It's idiotic, you know? But my point was, when you're thinking selfishly

and not at all how to produce something to help other people, that's the sort of mind. That was Paul's point in Ephesus. Well, I've only stole one time of my life, and I was with your brother when I did it. Which one? Well, did you get to ask? I mean, which one?

I know it. It had to be Jeff. Jeep or the same age. They had their little particles together. And we were at Panama City Beach. And our friends that we were. I'm sending a jail for text right now. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I remember where we're at. We went into the salty dog surf shop. And we were, the reason why we stole was because our friends were shoplifting. And they had been on like a bit, like these guys were weird. I mean, they were like, me and Jeff were like, I mean, like it was exhilarating. You know what I mean? What I said, Jeff's like, let's go steal something. I'm like, you want to do it?

So we go in the salty dog surf shop and we both got a pair of swim shorts, went to like try them on, but we kept them under like our pants, you know, like that we never took them off. Well, that's, I'm on the fight. Yeah. I mean, that's just sorry. No, I'm repenting here, but we did it. Did you make restitution? You need to send the salty dog.

You know what? Let me tell you the rest of the store. What if the owner of the salty dog is a podcast listener and says, man, I knew those shorts these. You know what? I do need to make it right. I'm going to look and see if it's still in business. If it is, I'm going to send them a check. I'll even factor in inflation for what we did.

That would be an awesome story. And then see what they said. I see what they say. I stole 22 years ago. I hope the statute of limitations is up. No, it is. It is. Is it up?

Yeah. Well, what happened was, I kind of deep down hope it's not. I hope it. Yeah. This story would be way better if you were arrested. The next time you went to Florida. Wow.

Yeah. Good. Zach busted. Salty dog. Salty dog got it. What's funny is they jump. We went back to the place we were standing. that we were staying with uh because the guy's dad where we were staying with like there was a family

there and um so we went we had our shorts you know and and uh we had we just thought man that was that was uh that was we did it not for free stuff it was the it was like the the adrenaline you know whatever and so the rationalization i'm in the adrenaline of it all i'm not i'm not saying it was it was wrong so he said jep comes to the guy the dad comes in there and he's a hey there's a cop the cops are outside. And somebody was seen at the salty dog surf shop stealing something. And so, Jeff, I mean, he freaks out. And he grabs his shorts and he goes outside out the window.

And he buries his shorts in the sand like, like he's hiding the evidence. And I'm like, what are you doing? I'm not going to jail for this. Like, wait, they don't know it. They don't know anything. What are you talking? Come to find out. The other guys were the ones that they saw because they linked it back to a T-bird, which is the car they had.

And so they got busted. We did not get busted. I'm confessing now. We were involved in a. This reminds me of another biblical story when Aiken tried to hide his ill-gotten gains under the tent and got burned for the president. So, Zach, this could be the perfect kind of case for Judge John. Jay's to then decide what the restitution. What would you say here?

If we were in your court of Judge Jase, what would you say in time? I would go back to the restitution. I would make you find the owner of the salty dog or his offspring and make it right. I would say, look, I am a new man. I now work. See, this is why sermons work, because this all is coming out of my sermon about me stealing batters. Well, and, you know, he went on in Ephesians 5 to say, don't get drunk on too much wine,

which is a debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. Exactly. And so it is the new self, and that goes back to John 3 when Jesus was saying, you got to be, you know, don't be shocked that I'm saying you got to be born of the spirit. Yeah. Because it is the spirit of God. It's the right thing to do, which is underestimated in the Bible. The good news is this.

They are still in business. I just Googled them. there's just going to be awesome I can't wait to hear the reply because you're going to say you know have a pocket tell them the whole phase eight I think what I would do

is since you are a new self I think I would send them the money and I would send them a little because we want we're imaging God here which is the number one thing about that is introducing Jesus and I think I would say

as a judge in the situation you need to give the reason for why you're doing this 22 years later. And that way you can pass the gospel message on. You just say, it's actually 29 years. I just look, I did it in 1996. 29 years later. You finally realize this is an opportunity to share Jesus.

So as a loving cousin of Jepp, are you going to pay for his shorts too? I can't pay for another man's sins. Only Jesus can do that. Only Jesus can do that. You're the judge. What is your verdict on this? Now I'm tapped into Zach's tight side.

Yeah. I'm going to make my part right. I will commit to making my part right. We're making, we're making progress in this podcast. One good. Judge Jace has spoken. All right. Let us know, Zach, how that turns out. Yeah. All right. So I've been waiting patiently to get to this reference because we did a lot of speculation about what Jesus might have been talking about to Nicodemus. But I know one thing he did talk about. And so I want to go back and reference. at. Well, I think we know what he was talking about. We were just trying to get the specifics. But I don't know, Jay, if you noticed when you went back to, when you went back to numbers, there's a couple of interesting things that happens before that. Now, we wouldn't recognize it, but I think Nicodemus would.

And so let me just read the text. Well, catch up everyone who may not have listened to the last podcast. Give us a context to it. We introduced the idea where in John 3, when he gets down to, I think I should just read it, verse 10 through 15. Yep, yep, yep. Because Nicodemus in verse 9 is like, well, how can this be? And the whole idea of being born again, born from above.

The born from above, the Holy Spirit's like the wind. And he, verse 10, he says, you're Israel's teacher, said Jesus, and you don't understand these things. I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we've seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony, which is a reference to John 1 when John said he came to that which is on and they didn't recognize Him. They didn't recognize Jesus as the Son of God. And remember the underlying point is this testimony has come from heaven itself.

I mean, that's why it's new. And look, I'll just give you a heads up. From here to the end of this section on Jesus, Jesus has read letters. He really starts highlighting on testifying and testimony. And remember, we did that in the introduction. He's making a case to humanity. I'm the son of God. And here's some claims. Verse 12, he says, I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? To your point about, Zach, that you've been

highlighted about the temple where heaven and earth would meet, he's seems to be getting back to that thread here. So he's bringing things in heaven and earth together. Then he says, no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the son of man. We'll talk about that verse later because that's hard to wrap your head around. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the son of man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

And I want to say one thing for you start out. I think here again, he's going back to something in Israel's history while moving forward to something that he's going to accomplish. Right. So, and remember, he's having a conversation with a guy who would fully understand the context of this incident, this broad state. Which is numbers 21. I mean, to us, it's kind of an obscure story in the Old Testament, but Jesus highlighted it here.

So I want to show you something before we read this because something you may not have noticed. In numbers 19, and then again in numbers 20, guess what happens here in the middle of the desert, we have this huge conversation about water. And we're in the middle of the desert. there's there's there's you know i mean it's hard to find water especially because they're out now we've already crossed the red sea now we're out in the desert we're heading towards the promised land first thing that comes up is this idea of the water of cleansing

and this was this idea about somehow having a way to have purity of uncleanness now we know that it literally didn't take it off there had to be something symbolic about the idea of these cleansing waters i like where you're going with this because this is my whole argument out and you're making it me again. I know it. Yeah. And so he talks about that. And then he gets to verse 20, I mean, a chapter 20 of numbers, and there's an incident there. Water in the rock. Water comes out of the rock. Who was that? Had to be Jesus. It was Jesus. First, first Corinthians 10 is your cross reference. So, so those two incidents happen before the snake is. And Nicodemus understood that.

Because he had studied that his whole lot, but he didn't make the link to who Jesus was. That's where the confusions. Which is Jesus's whole point. Right. Here. Who is Jesus, which is a question that every human at some point will consider, and whatever your conclusion is, is the most important conclusion that you'll ever make. That's right. Who is he? Which is why I love the book of John. He's making his case. Right. So I call this section, when I used to preach out of numbers, This was called Snakes on the plane, P-L-A-I-N. Al, that is so cheesy. It's actually brilliant.

That's what I used to call. I had a server called Snakes on the plane, and this was it. This is the cheesy side of what we have to offer, but I like it because you won't forget it. You won't forget it. Snakes on the floor. So they traveled from Mount Hore. This is Numbers 21-4, along the route to the Red Sea,

to go around Edom. So we're out here. We're wandering now. but the people grew impatient on the way. So remember, now we've had the water of cleansing. He literally had water come out of a rock that wasn't like it was already flowing, like he wrapped the rock and then God provides. And this is after the water being parted so you could be liberated.

So you'd think they'd be like, okay, God's going to take care of us. Nope. They spoke against God and against Moses. And they said, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There's no bread, there's no water, although we've already had it. And we detest this miserable food. Which shows you, because I think a lot of people think, if I just had a miracle happened in my life, I'd follow.

Or if God would just tap me on the shoulder and say, hey, get it right. Well, then I would do it. What's the problem here? Yeah. It's because temporary inconvenience and uncomfortability rules out with human beings. Yeah. We love to live in the moment and be comfortable. So even though you've had delicious God-baked bread falling out of heaven for you to pick up and eat.

And how about the quail? And the quail. I mean, what are we doing? So because of this, the Lord sends venomous snakes among them. They bit the people and many Israelites died. So we got a little plague that happens now to Israel in the form of snakes, which, let's face it. We don't like snakes, especially poisonous snakes, to, you know, I still don't like them.

Exactly. You know? They serve a purpose on the planet, but they're scary because if they bite you and you don't have time to get somebody. And Jason and I both have been sitting in a duck blind. It typically happens early in the year. And you hunt all morning in your bags there and all this and you go to get out of the blind,

you look back and right under where you were sitting is a big coiled up cotton mouth. It's happened many times. Many times. And you're like, I was reaching all around there all morning. You can go back through the archives of the last thousand podcasts, and we've shared many near deaths about snakes. Denimus snakes. And a lot, some were funny, some were not so much.

But, I mean, just the most funny remembrance I have of any snake encounter was one day we cleaned out of blind. It was like half a day's work. And my dad was kind of perched on his side of the blind, saying, well, we did it. And nobody got snake bit. He had just said that. We had killed a couple snakes. We had killed the wasp. We killed the spiders.

Everything trying to hurt you. Everything was cleaned up. And I looked beside his head because there's a button will of bush. And there was a cotton mouth called up, I'd say six inches from his ear. And he's declaring the blind is clean. And I said, Phil, there is a snake right beside your ear. And he was like, yeah, good one. I was like, Phil, I'm serious.

He's like, yeah, tell me another one. Ha, ha. He was. And finally, we all said, Phil, don't move. And it's like weird. When you say don't move in an environment, that's the first. thing you do. Bill looked at that and it was like,

I can't believe there's a snake. Out of the way, I came up, boom, shot the snake, and he's like, you have got to be kidding me. It just shows you, boys, never get overconfident.

Pride is the fall of man. He gave you a verse on it, too. He started preaching a sermon because now he was, you know, when you have a near-death experience, which that was. Oh, yeah. All he had to do was, and he just sat there, you know, thank you, Lord. And, yeah, that happened. Yeah, I told this story on the podcast before about the one, I was in the blind when the one was laying on the log.

And it was the wintertime. It was the only thing it saved you because he tried to bite you, but he was a little slow, probably lethargic maybe, but that white coming right at your face. and I'm in the blind and I hear, yee. Yeah. And then it lies, 1001, 1002, boom.

And then it was like, what just happened? He said, I almost got snake bit. But he was like high level. Oh, I know. I mean,

we've had multiple, I mean, I'll tell you one more quick one, and this has nothing to do with this snake. I don't think I've ever told this before because this is low brow. But it's a true story. So Maddie's going low brow on me over there.

So look, me and Jay Stone are riding on our property, and we rounded a bend, and we both instantaneously said, good grief, look at the size of that Congo, and I'm scrambling for a gun. It was in the middle of the road. Head cocked up, and we both did jump out like military-trained people, and I never went to the military, but Jay had. we came at it from two separate angles and it was just sitting there because I thought

this was a declaration of war because usually we've killed so many snakes on our roads they stay away from where we travel and I thought and this one's got his head straight up straight toward the four wheeler and we got closer and closer

and I'm like there was there was some debris to the side of it that was white and I thought what is this thing snooping around in the trash. And when we got about eight feet, safety's off.

Fixing to fire, we realized that this is not a snake. Someone had an emergency bowel movement. And it looked identical to a coden mouth, including a discoloration of the popped up head. Oh, man. Gosh.

Oh, Lord. mercy. Forget us. Forget us, Lord. We started laughing so hard because the white debris was actually toilet paper. So we get back home and we're telling

Phil's like, you're not going to believe this. We stalked a pile of poop that looked like a cotton mouth. And Phil said, boys, I had eaten some Mexican food. We have to take a break. You can't write this. We've lost control.

True story. And now Phil is confessing. He said, boys, I got to apologize. He said, in my angst, I couldn't even get away from the road. And look, here's the most incredible part of that story. That evidence of a bad Mexican food. stayed there in that road for three months untouched, repelling the rain. And I thought, man, what a...

You got to stop, ma'am. Ooh. Oh, gosh. I'm really good. I mean, I don't know how we get back into the Bible at this point. I mean, I feel like whatever you've done has ruined. We had a studio audience. We've lost them.

They're just, yeah. They're from Kentucky. So that was a true story, but, I mean, it just shows you what happens in the wilderness. When you're terrified of snakes. I mean, that was not an embellished story, Al. It happened. That was a true story. I've actually seen a picture of it because Jay took a picture of that.

Oh, boy, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah, there was a picture. I don't know that we want to shout. Maddie said no show. Yeah. Wow. I'd kind of like to see that picture. But I don't know how.

Let me tell an intermediate story to help us recover. Okay. Because we, to get to the Bible. But I mean, look, life happens. It's just, so snakes came in. It's a bit, it's a big, but the point is, is that snakes are a big part of our lives. My mom got bit by snake when she was the little girl. She was eight years old.

I think. Well, when I say that, we're acting like we're talking about low-brow thing, God created us to do that. We have bowel movements. Deal with it. I just want to throw that in, you know, I mean, it's like, oh, we can't talk about that. I probably won't use that if I ever preach this text, but I think the story, I didn't know the story. So you shocked me.

I did not see that coming. I thought we had told that story before. I don't know the we ever have, but if it did, wasn't as funny. It's been told around a many account by our sentence. it happened and we always laugh about it but uh i mean because it's just funny you know but that's a true story yeah yeah but jan got bit she was running through the front yard luckily for her she was only eight years old only one fang got her was the way granny always told me this story but she got super sick and you know could have died i mean small well i mean back to this it does see when you first

read this it's like well god's being mean here because he sent, I mean, it seems like a lot of people read this and it makes them uncomfortable. They're like, well, God is a God of love and all of a sudden he sent poison and snakes. He's rescued these people. He's blessed these people and they've turned their backs on him. And so, look. So let me get back to the point. So the people came to Moses.

So to your point, Jay's. They said, we sin. We spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us. So they've realized in the moment that their grumbling and complaining has led to this moment. So Moses prayed for the people.

Now, it's interesting because God could have just taking the snakes away. I mean, he allowed them to come in. I don't know what they were probably. And I wanted to say this. He allowed them to come in, but look, you still, the real wilderness people out there? Probably, I mean, I do well with snakes

just because I've been around them my whole lot. He still gave you a chance to work this. this out. You want to battle some snakes? There you go. There you go. You deal with it. So the Lord said to Moses, here's what you decided to do. And this is where I think the point that even way

back then, obviously because Jesus brings it up, there was this idea that you had to have faith and believe in who God is. Because think about the context of this moment, they didn't believe he would take care of them. Yeah. That's what they keep going back to. That is the point. Are you

going to trust what God says? Exactly. And that That's what leads up. I don't know if you've read verse 8 yet. No, I was about to. So it says, make a snake and put it on a pole, and anyone who's bitten can look on it and live. Now, that's an odd way to choose to do it,

but that's what God told him to do. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it on a pole, and then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. Yeah. So he came up with this kind of, from our perspective, inane, crazy process, but Jesus compared it to the lifting up of the snake to look up at it as him being lifted off the earth on a cross.

And I want to interject this. Now look, I know this is not a rabbit hole. This is just Jewish literature. If you go back and look at Israelite behavior in their view of snakes, which it's not like mine. But they, and I think it came from Egypt and they viewed snakes as healing slash newbie. beginnings because of the snake. You know, have you ever seen a snake's skin? They skin, yeah.

Yeah, it's like they become new. And so that process enamored that world. And it's like you can reinvent yourself, like a healing process and like take off your skin. So they tend to, they called it. I forgot what the term is. They called it. but they used snakes in the form of it as a way to worship, like, the God of healing and regeneration, you know, with the new snake skin. So that's how the medical world, because it does seem weird, because I actually found one treasure hunting one time from, like, 1950.

It was a little medical symbol with the two snakes. Well, there's two different ones. I gave it to the owner or I would actually show it to you, but it was spectacular. I mean, it was like a piece of jewelry worth a lot of money, but it was the symbol of healing with the snakes wrapped around the boat. It's called the rod of Asclepius is the Greek one. And then there was one called the Caduceus, and one of them is a single snake,

and one of them has the two snakes. But to this day, they're still used as a symbol. But that's where it comes from with the shedding of the skin. And probably this story as well, I mean, because the story's been around a long time. The idea that if you look at it, there's healing. So the concept is there. But I think the point is this story in numbers was a reminder for the Jewish people that all things, all true cleansing comes from the Almighty God.

The water of life comes from the Almighty God. And so Jesus is using those old stories and illustrations from the desert, as Jay's mentioned, the Red Sea Crossing, all of it, as the idea that everything has been pointing out to this time. that I am the water, the spirit is the wind, the healing comes from me. I mean, you see all this stuff kind of coming into view, and he's trying to explain this to Nicodemus. He's like, you should know this from all these stories. Exactly. But to Deacis's credit, I mean, how many of us would understand as well, they had it in their

mind. There's also this idea, if you think, go back to that number 21 passage, what's weird about it is that what was the thing that caused them to be sick? It was the bite of the serpent. And then the thing that was healing them was the broad serpent. I'm laughing because while ago, a story caused you to be sick. I mean, you literally gag. That was our first gag reflex.

I mean, you might get a great point, but I just get to help to think that. You're like, what caused them to be sick? I'm like, well, sometimes you just hear the story about it. And it makes you know. Sometimes you hear, yeah, you hear a very, what do you call a lowbrow, a lowbrow story. But it is interesting. I think it's an emblematic or representative of Genesis, right? That the serpent was the one who made them sick, so to speak.

And so when there's that imagery in the Old Testament and Genesis, which some people consider that to be the first gospel, where Jesus will crush the head of Satan. And so what you're getting a picture here of the full scheme of redemption, that Christ is to look up at Christ. And that's the irony of that, that bronze serpent is actually, what they're saying is this is God's defeat of the serpent. And so you're seeing it played out with Jesus, who his heel will crush the head of Satan and his heel will be bruised as the prophecy in Genesis chapter 3. That's being accomplished here.

That's the story. You're looking up to the son of man who now is that bronze statue of the serpent who will defeat the. serpent and the sting of sin, which is death in the end. I do want to give you one little Paul Harvey the rest of the story, because this bronze snake winds up making the trip into the promised land, and it winds up being in the Ark of the covenant with a lot of other things from the trip, because God wanted them to remember what he did. Yeah, this is fascinating. So we get in Second King's 18, and guess what happens?

in this time of idolatry, the people start worshipping the bronze snake. Exactly. And so Hezekiah, who was the king at the time, said, cut that thing into pieces and spread it out all over Israel where we won't worship the bronze snake. So it just shows you the idea that even the symbols, people tend to want to worship them. It's so tempting to say, well, there's America. I'm kidding, but I'm saying even us, you forget. that it was God who saved them.

It's not like the building where we go. You know, it's because people in our religious culture, they somehow attach what happens in the church building, like the bronze snake. You know, it's like, oh, and they forget. Well, they'll even use the terminology from the old temple. Like we got the sanctuary, we have the altar, we have the, you know, we bring forward all the things.

You try to go into it. an old church has been sitting there a while and or they or they're stuck in their like they're stuck in their way and you take and you try to move a tapestry or you try to move a pew or you move a pew. I mean, it's like

whoa. I mean it, but it's because we hang on to that structure because we want to be able to control it. But it is kind of the same exact thing. Like nothing wrong with the church building. I meet I meet one every Sunday. But when the thing becomes even I mean, the gospel itself, like you can

turn the gospel. We've talked about this of the podcast into a formula. It's the Christ of the gospel over the gospel of Christ. It's the, it's the God of the Word over the Word of God. It's always God. He's central to the whole thing, but we take the things of him, and then we see power in that. We misappropriate the power, and then we start to worship the thing that's bringing it instead of the one who's sent it. You know what? It leads to a person, and that was the point about baptism. That was the point. point about the spirit i mean he's wanting god we're going back to the beginning god wants to dwell with people and you know my closing line of my at the event was like look god god wants a family

and this whole thing's about getting getting his family back to him yeah i mean at the end of the day you got to kind of look at the big picture here and that's why jesus came here right i mean which is why he go for the rest of this text and his last, like, closing argument to Nicodemus is basically, I think, a recreation of how John started this book in John 1, 1, 1 through 18. Yeah. He goes right back through that because he uses all the same terminology. He begins at creation.

He goes into life and light. That's where he's going to go in those same ways. But just look at the picture today. I mean, when you try to live your life without God or giving thanks to him, I mean, think Romans 1, you know, or acknowledging God. It's the equivalent of going out there and battling poisonous snakes, you know. And you can't do anything about time.

And, you know, you make all these analogies. I mean, you can try to do everything right. You know, Missy said the other day she was listening to a podcast. So it was a political, well, I don't, I guess she's a political, Megan Kelly. And she had a guest on who, rich guy, not a believer, I don't think. but he lived by a mantra of staying alive.

I mean, he went, what was that movie, John Travolta, staying alive? And he basically spends $2 million a year on his health care. And he like- I've seen this guy at life story. Yeah, he had the numbers of the rate of life as it is to time, like on your, how long you live. And his had it graphs and all. and he's aging less than all other humans.

Because he's got this regimen. Brian Johnson, they call him the billionaire biohacker. Yeah, and Missy just goes through this long story about all this. And we laughed about like we did a while ago. Of course, this is not going to be as funny because you would have had to build up. She's talking about all these things. Because Missy's not as low brows. All these facts.

And I just said after she talked for 15 minutes on what this was about, because she was just like, can you believe this guy? And I said, well, what happens if he gets hit by a bus? And she just busted out laughing, you know, because it was like she was missing the forest from the trees, you know, it's like he's done all this stuff. And yeah, it'll probably get hit by a bus one day. Yeah. You know, there's no, this is not, this is your plan.

You're going on well-known talks. shows and podcasts and everybody's enamored that you've somehow stopped the age of life by 0.3 percentage points, you know. But they call it, they call it deceptively. They call it anti-aging, but I'm like, but you're not anti-aging. You may have slowed the decline, but to be anti-aging is actually to say, we are going to overturn the second law of thermodynamics, which is. Yeah, that's my point.

You can't, I mean, yeah, but to your point, I mean, even if you could, you still got, what if you get hit by bus? Which is probably going to happen. Would you say just the people who are in great shape are going to die healthy? They're going to die healthy. And everybody always thinks, should I laugh at that? Because they have put all their emotional stability on the fact that they're in shape. They're eating right and they're working out.

They're like, I'm good. I'm like, you're really not. You will just die healthy by a bus. Which is great. Which is great. Quality of life matters. I think these are great discussions I have. But when you start talking about anti-aging or reversing aging out,

because I was talking to someone the other day, they said they were doing it into reverse aging. I said, but you actually reverse aging? Well, no, no, we don't actually reverse it, but we can slow down. I said, okay, why don't we just start there? But that doesn't sound good, probably for marketing. But it is, I mean, it is kind of the thing that everybody is up against.

And I think that in John 3, it's interesting that I think this is kind of what we all try to do, which is essentially we want to take the thing, whatever it is, aging or whatever. And I want to make sure I can build my container around it so that I can hold it and manage it and control it, which was, I think, the problem that Nicodemus had coming into even the discussion, because he, when he comes into this whole discussion where Jesus unfolds this dialogue, his whole point was, all he said was, I just see you're a man from God. God's with you, because there's no way you could do the things you're doing. Jesus is the one that turns the discussion to the kingdom.

He's the one that says, well, yeah, you can't be. He planted, yeah, he planted that seed of the kingdom. And then I think this is the transitional verse for when he says that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life, keyword everyone because then he doubles down on it. Now he was talking about Israel's history. He used the snake on the pole. I believe he referenced the

Red Sea and the wind. Then he's like, I mean, you need like some kind of drum and crescendo because he's like, everyone he believes in him may have eternal life for God so loved the world that he gave

his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish. but have eternal life, which that perish to go with that story now, it kind of has some legs there too. You know, I mean, they started perishing by snake bites, and now here's Jesus for everyone. That's why I love the idea of being lifted up. And I go with the 2nd Corinthians 521.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. So that ladder we talked about in John 151 between heaven and earth, is Jesus lifted up for all of mankind to be able to trust in and have salvation, which is his point. And don't you think that in verse 13, when he dropped that in, when he said no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the son of man, that that was another prediction on what was going to happen? Because not only did he come here to die on a cross, he came here to die on a cross, be resurrected, go to the right hand of God, think the book of Hebrews.

Yep. And then open up the portal to God's presence for all humans. That's right. Him with a new glorified human body representing the humans that, I mean, that is incredible. It's reestablished glory, which we've talked about a lot. So we'll finish up this part in 316. Then we'll get into some of the back and forth that we kind of teased with John, the Baptist, and Jesus' disciples.

Next time, I'm not ashamed. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.